I don’t know how many rooms there are in this prison, thousands I imagine, each one with a different function from safely housing suicidal inmates (although they are full right now) to rooms that hold large conferences and events. However, I’m pretty sure which of them is the happiest of all of them – the visit room.

Visits are so very important to us in here and there is so much positive anticipation in the holding room before a visit. Of course, this is weaponized like everything else in here and the guards know how much problems with the visits affect us. So, for example, they make nasty, inappropriate comments if someone has, maybe, messy hair or a particularly creased jumper. I heard a guard once say to a prisoner, “For f***’s sake, there’s no way even your mammy’s gong to love you looking like that.” They also use time and delays to perpetuate the message of control and twice, now, I haven’t been collected for a visit at all despite my visitors having arrived and checked in in plenty of time.

However, when the door does open and we get to see our visitors then the room fills with such a buzz. I see smiles, I hear laughter, I notice tears of joy, i sense the weight of enduring life in prison lifting and for that 45 or 60 minute period, that room is the happiest room in prison.

To be entirely truthful, I am always so focused on my visit that I’m often completely unaware of anything else in that room. This place is so filled with terror and every day is so blanketed with horror that the visit time is utterly sacred. I hug my friends and family, I feel the warmth for those precious minutes I can literally feel people caring about me. I have love.

For that period of time, I am a person again and I am Not a Number. My visitors always want to treat me however they can and most of the time, that’s with snacks and drinks which is always most appreciated. I actually suspect that the vending machines in a prison visiting room are the most profitable in the whole country!

Occasionally, bags of skittles are dropped and they scatter across the floor. Mostly they’re ignored but some inmates scoop them off the floor and eat them despite the filthy state. Sometimes, visiting children drop toys and there are sounds of them crying, always at a high volume fuelled by high emotions. Care, a rarely felt emotion is abundant and it’s totally wonderful.

Sadly, even in such a wonderful environment, the guards cannot help themselves. The intimidation and control is more subtle but it’s always there and children ask parents why the man in the white shirt is being so nasty. Mothers wonder why they need to sit in the seat furthest away from their sons and wives try to hide their worry about the psychological damage which is clearly happening to their husbands. Despite this being the happiest room in prison, the smell of threat is still in the air.

Then I hear the voice call “2 minutes left”. I check my watch and, yet again, the visit has been cut short – it’s the norm but it always makes me so sad. I try to wrap up the remaining threads of conversation and always attempt to express my appreciation to my visitors but that is so difficult. How can I find the words to show them that for those 45 minutes, my life had not been barely tolerable like it is for the rest of the time? What can I possibly say to make them understand the value of the visit? The words just don’t exist.

“That’s time,” the voice booms, triggering a sudden eruption of grief in the room. Those two short words have transformed the room from the happiest in the prison to the saddest. No longer do I hear laughter or joy. Smiles have disappeared and, reluctantly, I stand and make my way to the door which leads back to the inhumanity. Am I strong enough to last until the next visit?

NaN.