Lost in Confinement

Lost in Confinement



Tabatha rocks back and forth in that old, worn rocking chair everyday. The dark stained floor boards creak eerily with each movement. She never speaks, just rocks back and forth, back and forth, clutching onto Teddy. He is her best friend and always there for her. He has tattered, brown fur, of which some is missing, two small beady eyes and a button nose. He wears the memories of Tabatha‘s life.

Tabatha’s beauty is breathtaking. She has long, golden curls that waver down her flawless face and bounce off her shoulders and velvet skin that reflects her pale blue eyes which twinkle with a glimmer of hope. Quietly she sits by the window in her ivory nightdress. Through the thick iron bars, the pane of glass allows the noise of the rain to seep into the small square room and the wind whisper carelessly without anything to say. The four white, dreary walls speak nothing of Tabatha’s life. Just cold and blank. In places the thick plaster has been chipped away exposing more nothingness. She has a small bed and an old patch-work quilt folded neatly at the end. An old, wooden bedside table showing signs of wear and tear sits next to the bed and other than these few pieces of aged furniture, there is nothing else in the room. No toys, no photos, no happiness.

Time seems to pass by quietly in her empty world. Minutes run into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and so on. She fears the outside and the unknown but wants nothing more than to have the chance to go out there in search of her family. A family she remembers and never stops loving; a family she longs for dearly and never forgot. She is imprisoned in this life and there is no escape.



The nightmares of her past are something she tries to forget yet keep coming back to haunt her. The memories have gotten muddled up along the way and Tabatha can’t understand what went wrong. She was only trying to help her baby brother and he did stop crying once she'd “helped”. But then she remembers screaming, yes, her mother screaming. Then the knife fell from Tabatha’s hand and what was once white was now red. From there it gets hazy. Soon after, this place became her life. She doesn’t see mammy, daddy or baby Sam anymore. The only people she sees are the “white people”. They feed her , bath her and give her something in a shiny tube with a long sharp object at the end. After that, memories are lost for a while and another day slips away.

One morning, same as any other, a “white lady” enters the room to brush Tabatha’s hair, just routine but today a little different than any other. Tabatha decides, for the first time, to look in the mirror held by the gentle looking woman and is faced with her complexion. A shocked and frightened looking Tabatha sees a stranger staring at her. What was once a breathtaking, beautiful girl is now nothing more than a frail, old, tired looking woman. Tabatha doesn’t recognise the person staring back at her in the mirror. Her once soft, golden locks now wired and grey and her pale blue eyes weighed down by her sagging eyelids and encased in a bed of wrinkles. A single tear trickles down her tired cheek and it is now that hope is lost for Tabatha. She realises something….



Yesterday was the same as the day before, and sadly, tomorrow will be the same as today.