Marigold: A Short Story

After spending so much time cooped up in a cell with someone, their face and behaviour become normal to you but to any passing onlookers my cellmate is anything but normal. When I was first thrown into the cell, Marigold was the first thing I saw, it was kind of hard not to, she could be standing in a room full of diamonds and she would be the brightest thing there. This shine she possesses isn’t due to beauty but rather a peculiar mix of clashing features. She has a wrinkled forehead that always reminds me of a scrunched up paper bag once the sweets in it have all been eaten. Her whole face is made up of interlocking wrinkles and I’ve always wondered whether they came from laughter or continual grumpiness. This along with the sweet caring
The twinkle that shines in them shows a hint of the mischief that got her here in the first place.

I look up at her, shaken from my thoughts of our first meeting to find her repetitively kicking the moss covered cell wall, an action I’ve watched her do a million times, as if she believes that one day her kicks will break the wall, as if she believes that she will escape, as if she still has hope. Her kicks become more aggressive and her hair has flown from her tightly knotted ponytail and the flaming red ends are whipping and burning her back. Finally she gives up, slides down the wall and her tears extinguish her burning hair, a sign of weakness she does not usually show.

I have grown to admire her strength and confidence even when her outlandish insults yelled at guards mean we get given no food, it is after all these small jabs at authority and vicious glares paired with a sickly sweet smile that keep me from going mad with isolation. Despite the miserable situation she’s in somehow she’s able to keep her spirit, “they can change where I live and what I look like but they can’t change me” she reminds me every so often. In my honest opinion that statement is slightly flawed seeing as how “they” haven’t even succeeded in