HOLDING CELL NO. 15
Once upon a time, the world was bigger. And brighter. And better. Guyana was bigger too. A little brighter. A little better. It sat on the shoulder of what was then South America, which stretched out into what was then the Caribbean Sea.
The country was a desperate woman, spurning her land-locked lovers and yearning to be in the cool arms of the ocean.
Eventually, her wish came through and she came to regret it.
The ice in the northern and southern parts of the globe melted and the water levels rose and began to encroach on the land. Little by little. Bit by bit. The Land of Many Waters suddenly had too much water. The blue of the earth stretched like a plague over the planet. The invading sea began drowning abandoned cities as people fled the coasts, moving further inland to the hills and mountains, destroying and building as they went.
In Guyana, the old kings died and new kings swam out of the misery brought on by the great floods. They were greedy and corrupt. They enslaved. They killed. The artists rose up and rebelled. They sang and painted and spoke and wrote about the kings and the terrible things they did. They tried to pass on bravery through art; they tried to incite a revolution.
The monarchies saw themselves shaking, threatening to collapse under the weight of pens and paper and inks and paints and words. They grew scared. They outlawed art. They tried to get rid of it. They tried to kill it. And so, the Art Wars began.
Emissaries of the kings spewed out bullets and bombs at the artists. And what did the poor artists do? They fired arrows made of poems and wielded their paintbrushes like knives, and their bullets were bits of prose and their bombs were the booming of drums that singers rang to and dancers pranced to. The artists were defeated and they fled from the mountains, into the forests nearer to the New Coast. Mother Nature, who inspired them, would protect them. They hid, cloaked in greenery, and concealed themselves from the evil kings. Generations of artists remained hidden in the forests, quietly practicing their crafts and passing their knowledge on to their children.
Meanwhile, the lands of the kings grew cold and dull. There were no paintings to decorate the walls of the palaces, no songs to cause a lover’s heart to flutter, no stories to enchant the princes and princesses, no poems to marvel at, no music to soothe. The land wilted with the loss of imagination. One king, who thought himself wiser than the rest, proclaimed that art is only a harmful thing if it is not controlled, if it is allowed to roam free like some wild animal, to develop and bloom as the artist desires it to. Art, with restrictions, art that is caged, on the other hand, posed no threats.
Hunters were sent into the jungle to find artists, whom they milked for their skills. The artists were made slaves and were exploited for their work. That is how the second wave of the Art Wars began.
*
Every child of the forest knew that story. Every fledgling poet, painter, singer – regardless of what craft your family practiced – that was the first story that was told to you as a child. It was both creation myth and history. It was a legend that surged through the hearts of every forest dweller, every artist, from the moment it was whispered into their ears at birth, to the moment it left their lips as they died.
Like all good stories, there were several variations. Each wandering clan of artists – from those who steeped their toes in the coastal waters each morning, to those brave people who hid at the foot of the mountains – told the story with their own particular nuances, their own changes and inflections. But each version was always more similar to the others, rather than differing from them. Parents poured that story from their mouths into their children’s mouths, and they then passed it on to their own children. It went on forever, like a circular pattern in a cloth-weaving or a poem that looped and went right back to the beginning. That story was the tale the lone storyteller of Holding Cell No.15 whispered to himself and the other prisoners, as they waited to receive their fate. He told the story day and night, like a prayer. He felt that the story was food that sustained them, that kept them alive, that kept them hoping.
“…and the hunters would catch the artists and force them to do terrible things. They would be made slaves and compelled to work for the king. Their art would be forced out of them and would no longer be their own… No matter what happened to them, though, the artists never gave up. They fought to stay alive because they knew their roles were important. Artists are creators. They are keepers of secrets of the soul. Without them, this world is nothing,” Jerome, the storyteller said, ending his tale for the night.
He turned around and sat, pressing his back against the cold bars of the cell. He looked at the other prisoners and they looked at him. He saw them as they were: destitute, hungry, scarred, afraid. They saw him as a fellow prisoner, but they knew that he was also the Teller of the Tale.
Jerome and Abigail were the first to be captured and dragged up the mountain and thrown into the cell. Jerome looked at his sister’s face, forlorn and hallowed out from starvation, and his heart bled for the smiling, ebony-skinned, brown-eyed girl who spent every waking moment of her life painting and drawing on the barks of trees, on flat rocks, on clothes, on whatever she could find. Imprisonment had destroyed Abigail. She lost the roundness of her face and her body grew gaunt and brittle. Her collar bones poked unnaturally out of her chest and she had developed a nervous, constant shaking in her hands. Abigail, who had always lived a life of colour, was tucked forever in a corner of a cell on a high mountain, charged for the crime of painting. The walls of the cell were grey, the bars were black, everyone’s clothes had once been white but were now stained a dirty brown. The one thing Abigail dreamed about, with her head pressed to the cold ground, was colour: the pink and orange splashes in the late-afternoon sky, when the sun became a plump red cherry; the bright, cool green of grass; the luminous yellow of buttercups and ripe bananas; the blue sky, tender and innocent, that stretched infinitely above her head. The cell had no windows and was perpetually in a state of darkness.
The other inmates, Jerome noticed, were in similar states of psychological disintegration and physical collapse. Jen, the flute player, had arrived after Jerome and Abigail. She
Turn to 10A
Subraj Singh is an award winning director and playwright, a fiction writer and columnist. His book, Rebelle and Other Stories, won the 2015 Guyana Prize for Literature in the Best First Book of Fiction category.
The Writers’ Room: Although a work of fiction, ‘Holding Cell No. 15’ makes some strong socio-political statements about the place and future of artists in Guyana. What is the one thing you hope your readers will take away from this story?
Subraj Singh: I think that art has tremendous power. Many people, particularly those with political power, know the threat of the arts and, oftentimes, those people take great efforts, through censorship, through the removal of resources for artists, and through advocating for the deliberate lack of developmental opportunities for artists, in order to deprive us of the potential for growth, activism, and the chance for us to connect with a larger number of people in society. The fear that ‘leaders’ and politicians have of artists is reflected in the story .
TWR: Was there a particular moment of inspiration that led to you penning this piece?
SS: The piece, meant to highlight the lack of opportunities for those in the arts, was written a long time ago, around 2014, but it still resonates today, which ultimately proves how little has changed with regards to the treatment of the arts and artists in Guyana.
TWR: As an artist yourself, what do you think is needed to spark a revolution in the local creative industry?
SS: There is nothing left for creative people in Guyana right now. Artists would need to migrate if they want to develop themselves and their craft, before returning and contributing by passing on their knowledge to others who are here. This particular revolution relies on access to training and knowledge that is denied to us simply because we cannot afford the cost of access.
TWR: Did the title have any particular significance?
SS: The title was used because we were due to have elections in 2015 and I was thinking about whether in that year (’15), the artists in Guyana would still be in a mental/developmental holding cell where they’re unable to move forward or progress.
TWR: Can you share with us your writing journey and what inspired you to pursue writing as a career?
SS: I started writing when I was studying English Literature at the University of Guyana. I have written stories, plays, and non-fiction articles...I currently work in education and I am also a columnist. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to write to consider it a career at this point. Hopefully, that can change one day in the future.
TWR: Are you working on any projects now?
SS: I am working on a new project, but because, like so many others, I have to juggle several jobs to make ends meet, I think it will be a very long time, perhaps several years, before I am finished with it. It can be difficult to find the time, energy, and even the motivation necessary for writing….The project that I am working on is a massive novel, based on Guyanese history, particularly the era of early colonialism. It is also connected to stories of my family that I heard while growing up, so it is meant to be an intimate project that I will undoubtedly spend years trying to finish and perfect.
TWR: What resources would you recommend to young writers seeking to hone their craft?
SS: Access to knowledge and training - education (undergraduate, graduate, and beyond) in the arts.
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