Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 61

4 years ago

Two Worlds - Season 1 - Episode 61

Ivie braced her chin with both fists and gazed at the table. The police guard had promised Richard would arrive two o’clock. It was thirteen minutes past two, and no sign of him. Droplets did not form at her brow, unlike her previous visits that had her in the room without power, leaving her to dwell in the heat. The waiting room had much heat, so how much did the cells then have, how much did Richard’s cell have? She had formerly tasted cell and could make a guess, but hers was only for three days, nothing close to the two weeks Richard had spent. A week in a place like a cooking cell was not something good.

Footsteps thudded nearer. The door opened and Richard stepped in. No handcuff clasped his wrists and his trousers had the lines of new clothing. He sat on the other side of the table and took his palms across his face, wiping the gloom he had carried. With all the days in prison, traces of his perfume fragrance still clung to his skin.
She thought of a word to say, one that would depict what she had in mind. “I’m sorry for your stay here,” she said, that being all she could thinkof, even if it wouldn’t please him. With his condition, scarcely anything would be pleasing.

“You’re sorry? What are you sorry for?”
He said the expected words and they scathed her earholes. The guilt should not be stolen from her, or shared with her.
“How is your health?” he asked.
No words pleased someone who had seen the sands of jail. A good health answer would do him no good than the truth. She reached for her trouser pocket and brought out a pen, “I picked this from the officer’s table on my last visit. I’ll drop it back on my way out.”

He thumbed a bulged pimple at his brow. She tried not to look at the way it bulged out and the redness at its tip. “What about the antidepressants?” he asked.
“I don’t take them anymore. They do nothing.”

The pricking that occurred anytime she talked about her disorder did not raid her this time. They should talk about the disorder, as long as it kept him talking.

He sniffed and touched his nose with a handkerchief. “What about the therapist gave you?”

“I’ve read the book. I’m reading it for the second time. I read at least a page every day before I go to bed.”
“Does it help?”

“It’s better than the antidepressants.”
“The doctors who wrote it did a good job.”
They did a very bad job. Reading about others experience only made her feel she wasn’t alone. “How are you doing, Rick?”
“I’m not good. Jail’s not good. I hate it, but I don’t regret what brought me in.”
She shut her eyes, and opened them to see a clear him. “What if you don’t get out?”
“I will. It might take long, but I will. How’s your friend, the victim?”

“I haven’t seen him for long. The doctors don’t allow anyone to have contact with him.”

“That’s expected.” He sniffed. “Who is he to you?”

She thought of any reply, and scrutinized his face for what could suit. Nothing could. Whatever she said, his face would still remain thin and drooped. “He is a friend.”
He ran a hand over the table’s edge. “I never knew you had male friends.”
Other words hid between those, words that better remained hidden. “I knew him from the gallery. Several times, he had come to buy paintings. We knew each other better and became friends.”

“You trust him?”
“Sorry?”
“You trust this friend of yours?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Do you believe that sometimes trust fails?”
“Everything fails.”
“You were at the preliminary hearing. You must have heard when the prosecutor said the victim consented to the claim that I shot him.”

“If he consented, then the interrogators might have had a way to make him do. Those people can make someone say anything. Bakare is a sick man who doesn’t know what he’s saying. When recovered, he will dispute the claim of you shooting him.”
Richard shook his head. “I once told you what transpired at the scene. I told you I saw this friend of yours with a gun. I wasn’t lying or joking when I said it.”

She inhaled some of the hot air and allowed it burn the lines of her nostrils. “There were two men there, Rick. You could be mistaking.”

“I know what I saw. Don’t put too much trust in him. That’s all I wish you do.”
She took her gaze to the table. A gun did not fit into Bakare’s hands. An image like that could not form in her head. Those same hands that had caressed all of her paintings couldn’t caress a gun “How then did he end up the victim?”

“He was framed, and that is the only explanation. Those who framed him aren’t saints, and neither is he. What job does he do?”

“He runs a computer store.”