Duck in a Bottle

I felt the anger rising again, walked to the door and pressed my face against the window grill. None of the guards were in sight so I would have to shout. That could mean a baton in the ribs. Tun sat on the floor of the cell with legs crossed and hands on knees, closed his eyes, breathed in and began to chant quietly.
“Buddham saranam gacchami. Dhanam saranam gacchami. Sangham saranam gacchami.”
He carried on. I shouted through the grill for a guard. I heard footsteps on the balcony. One of the guards appeared, a hard face with narrow eyes. I had no idea if he could speak any English. My nose touched the grill.
“When do I get to see the consul?”
He stared at me.
“I’m innocent. I was fitted up. When do I get to see the fucking consul?”
He stared for a moment longer, moved back a step and hit the grill with his baton. I jerked backwards.
“You here,” the guard said. “So you guilty. Court say.”
His expression told me to be scared. I spoke more quietly.
“Not guilty.”
“Guilty.”
He smacked the grill again. We stared at each other for a few seconds before he walked away. I heard mocking voices in neighbouring cells.
“Not guilty!”
“Innocent! Boo hoo!”
My heart sank for the umpteenth time. I turned towards the bed and realised that Tun had stopped his chanting. He looked at me sympathetically.
“You’ll get to see the consul, but they’ll take their time,” he said. “They like to keep up the pretence of a legal process, but let everyone know that they’re the masters.”
“Does it make a difference that I’m British?”
“Only if there are diplomatic reasons to provide some leeway, if the governments are talking about trade, or there’s pressure from the UN. But even then, you’re not in here for anything to do with democracy or human rights.”
I sat on my bed, sinking again into anger and self-pity. I realised that Tun was examining me.
“Anger’s no good, especially in here,” he said. “You have to overcome it.”
I slumped back on the bed. After a while Tun went back to his chanting. I felt the urge to tell him to shut up, but didn’t want to offend him. He spoke English, he seemed to be on my side, and it was near enough all I had. He had listened more than once to my story of doing a favour for the nightclub manager, agreeing to drop off a sports bag with a pile of badminton kit to the friend who lived near the apartment where I stayed. When I arrived the police were there, ready to search the bag. I knew the manager made nose candy available in the back rooms of the club, but I didn’t know the bag had a false bottom with a hundred grams of the stuff hidden underneath. Telling the police where it all came from made no difference; I learned in the city jail that they were taking the manager’s sweeteners and would have known already. Now I was in this pit for the next seven years. I turned my face to the wall and felt miserable again.

Weeks later I got to see the consul. He was a tall, thin guy pushing sixty in a cream linen suit and open necked shirt. It felt wrong when he entered the room and shook hands with the chief guard. I told him my story. He took notes, asked a couple of questions, and gave me a sorry look.
“I can request a review of the evidence,” he said.
“Will they do it?”
“I should think so; they like to stay on good terms with our government. But it takes time, I’m talking about months, and don’t raise your hopes.”
“But I’m innocent.”
“It’s the balance of their evidence that matters.”
“But I’ve given them evidence.”
“I said their evidence.”
I felt the sinking again. We stared at each other for a few seconds before he spoke quietly.
“When you came here, did you know how things work in this country?”
I nodded. I had read about the military government and the corruption, but thought it would have nothing to do with me. The consul looked at me with sympathy and exasperation.
“I will do what I can.”
He put the notebook in his briefcase, stood up and offered a hand. I managed a limp touch of the fingers. Then he was gone, and a guard was marching me back to my cell.
Tun was standing with his back to the door, looking up at the window. I sat on my bed and stared at the wall. After a minute Tun sat on his bed, placing himself to face me.
“It went badly,” he said.
“I don’t think the consul cares.”
“He probably does, but he has to temper that with being here, doing what can be done. I know how the authorities respond to claims that they got things wrong.”
Tun was so calm, complacent about what was going on, that I began to feel angry again. I growled at him.
“Why are you so fucking smug? You’re in this shithole for writing a couple of articles that pissed off the government. That’s nothing, no-one should be inside for that, but you sit here chanting and sliding into some inner peace as if it doesn’t matter. It’s not fucking human to feel like that!”
Tun didn’t answer. I went into my usual retreat, rolling over to face the wall of the cell, wallowing in my misery.
It was only later, after we had done our time in the exercise yard and eaten, that he gave me an explanation.
“Have you heard the story of the duck in the bottle?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Making a point about what you were saying earlier, about me not being human.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It doesn’t matter, but the duck in the bottle does.”
“Is this a joke?”
“Just listen until I’m finished. A duck gets stuck in a bottle, squeezes in but can’t squeeze out. Then it tries to break out, but neither its wings or beak are strong enough to break the glass. It becomes depressed. Two men find it, one is Buddhist, the other may be a Christian, or a Moslem or an atheist. The Christian asks how the duck got stuck in the bottle; he can see how it could have slid its head and neck inside, but not the rest of its body. The Buddhist says it doesn’t matter, that the duck is in the bottle, that’s the reality.”
“What’s this got to do with being in here?” I asked.
“It will become clear. The Buddhist and the Christian see the duck is unhappy and take pity on it, but once they touch the bottle they find the glass is too thick; they can’t break it without doing serious harm to the duck, most likely killing it. The Christian spends hours looking at the bottle, picking it up, running his fingers around its contours, trying to work out how to get the duck out without breaking the glass. In the end he gives up, and says they have to leave the duck in the bottle or kill it in breaking it out. The Buddhist says there is a better solution. Teach the duck to be happy in the bottle. The Christian says that’s absurd, that the duck can’t be happy in the bottle. The Buddhist says the Christian thinks that because he sees the bottle as the problem, but the bottle is a circumstance and can’t be changed. What we can change is the way that we feel. The problem is how the duck feels, so they should try to teach it to accept its circumstances and be happy in the bottle.”
I thought there was going to be more, but that was it. Tun smiled at me. I asked the obvious question.
“So how do you teach a duck to be happy in a bottle?”
“Maybe feed it, maybe make soothing noises, maybe rub the bottle. If one of them works you’ve solved the problem. You’ve made the duck happy in the bottle.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. It was mad but I knew it would be impossible to argue the point with Tun.
“Life sucks,” Tun said. “So we have to find ways to make it not suck.”
“Like your chanting?”
“It works for me. It works for millions of others.”
“So are you happy here, locked in this cell when you did nothing wrong?”
“Maybe not happy to be here, but I accept that I’m here, and I’m happy for the stand that I took. And I’m much happier than you.”
“So if you’re so happy, why do you go on winding up the government and getting yourself slung into here?”
“At some point they will let me out, and then I can begin to protest again. The bottle expands when I’m outside and I can do something about the injustice in this country, then it contracts when I’m here. I accept that. I’ll be happy with what I can do inside or outside of this prison.”
It sounded like nonsense, but he seemed content. He always seemed content. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

A few days later there was no word from the consul, and every time I asked one of the guards they replied with a grin or a growl. One evening I sat in the cell listening to Tun chanting, and began to envy the refuge that he found in the noise. He stopped and looked towards me.
“I’ll be happy to teach you how to start, if that’s what you want.”
I sat beside him crossed legged, feeling as uncomfortable as any westerner with nothing to support the back, and listened carefully as he slowly repeated the first line.
“Buddham saranam gacchami. Buddham saranam gacchami.”
I tried it. In an hour he had taught me the first three lines. I was going to Buddha as my refuge.
We did it every day from then, and within a week I admitted to Tun that I found some comfort in the act. It didn’t solve my problems, but focusing on something so simple gave me some space from the torment, a little peace. The anger wasn’t as frequent or intense, and I began to take a little pleasure in Tun’s company, and playing volleyball in the yard, and the scratchings of meat and vegetables in the rice they fed us twice a day. But I wasn’t completely free from the anger. I didn’t want to become a happy duck.

I was called to the warden’s office while Tun was cleaning latrines. I thought it might be the consul with good news, but I got there to find the warden, one of the senior guards and a man I hadn’t seen before. He wore small, thick rimmed glasses and a linen suit, with hair combed back over a thinning scalp. They told me to sit, and the man in a suit offered me a glass of lime juice. I took it, hoping the gesture signified something good, and enjoyed the sweet and sour taste on my tongue. When the stranger spoke it was with a thick local accent, but he was articulate.
“A few weeks ago you spoke with the British consul.”
I nodded, not sure if this was the beginning of a retaliation.
“He’s made his enquiries, but he can’t help you. It was a waste of time. The evidence against you was conclusive.”
It wasn’t a surprise but it hurt. The stranger gave me a moment, an impassive face waiting for a reaction. I held a grim stare, then took another sip of the lime juice. A faint smile appeared on the stranger’s face. He was impressed.
“The consul couldn’t help, but you can help yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must have been speaking to your cellmate. You know the nature of his crime.”
“He wrote something the government didn’t like.”
“It was far worse. He and his friends want to make our country a playground for a gang of anarchists, people who would tear it apart.”
I could have said something worse about the government, but had the sense to keep it to myself.
“What’s it got to do with me?”
“He knows a lot more than he’s told us.”
It didn’t need explaining.
“You want me to spy on him.”
“We’ve heard that you’ve joined in his rituals. It shows there must be some trust between you. He doesn’t deserve it. There wouldn’t be anything wrong if you used it to your own advantage.”
“What advantage?”
“If it’s the right information, if the result satisfies us, you could be home within a couple of days of passing it on.”
In seconds I felt elated at the prospect of escape, disgusted at what I had to do, and guilty about what it would mean for Tun. But I rationalised it; whatever I did Tun would be a happy duck. I replied.
“Tell me what you want to know.”
I didn’t rush things with Tun. I acted calm, and said nothing about crooked policemen or our useless consul or the vile state of his country. But I did speak about things I missed at home – cold days, football, pasties – and how I felt sick to know my family were despairing about me. He was always sympathetic, and spoke to me about the teachings of the Buddha and how they could help me cope with the injustice. We carried on chanting, and he taught me new words.
“Panatipata, veramani. Sikkhapadam, samadiyami.”
I promised not to kill any living thing.
“Adinnadana, veramani. Sikkhapam, samadiyami.”
I promised not to take things that weren’t given to me.
I told Tun about life in England, my family, school, spinning the decks in clubs, a couple of summers in Ibiza, and the daft idea that it would be fun to spend a few months in a country run by a military government. After a few days he began to talk about his family, childhood and education. He had listened to monks, and as he got older began to pay attention to the soldiers on the street and generals on the TV, and noticed that they took no notice of the teachings of the Buddha. Then he found friends who had also noticed, and they found others, and they agreed with each other that the generals and the businessmen were rotten and that the people had a right to say whether they should remain in control. He stopped, and I knew it was best not to push too hard.
It was a couple of days before I coaxed out something about his time at university, turning up at demonstrations, being threatened with expulsion, then behaving himself until he got his degree. He wrote for the student newspaper, then got a job on the city paper where he begun to write stories that asked awkward questions., until after a year he was sacked for “unprofessional behaviour”. So he set up a weekly paper with a couple of friends, and wrote stories about things the government and the army didn’t want anyone to write about. For a while they got away with selling it on street corners, in bars and outside temples, because the government wanted to pretend it respected freedom of speech. But every so often it would send soldiers to confiscate all the papers, raid the office and send a couple of journalists to prison for a few weeks. They would start again in another basement and find different places to sell the newspaper. It went on like that for three years.
After a few days I felt I could push my luck. I asked if he had ever done more than write stories that embarrassed the government. He peered at me, turning his lips into a faint smile. I made a joke of it.
“Sorry, I’m being nosey.”
“No.” His smile broadened a little. “It’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
He told me about a demonstration. He and some friends had been to an arms industry fair in the capital, with a pile of leaflets claiming that the government used weapons against peaceful protesters. They knew they wouldn’t get close to the ministers visiting from western countries, so had gone to the roof of a neighbouring block, spent an hour making paper aeroplanes from the leaflets then thrown them into the street as the limousines arrived. They had seen three of four of the foreigners pick up the leaflets before the police burst onto the roof and took them off for a beating. It had led to his first spell in jail, and the bruises had taken weeks to heal, but he laughed at the memory of it. One of his friends, a guy named Tarchin, had escaped by diving out of a second floor window into a neighbouring restaurant’s rubbish skip.
“He wasn’t hurt,” he said. “But we heard that he smelled of shrimp for a couple of days.”
The following day I gave a prearranged sign to the chief guard and was hauled out of the exercise yard into the cell they used for strip searches. I told him about the guy named Tarchin, he gave me a smack in the mouth to make the search look genuine, then threw me back into the yard.
A couple of days later I was pulled into the warden’s office. The man in the suit was there again. He invited me to sit down and gave me a glass of lime juice.
“That information you gave us was useful.”
There was a hint of cruelty in his voice. I felt a twinge of guilt about Tun’s friend, but it didn’t mean as much as the encouraging smile.
“A good start,” he said. “But we need more. We’re sure you can help us to prevent trouble before it happens.”
“What type of trouble?”
“You find out. Or at least tell us who is going to cause it.”
I gulped down the rest of the lime juice, knowing that I wasn’t meant to hang around for a friendly chat.
Over the next few days I kept up the chanting with Tun, learned a few more phrases and realised that I could sit cross legged for an hour or more. I told him about my time at college and a couple of girlfriends. He told me about his time as a student, the first time he got drunk, the girl who dumped him for a guy who became an army engineer. A tried a couple of times to steer it back to his politics and got nothing more than stuff about the newspaper. On the third time he gave the same look as when he had told me about the paper aeroplanes, an acknowledgement that we were on dubious ground. I felt anxious that he knew what I was doing. But then he began to tell me things.
“We have to take risks,” he said.
“What sort of risks?”
“We’re not violent, but our government is intolerant of embarrassment, or inconvenience.”
It came in snippets over five days, but I learned a few names, how they only met in twos and threes, except for when they needed a crowd to stage an incident, and some of the ideas they had before Tun was last arrested. There was a plan for a mass sitdown on the steps of the city hall when any government minister visited, and one to slide protest leaflets between the books at the central library. Another showed more imagination – letting a truck load of ducks loose on a football pitch the next time the national team played in the city. They hadn’t worked out how to do it, but it was enough to make me laugh. Then Tun gave me the real goodies.
Someone knew how to hack the city’s road control system and screw up the phasing of traffic lights on the day the trade minister was coming to town to open an exhibition. The group wasn’t planning anything heavy, but they knew the local police would wet themselves at the thought of an attack on the limousines. Even bigger than that was a plan to bugger the IT systems of the national stock exchange at the moment the government released new share offer on the national gas company. A sympathiser was in there working on the systems but would be out of the country on the day it all went down. I didn’t have a clue how they could make it happen, but I had enough to talk to the warden again.
I took the chance on the following day. Tun was in a group on the far side of the exercise yard playing the local version of checkers. I slipped off to the latrine, made a sign to one of the senior guides, and was quickly grabbed and led towards the warden’s office. The man in the suit wasn’t there, but the warden made notes and looked faintly pleased. He even offered me a second glass of lime juice.
When I got back to the cell I knotted up. It was the way that Tun looked up smiling from his meditation and said “Hullo friend”. Friend. I grunted and dipped my eyes. He asked if I had got into any of the volleyball games. I said I had watched it, which was true to an extent. I wasn’t in the mood for chanting, so I feigned a headache and listened as Tun quietly repeated phrases I hadn’t heard before.
The following day I was still in knots. I hoped for an early word from the warden that they had a result and I would get my reward, but felt sick that I was betraying Tun. Soon after lock up he asked if I was ready to join the chanting. I wasn’t, but reckoned I had to pretend that nothing was different. We sat cross legged, side by side on the floor of the cell, and he led me through a couple lines I had already learned.
“Panatipata, veramani, sikkhapadam, samadiyami.
“Adinnadana, veramani, sikkhapam, samadiyami.”
Then he encouraged me to take it further.
“Kamesu micchacara veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami.
I asked what it meant – a promise not to take part in sexual misconduct. I tried, struggled, and on the fourth or fifth attempt managed to get it almost right. I was going to attempt a repeat but Tun said we should try another line.
“Musavada veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami.”
Again I asked what it meant – a promise to abstain from false speech. Tun said it again slowly and urged me to follow word by word.
I tried and messed it up. I tried again and failed on the second word. I tried again and lost the thread on the second syllable. Tun repeated it gently with a patient smile. I tried again half a dozen times. He told me to close my eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths.
“Fuck it!”
I stood up and kicked the side of my bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not working. It’s nonsense.”
“You had been doing well.”
“Doing well at what? Making myself a happy duck? Well as long as I’m in here I don’t want to be happy. Forget the fucking chanting!”
If Tun had smiled again I would probably have punched him, but he had already become an expert at handling my moods. Instead he looked sorry and set his eyes on the far wall. He waited a few minutes while I steamed on the bed, then asked if I would mind if he went back to his chants. He promised to do it quietly. I said it was okay and felt sick with myself.

Nothing happened for a week, then one morning as they let us out of our cells three of the guards grabbed and marched me quickly towards the block exit. I thought it was an act to convince the other prisoners I was in trouble, felt a little surge of elation that I was probably out of the cell for good, then guilt over what I had done to Tun. Then I put my mind on the outside of the prison gate, a drive to the airport, a seat on a plane taking me home. We went through to two gates into the main entrance of the prison blocks, but instead of going upstairs towards the warden’s office the guards pushed me sideways, down a stairwell into an airless passage lined with locked doors. I stalled and felt the sharp thud of a baton on my back. I groaned, then barked at the guards.
“What are you fucking .....!”
The baton hit me again. I heard an angry voice.
“You lying fuck!”
“Waddyamean?”
I was pushed over an outstretched foot, dragged into one of the cells and thrown forward.
“Lying fuck!”
“Waddyafuckingmean?”
A baton hit my hip. I curled up with my hands over my head. I was kicked a couple of times, then nothing happened for a minute. I didn’t try to look up, but I heard a couple of garbled voices from the other cells, then another set of footsteps in the corridor. They entered the cell and stopped at my feet. I waited. A filthy smell crept into my nose. A familiar voice asked a question.
“Did you think you were being clever?”
I looked up and saw the man who had made the offer to me in the warden’s office. He wore the same suit and the same expression I had seen before, but his voice was tinged with anger.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He nodded at one of the guards. I took a baton blow to the ribs. I was still wincing when the man spoke again.
“Everything you told us was nonsense. Nobody can mess up the traffic light systems by themselves; there’s a manual override that can cancel out a computer hack in seconds. And that story about the stock exchange ... it’s run by consultants from Europe, all with high salaries and reputations to protect, and they work alongside people who are close to the senior generals, cousins and the sons of old friends.”
“But Tun said ...”
A baton hit me again.
“Maybe Tun cooked up the story together with you, but he would never have fantasised like that. He’s an intelligent man, he knows how such things work.”
“It’s what he said!”
“You’ve let us down.”
I was kicked in the back, then stomped on the hand. I was writhing and whimpering as the man in the suit left the room.
“You’ll have some time here to think about how to behave in future.”
He left the cell but I saw that the guards didn’t follow and knew what was coming. They kept hitting me until I was unconscious.

They let me out three weeks later. I was allowed to shower and put on fresh overalls before they led me back to the cell block. I was squinting and weak, with an ache in the stomach from the watery slop they dished out in solitary. They took me back to the same cell. I was surprised; surely they wouldn’t lock me in with Tun again. A guard opened the door and pushed me inside. It was empty. The door closed behind me, I sat down and stared at the bed opposite. It wasn’t a meal time or exercise period, so they had taken him somewhere. Maybe he was in a dark cell in solitary, suffering beatings and nursing wounds worse than mine. The bastard deserved it for lying to me, and I deserved it for betraying him. I lay on my side but kept staring at his bed.
Next morning I stepped onto the balcony to join the queue for breakfast and drew glances from every prisoner in sight. A few looked suspicious of me, as if they might have known what I had done, most just curious, a couple sympathetic. I was at the table, feeling that the bread was hard to digest, when one of the regular volleyball players, a guy I knew as Dan, sat next to me.
“You okay?”
“Not quite. Stomach’s struggling, but I’ll live.”
“I’ve been down there, know what it’s like. Don’t eat anything solid for a couple of days. Try to soften it in water or tea.”
It was the first friendly voice I had heard in weeks. For a minute or so I couldn’t speak, but had to sit still and concentrate on not crying. Dan seemed to know what I felt and stayed quiet until I dipped my bread in the water and ate a mouthful.
“What you do to get the treatment?” he asked.
So Tun had said nothing. I had my lie prepared.
“Looked at a guard the wrong way, then told him to fuck off.”
Dan smiled. I hoped that nobody in the warden’s office was going to spread the truth about me. Then I asked if he knew what had happened to Tun.
“Released.”
A weight dropped inside me. I was still, wordless. The food in my hand meant nothing. Dan took a mouthful of his bread and gave me a moment before speaking again.
“Included in an amnesty. The government’s trying to get sweet with the west so it made one of its kissy gestures, let some of the political prisoners go. It happened last week but everyone knew it was coming for a few days. Tun had two days to say goodbye.”
“How long did he know?”
“Not sure. Probably before the rest of us. They keep up with what’s happening. One of them gets a visit and they all know of anything in a day.”
“You think a week before? Or two weeks?”
“Don’t know. He looked happy when he went.”
Dan waited for me to answer, then said something that I didn’t take in. I spoke the only word that came to mind.
“Shit!”
Tun had guessed I was passing on what he told me to the man in the suit, so he fed me a pack of lies. Maybe he knew was due to get out, maybe he didn’t, but he had pushed me even deeper into the shit. Now I was going to spend years wallowing in it.
After breakfast I went into the yard, walked to the fence, sat by myself and stared into space.

I was still numb two weeks later when the cell door opened an hour after lock-up. I hadn’t expected to keep the cell to myself for long, and hoped that they didn’t dump a gangster or sex criminal into the other bed. A guard stepped inside and gave me a wicked grin.
“We got surprise.”
Tun appeared behind him in handcuffs. He paused at the door and looked at me with a weird expression of resignation. The guard behind gave him a push, and in a second they had him against the wall as they took off the cuffs. The first guard turned to me again.
“Your friend. See, we treat you okay.”
They left the cell laughing. Tun and I stared at each other. His expression didn’t change. I had the right to go beserk, beat him senseless. I stood up and balled my fists. He noticed them, but instead of backing away or hunching up he stood straight and dropped his hands to his side, as if he would accept the worst I could do. I was confused. I began to raise a fist but let it swing loose at my side. I couldn’t focus my anger. A faint smile appeared on Tun’s face. He spoke quietly.
“If you want to hit me, go ahead.”
Bastard! He knew that once he said that I couldn’t do it. I kept my fists balled but moved back a step.
“What are you doing here?”
“We let the ducks loose on the football pitch.”
“What?”
“I told you that was one of our plans. We didn’t get the chance to do it for the national team, but an army team was playing in the city. We let the ducks loose when a general was shaking hands with the two teams. They took offence. I’ve been convicted of a malicious attack on public order.”
“Because of a load of ducks?”
“I damaged the pride of a few senior officers. That’s enough for two years in here.”
“You’ve set yourself up for two years, just to piss off some uniforms.”
“There were a couple of thousand people in the ground. They laughed when the ducks swarmed over the general’s men. Such things can have a powerful effect.”
I turned away, went back to my bed and slumped facing the wall. My mind was in a bigger mess than ever. Tun left me alone for a while and concentrated on making himself comfortable. I kept my face to the wall when I spoke again.
“Did you know they were going to put you back in here?”
“Of course not. I think the warden must be amusing himself.”
“Because he knows .....”
I found it hard to say. Tun finished for me.
“Because he knows that I must have lied to you, and that you were ready to give me up.”
“You knew what I was doing.”
“Of course.”
I turned around and saw that he had allowed himself to smile again. It could have been another reason to give him a beating, but my anger had been tied in knots. I was just as guilty as him. Another question came to the front of my mind.
“Why did you pull that silly stunt with the ducks? You were out of here. You could have led a normal life.”
He gave himself a moment to consider. His smile broadened.
“Because this is my normal life. My conscious tells me to oppose the regime, and doing so keeps me content. I’m ready to accept the time I spend in here.”
“You mean you like it?”
“I don’t like it, but my state of mind is better to know that I’ve done what I think is right.”
“And was it right to stitch me up?”
“You were tortured.”
“Of course. I’m in here for something I didn’t do.”
“It was more than that. It was the drugs, mixing with bad people. You weren’t at ease with yourself. And it would have been worse if you had escaped here by betraying me. You were a long way from finding a sense of contentment.”
“And you think I’ll find it in here?”
“You have time in here, hours of quiet, opportunities to clear your mind.”
“Is this all that duck in a bottle shit?”
He didn’t answer.
“That’s it, isn’t it. You wanted me in here, a happy duck in this stinking bottle.”
He still didn’t answer.
I jumped up and hit him hard across the face, and again and again. He didn’t attempt to stop me, just slumped sideways and closed his eyes as my fists struck. I must have hit him half a dozen times, wanted to do more but couldn’t; there was something demeaning in hitting a man who wouldn’t defend himself. I let go and slumped to the floor, then pushed myself back to the wall. I was going to be in the cell with Tun for months, maybe years; I knew I couldn’t handle it if I hurt him any more.
I sat against the wall for a few minutes, then went back to my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I was aware that Tun was sitting up straight again, and didn’t know if I should apologise, yell at him or give him another beating. Nothing seemed right. It was only when he stood up that I glanced aside and saw there was a large bruise on his cheek. The guards would know where that came from.
Tun sat on the floor cross legged and began to chant. I recognised it.
“Buddham saranam gacchami. Buddham saranam gacchami.”
I lay on the bed and listened. Tun was going to Buddha as his refuge. I should have felt irritated but didn’t. After a few minutes, without giving it any thought, I sat beside him and joined in. “Buddham saranam gacchami. Buddham saranam gacchami.”
The mess in my head dissolved. I thought only of my breathing and the words I repeated. Maybe I would become a happy duck.

Mark Say