“If you look carefully inside a bee hive you’ll see the rear ends of dozens of bees barely sticking out ion individual cells in the honeycomb. Tired, stressed and overwhelmed bees find and empty one and crawl headfirst into it for a little peace, privacy, rest… It’s a snug fit, but I imagine being inside a call is a heavenly respite from the bustle and noise that normally surrounds them.

I completely empathise. I sometimes wonder if there’s something wrong with me that I regularly need separating from other people. But then I look at the sleeping bees, comforted by the realisation that they may be the most social of all the social insects, programmed to interact constantly with thousands of others… and yet even they need to be alone sometimes”

                    – Jack Mingo, Bees Make the Best Pets

It occurred to me today that I haven’t had even a minute on my own for the last five months? I’ve never really thought about it before though. I’ve been blessed with such a sleepy cellmate that I’ve never found myself craving my own space. But then I wondered how the other guys here survive, sharing every waking (and sleeping) moment with randomly-assigned cellmates, each of whom I’m sure would be harder to get on with than mine.

It seems that cell-mates fall into different categories. There are overly chatty cell-mates, nocturnal cell-mates, noisy cell-mates, smelly cell-mates and violent/controlling cell-mates. If you’re incredibly unlucky your co-pilot will fall into that central point of the Venn diagram, where all of these atributes overlap.

One of my ‘Astroturf buddies’ (who has ADHD and is the most talented talker I’ve ever come across) was telling me that he sometimes talks away for a couple of hours while his co-pilot sits/lies in silence. I can tell you now that, as much as I like the guy, if I were sharing a cell with him I would have killed him by now.

Another of my old buddies (who’s now been released) shared a cell with someone who set his alarm for 4am every morning. That’s even earlier than the seagull down chorus. 

Another guy shares with someone who plays the same dance music CD almost every day at full volume. And when he’s not playing music he’s machine-gunning people on his X-Box. Many others have the TV on from the moment they wake up till the moment they go to bed. I absolutely get it that for lots of folks it’s entertaining and comforting to have the telly on in the background. But as for me, I like to spend most of my day reading, writing and painting, so the constant distraction of a TV would drive me insane.

The other day I walked past an open door on my way to collect my dinner from the food service area, and had to turn my head away from the stench that came from the cell. My cell-mate’s not too bad in this regard. He quickly learned that the hassle of showering every other day was less annoying to him than the hen-pecking I was giving him.

This next one grosses me out. Another guy here was telling me of his shock when, smelling a pungent musty smell coming from behind him, he turned around in his chair to find his cell-mate openly masturbating on his bed, one metre away. “FOR FUCK’S SAKE! GET A GRIP!” he shouted in disgust… (Poor choice of words in retrospect).

And so, it is with a grateful heart that I sit up here on my top bunk, listening to the gentle snores of my co-pilot beneath me. Once again, I count myself one of the lucky ones.