GOVERNOR.

actual scene vs. bun prank

        Kath’s hands are full of teal, cotton fabric spilling over her lap. She cannot stop thinking: is this charade worth being torn apart? I won’t save you this time. I hope the women make it quick. Miss Bennett is gone. It is Kath, alone, under the sallow lighting of the cell. She breathes in and out. She pictures the rest of the prison, what she has glimpsed of it: concrete and razor wire, fluorescent lights, brick and blue and gray. She has only ever been ushered through back passages, never exposed to another prisoner, except those here in the psychiatric unit. She cannot picture their faces, these women who will kill her. She thinks of a pack of snarling dogs.

        Her breath comes in quickly, shallowly. Her fingers knot in the teal. She shuts her eyes. Tries to imagine herself as this person they all see when they look at her, quick and cunning and brutal and sly. She doesn’t feel any of it. She feels old. She feels slow. She feels stupid.

        She squeezes the tracksuit. She opens her eyes, and is no longer alone.

      “If you find yourself asking that question, you’ve already lost,” Cold, calculated, her tone remains soft, yet distant. Still, she turns her head, slow and steady, looking down upon the incarcerated version of herself, wearing the teal. She is grey at the temples, downtrodden; a shadow of former glory, at rock bottom. 

    Joan turns precisely upon her heel to face Kath. A few steps forward and the sound of heels reverberates against the stone walls of the cell - a single note or two of the sound her large strides made, coming down the halls of this prison, on the other side of the bars. She exhales through her nose. 

HOW DO YOU WANT ME? HOW DO YOU WANT ME? 

No longer accepting!

i. In her palace of justiceveiled in perfect darkness save for the sweeping floodlights projecting frombeyond the courtyard, your cheek nudges the wall, close enough to the windowoverlooking the concrete underground.

Milk & Honey: i want what i want - in the heart of these unspoken moments

No longer accepting.

Forced to take time off, rid of her sense of purpose, Vera seems incapable of learning the implications of proper rest. In the shower, she claws off dead skin. Scrapes and scrapes until she’s as pink as a newborn baby. She cannot scrub enough. Fine, hairline scratches adorn her skin. Her fingers trace those ragged welts. Let them hurt, she decides. Somehow, she convinces herself that she deserves it. In the aftermath, she envelopes herself in a warm, soft, grey towel. The sweet angel of mercy never felt so far away.

Cast as another forgotten martyr despite catching Conway in her futile attempt at a prison break, the back of her hand swipes along the underside of her red, raw nose. Ruin is a song to be sung, even wailed. How weak and powerless she feels. She swallows her fears and anxieties, still wracked by disappointment worming its way into her head. How many times does she give up the best parts of herself?

From the pressure, her spine curves while her shoulders sag. A horrible tenseness embeds itself deep within her muscles, her back aching. It’s the pain often accompanying the stress of working a double. The twinge in her wrist, freshly wrapped, only makes matters worst.

During after hours, Joan visits her, just as she did when Mum was at her most terrible, most tyrannical. Reassured in the moment, Vera neglects their positions - their precarious predicament. Yet, as if in disbelief and weary resignation, Vera shakes her head. She no longer reeks of vinegar, but feels soiled by marginal failure, small and insignificant in her empty home. It’s impossible to sortout the complexities in a single night.

Torn between wanting to be alone and yearning for the company, this is the feeling of never being enough. Vera steps aside and lets her in. She always lets Joan inside.

Orders are easy to follow, obey, adhere to. Quick to throw away the old parts of herself, Vera quits her sniveling at last. She’ll learn from this. She’ll grow. She swears upon it with a rattling fist banging against her chest.

Yes, Vera gives away the last parts of herself. Thrown away the old mouse alongside Mum’s belongings. Life continues its cycle, history a shadow’s constant threat. It’s a journey to heal, to learn from old behavior.

Joan pours her a glass of Pinot that’s a glistening ruby shade.

A guiding, messianic palm settles on the curve of her neck. Beneath that steady hand, Joan feels the fragile knob of bone. She forces Vera to look at her. Experiences the rivulets of water trickle down Vera’s dewy skin. Drowning in an over-sized navy house robe - ratty, old thing, clearly cherished, but Joan makes note to replace it.

And Vera drinks in the attention. Dies a little. Leans into the killing blow.

That glimmer of pain Joan finds more riveting than a Botticelli piece. She wets her lips, savoring that glimpse of weakness.

“It’s just pain,” Vera dismisses the years of abuse, the era of neglect, with a deep gulp of wine and a flippant toss of her hand. It stirs a fire from within, but Joan Ferguson has always been responsible for kindling that fatal spark. “My story isn’t that interesting.”

I thought I was cool about Ferguson being alive after all (I haven’t watched Wentworth in FOREVER) but I wasn’t and here we are… I still love her a lot.

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