Onboard the Free Joker... [For Joe]

[curryjolokia]

For one and a half Galactic Standard months following Basco's visit to his bedroom, Joe was confined exclusively to his quarters.  Food was provided him once daily, though occasionally the meal would arrive late or not at all.  Sometimes the following day would bring two meals, or one extra-large one; sometimes, not.  He was not allowed even into the hallway to reach the lavatory; Sally had simply tossed a bucket at his head after bandaging him up from Basco's abuse, and the rest had been left to him to figure out for himself.

Sally was his jailer and only contact; for six weeks, Joe was kept in complete isolation, save for the interludes, every few days, in which Sally ventured into his room to remove the chamberpot-bucket and place a new one in.  Leaving the room for exercise was out of the question, and any attempt to communicate with Sally went exactly nowhere, slowly, accompanied by banana peels.

Six weeks after Basco nearly killed him on his bed, on an otherwise unexemplary day, things changed.  Joe woke to the sound of his door's deadbolt sliding back.  But the door didn't swing open, and after a few moments of silence, a sour smell began to emanate from the hallway outside.  A slight shift in the light under the door, around the edges of the locking flap through which his meals had been provided, drew Joe's attention.  The light was obstructed somewhat; something lay on the floor outside the room.  And the something was bleeding - a dark puddle was slowly increasing in dimension, creeping into the room through the scant space under its door.

Comments

[gibken]

Joe lost track of the time passing some time after the third week of the sudden shift in his imprisonment. No room, no freedom, no intelligent discussion, no discussion of any time.

He'd known, when Basco had left in his rage, that he'd crossed some nebulous line. He wasn't sure which part of his half-conscious monologuing had set Basco off, and there was certainly no way to find out. Not that he could speak monkey anyway, but Sally seemed about as angry and disinterested in him as Basco obviously was.

Food came, but made no real impact on Joe. He tried to keep track of the days on the wall as he had before, but it was no use with no way to tell when one day passed into the next, when sometimes his meals were forgotten or suddenly supplemented.

It was degrading, somewhat, having to use a simple uncovered bucket as a makeshift lavatory. He had no way to clean himself, no way to do anything but pace circles around his cramped quarters and, he's quite sure, go slowly insane.

The day the door unlocked and then didn't promptly open to reveal Sally with a fresh bucket might have gone by as any of the others, but after a moment of odd silence and an odder smell, Joe finally forced himself to crawl off his bed (the wounds on his leg hadn't healed as well as they might have had he had a chance to clean and care for them himself) and limp to the door.

He hesitated for a long moment before he finally got up the courage, such as it was, to grasp the handle and throw the door open.

He hadn't a clue what he might find on the other side, but he was worried, deep in his gut he was worried that something might have gone terribly wrong.