It was difficult to tell day and night. There was an approximate clock in the changing of the shifts for the orderlies, but with sleep unpredictable as well, when one awoke, and heard the same guard one heard when one fell asleep, one was left to wonder if the rest was short or very, very long. There was a temptation to simply ignore it honestly - in the grand scheme, it wasn't simply that time was hard to track, it was that it simply didn't matter. But, for Minnie, there was Qalaya, Qalaya and her book. It had to be dated. Truth required time, if possible. She did her best to keep track, and asked the guards when she could.
And what was more, it was the normalcy of it that comforted her. Time passing, in regular, meaningful, orderly rows of numbers. There was still a real world, this way. She was still in Zeltiva, she was still in the world. Somewhere, though she could not see it, there was a sky.
It was dim today - that meant nothing, really, but after a time, one began to notice the slightest changes. It was dark in the cells, here, always, but the texture of the dark seemed to change at times, sometimes as thick and impenetrable as bladderwrack, sometimes a pale almost-light slithering down from the steps she had taken... it was not so long ago! But it seemed so long. This was why time mattered.
It was also quiet.
The quiet, at home had been rare, powerful, priceless. But here, quiet was maddening. With no sight, and no sound, the mind began to whirl, began to wonder if it even existed. Her balance had gone sour here, and when she tried to pace her cell, sometimes she would find herself tipping over, involuntarily. The orderlies said this was normal, and laughed at her when they brought lights.
But the quiet was too still. She pulled her knees up to her chest, her sweaty thighs pressing against her breast, her arms wrapped around all. Still, too still, too still. The silence gnawed at her, it gnawed and gnawed. She had tried talking, before, in moments like this, talking to herself, or pretending there was someone else. This discomfited her, made her feel she really WAS mad. So she sang, softly, very softly, an old song from an opera long ago, one that had played, and flopped in her youth. Light opera, "The Mountain Maiden", something about a milk-maiden in the mountains, in love with a woodsman who was a prince in disguise... and something about a bear. It was hard to remember now. But in the odd way of certain songs, it had lodged in her brain, though she heard it only the once.
"Oh, my darling, my one true love -
I will wait here for you.
I will touch no hand by the paw of my herding dog,
I will wait here for you.
I will wash my fingers in my own milk pail,
To keep them soft and slender and pail,
I will wait here for you, my lover,
I will wait here for you..."
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