My best buddies

CREATIVE WRITING

By ALEXANDER NARA

A story from behind bars

CABIN biscuits and Sita meat, we share special bond.
We lived together in Lakiemata Prison compound for three and half years from 2007 to 2010.
Sita is half Aussie and New Zealand but was given birth to under the roof of Carpenters Agriculture & Manufacturing Ltd, currently trading as Globe in Madang, Flying Fox country.
Cabin is a hard but sweet Morobean gentleman, a native from Portion 707 along Independence Drive in the big city of Lae.
Both were there in the compound when I first arrived one hot April afternoon back in 2007.
Cabin, like all the good kandes, was the first to visit me the next morning with a boiler of hot water and tea bags.
He never failed to visit every morning from there on.
Sita, as a typical mangi Wali was often quiet and comes around to visit once a while during lunch and never in the afternoon.
The old oily landlord – Besta Tinpis and his fat wife Brown Rice often ruled the afternoon hours with sharpened aluminium spoons and flies.
Once a while, his highness Sir Blue Ox and Palm comes around.
Especially on special dates such as Her Majesty’s birthday or Holy Easter.
His twin brother Sir Red Ox only visit us in our dreams.
The house we lived in has no rooms except an open space with walls of brick.
Double bunker beds lined neatly at right angle on both sides of the wall, creating a corridor the run along the centre to the back.
Sometimes the house is crowded and at other times it is overcrowded.
Many stayed for only a few months and left while others stayed for years.
The air inside was always rich with stench of desiccated urine from decreased water levels inside the septic bowl.
For Cabin and Sita, it was home and they were always fare and faithful to everyone, sticking around the house to help oily Besta and his wife with the meals.
Nobody inside the compound really like Besta’s wife, Brown Rice, for her wrath dominates the room with uninviting incense.
But there are black unwritten rules of the house that protects her.
Throughout my years with them, I created a special room for Cabin and Sita using an empty carton and kept it hidden under my bed.
There are times I lost them to those surprise dawn raids by the khaki eagles.
Other times they are sacrificial lambs upon the altars of 7 bomb during late nights economical’ disaster.
Nights when old wrongdoings are re-evaluated behind the shadows, away from prying eyes.
It was on the morning of August 16, 2010 when I said goodbye to them and walked out of that compound.
We promised not to see each other again to avoid remembering those afternoons of sharp aluminum spoons and flies.
However, we did agree to meet once every year on that date August 16 to commemorate our ignorance of each other.
Perhaps they deserve some recognition but that is not on me to discuss.
I respect and thank them personally for their dedication, commitment and services to all prison jails across the country.

• Alexander Nara is the PNGDF public relations officer.