35 - A Pulse of Unfinished Business

Used the writing prompt 'A pulse of unfinished business...' from Just Write. They stipulate that you shouldn't edit, so I've only corrected typos. Without meaning to I deviated wildly from the prompt.  

“How is this place any different from a prison?” Crispin had been asking variations of this question for days. He’d got it into his head sometime around Friday night. That was when his first “interrogation on the theme of ‘entrapment’” (that’s slightly paraphrased) got “micro-blogged for the world” (that’s a direct quotation).

He wasn’t being listened to. In fact he was being actively ignored. It’s quite a thing to be actively ignored by four different people, all of whom you know. The confinement of the office where he was being ignored made it all the more palpable. Most people would notice the shift in atmosphere, the sense of mute responses and silent tension. Crispin was special in this respect. He carried on regardless, tossing an apple back and forth.

The other four people in the office had names which were more common than ‘Crispin’. They also had less extraordinary personalities and are perhaps none of them as suited to playing the role of protagonist as Crispin. He had, after all, hours of practice under his belt. Unlike them, he was used to being the centre of attention, his own if no one else’s, when running, or singing, or conversing loudly.

The prison-like place was his hometown, which is in the south of the country, where the weather is dry and the days are short. Some prisons, one must admit, do exist in these weather conditions.  His reason for comparing his hometown to a prison was this: Anders Breivik’s prison had been described as consisting of “three sections, one to sleep, one to study and one to exercise.”  

He was now still going on about it. “I sleep in my room, obviously, then I get up and go to the library, where I study for a few hours and then, when I feel particularly bored, I go for a run at the track, which is halfway between my flat and the library anyway. I mean, if one didn’t maintain a healthy attitude, you could see life as essentially one long waste of breath. You may as well be in prison.” He tossed the apple up quite high and just about caught it. 

One of those in the office who were working, the one, in fact, with the most common name of all chose this moment to pipe up, “Didn’t he complain about his cell being badly decorated as well? You could spruce the place up a bit, couldn’t you? That’s one freedom you’ve got. You should get started outside.”

A commonly named girl, roused by this breaking of the silence spoke up, too, “Thing is Crispin, Anders However-you-pronounce-his-name doesn’t get to work, but some of us have to. We’re the lucky ones, I suppose. You’re free though. You should go out and enjoy the world.”

The four of them, with their normal names, usually so kind to Crispin, all joined in “Go Crispin, you’re free, you’re free.”