The streetlamp snapped back on, illuminating the falling rain, and my fist plummeting into my best friend’s face. All sound drowned out, the rain slapping on the cement overpowering the crack of my fist on his face. A distance divides my mind and body like surging water flooding through a thought locked door, mingling all together in a torrent of disaster. The light goes out again, plunging everything into darkness, making it that much easier for my fist to fall again at the push of a single thought. The light snaps back on as my fist raises, revealing his unmoving body, blood pouring out onto the concrete to be washed away under our feet. An inkling of self reemerges from somewhere in my soul at such a sight; as my breathe catches a voice cries out, “What the FUCK Vic?!” A hand lands on my shoulder as the shrill voice erupts from right behind my ear. I react. My grave grows deeper as horror, then fear, washes over me and pulls my feet away as I hear reality catching up to me like the sound of a train while I’m stuck to the tracks. The light goes back out, the darkness bringing no more relief, only panic that the light will never come back. Lightning illuminates the looming buildings closing in on both sides, reminders that the darkness will still give way to light, to day, to people, to punishment for what I’ve done. My thoughts always end up betraying me, always reminding me of what I am avoiding, but that would be no problem now. Now, the darkness doesn’t seem so bad and I just want to sink into it, avoid the inevitable for as long as possible. I run in the darkness, away from the voices clamoring at my back, trying to pull me towards reconciliation. A streetlamp snaps on as I run underneath it, I stop for fear that god himself has finally revealed himself when I fear his judgment most. Rain still falls hard around me, soaking me to my bones, but the light illuminates it to be a gleaming curtain of dark gold. Within that small space of light, the darkness utterly surrounds, but a greater darkness yawns open to my right, an entry to oblivion between the great shadows that only remind me of the day that is coming, but between those symbols of the
encroaching reality, there is an escape, and even if it’s for a moment, I still need it. The sound of faint sirens is the nail in the coffin, so I walk into it, giving myself over to its embrace.
1
Blindness is a Choice
Painful light brought me from the comforting nothingness. The pain was the signal that the light was not death, so I rolled over, smothering my face back into the jacket I was using as a pillow. The light, it seemed, with enough strength and little patience, pulled me out of my pitiful grave and into a cold, dark morning. I hear words, but am more focused on the breeze washing over me as I’m dragged out of the alleyway into the first light breaching darkness. The cool air brings yet more life into my weary body, but like most final moments, my last free one is short, quickly forgotten, and quickly replaced. The cold, crisp morning air is replaced by a dark, muggy backseat and a constant pain in my bound wrists that keep me from the numbness I yearn for. Nothing of either of the cops register in my mind, only that they handle me with all the care of strict procedure. That is to say, with the glazed eyes of met expectations and little decency. From there I simply feel in a haze, I am told what I have done and I agree, as I must have done it. My hands are sore, my knuckles are raw, and my mind is mush. It all feels like a dream, like everything should have gone back to normal at some point, like I’m supposed to wake up at any moment with a hangover, not knowing how I got home. Instead, I’m reminded over and over of what I have done, and in the meantime I simply sit in a stew of numbness, unable to reconcile with what has happened. Time passes, but I don’t count the days. My family calls, but I don’t answer. No one else calls, and I don’t care. I am given shitty food, and I eat it. All the while waiting to wake up. But it wasn’t until the crack of the gavel that my mind seemed to put all the pieces together. I was guilty. All that time I thought I couldn’t have been, I hadn’t meant to, I hadn’t ever thought of doing anything like that. It was like it had poured out of me like a dam finally breaking after neglecting repairs for too long, and maybe that was what happened. Maybe I didn’t see the cracks because I didn’t want to. No. No, everything was fine. Wasn’t it? Everything had been going good, just like it had always been, all of us having a good time, drinking, talking shit, drinking some more, talking more shit but all in good fun, none of it mattered. It was a break from the monotony of work; go home, watch tv, play video games, wonder why your single; it was the time to let go of those responsibilities, of those bills, of that nagging at the back of your mind that time was slowly slipping away and there was nothing you could do about it. It had all gotten out of hand, the picture broken and the pieces scattered, and torn apart, but the crack of the gavel seemed to echo in my mind, playing over and over as the rain fell around me and the blood poured out of his face; and now, being escorted out of the courthouse, reality finally sets in. Instead of the numbness I feel shame, instead of pity I feel rage. It all boils and churns within me, making me clench my fists over and over, stuck in a new cycle of hate and shame that I know is only hurting me but that I can not escape nonetheless. It is all still a haze of faces and names, none caring about me, just leading me to my cell where I can be put away from the eyes and ears of those who still have it together, who haven’t snapped like I have.
2
From Cycle to Spiral
For all the inward turmoil, the rage and shame ever boiling underneath the surface, there is no outlet, only directions given and eyes averted when gazes meet. My life now moves before my eyes, my limbs directed by an ever changing puppeteer, all the while questions and accusations formed from pity and rage churn behind my glazed over eyes. Despite this maelstrom of malice for only myself, I do as I am told, until I am finally locked away in my new home. I step inside the cell, the bars clang shut behind, and a man with dark brown skin and long black hair leans over the small top bunk, and holds his hand out, “Hey. I’m Iris.” My thoughts of shame stop for a moment, I try to control myself, try not to start off on the bad foot. For all I want to tell him to go fuck himself and further wallow in self pity, I instead shake his hand, “Vic.” For all I am able to control myself when confronted with my new roommate, the cell itself squashes any hope of finding my way out of the spiral of self pity. An aluminum toilet takes up the left corner, a small desk in the right with three books stacked on top, and two bunk beds next to the desk, with barely enough room for us both to stand at once. A hollowness opened in my gut as reality sharpened to stark clarity. For all the numbness and uncaring that got me through the time it took to get me here in a haze, it picked a hell of a time to disappear. For all I wanted to scream, I sunk down into the bottom bunk, my spare pair of clothes still in my hands. “You alright?” He didn’t look down, just stayed on the top bunk, asking the ceiling, but I was just as inanimate. “No.” I set my clothes underneath the bed and laid down, trying to get my heart to stop racing, while it begs me to scream and bang on the bars, proclaim that I’m not an animal and that I’m sorry, but that shame again rears its ugly head and reminds me that I am, and why should I be. I have to be here for a reason, society has a place for us all, its our responsibility to not fuck up that balance, and I had. “Well, at least you’re honest. It’s the people that say they’re doing great that you need to avoid.”
“So, who the fuck are you?” I had been stabbing at my mush, after avoiding my beans, and eyeing some hard jello, when a reeking breath right in front of my face made me lose my appetite. All night I had tossed and turned, unable to sleep for the hate that filled my head, constantly replaying that night over and over, screaming at myself in my mind, why, why, why. The man standing over me breaks into a big, yellow grin, “I’ll help ya out a little, my name’s Gideon. Now, you tell me your name.” I haven’t had a look at myself in a good long while, but I know how big I am, I know how dark the circles are under my eyes, I know how pissed off I am (it hadn’t dissipated in the slightest), and I know I could take this fucker. “Why.” The man breaks into a sharp, shallow laugh, completely devoid of anything resembling humanity. After a moment, he leans forward, takes my stale piece of bread and takes a chunk out of it, “Because, I like knowing what’s going on in this place. I’m a busy man. Important shit to do. People are relying on me, and if you wanna have a life in hell, you gotta deal with the devil.” Crumbs fell from his mouth as he spoke, falling into my food. I’ve always been one to control my temper, that’s why I’ve been stuck in my head about why I got here in the first place, but once that bridge burns, and you’re stuck on the island you’ve found yourself on with no escape, you react like all other animals. I flip my lunch tray into Gideon, throwing myself up, ready to sink my fist into his arrogant face. It feels like a culmination of emotions churning, brewing, underneath the cold surface of numbness, and when you shut out all emotion, the most violent one breaks through first. But just as the ecstasy of action finally taken runs through my veins as a wonderful, violent lust, a sharp pain and a loud clang erupt from the back of my skull. Only a moment passes before the front of my face is slammed down into the table, my dazed reflection staring back at me before everything goes black.
3
Even Free Will Costs Something
Painful light brought me from the comforting nothingness. The light moves away once my agitation is pronounced, reverting everything back to its dull gray. My head throbs and my mind slogs as my thoughts catch up to the present. Empty beds stretch out to either side of my own, white bricks turned a gray-brown line the rectangle of a room, and a man with black skin and a white coat stands with his back to me. “You lost me money! Seems like you’ve lost more than that though.” The man turns around, walks up, and asks me for the date. I think for a moment, give up, “Don’t know. Don’t think I knew before either.” He looks at me a moment, cracks a smile, and walks back over to his corner and starts filling out paperwork. “Well, you’ve got a concussion, which you definitely didn’t have before. You know your name?” I thought about that for a moment. Didn’t I have a concussion before? Of a sort. Would more likely just be called shock, but the erasure of any understanding of what had happened makes me think it was more like a concussion. At least in my own mind. “Vic Ward. Definitely had that before.” It was coming back now. All the haziness, all the shame, all the anger. When you don’t feel nothing, anything feels great, and when all you have is your anger, there’s hell to pay for anyone in the way. I guess not though, the only hell anyone paid was me. “What do ya mean, I lost you money?” He didn’t look up from his board. “We all put bets on how long it would take before Gideon sent you here. The way you looked, I thought you’d give in. Maybe you’d last a week, then everything would start to… (he raised his hand and snapped his fingers) click.” He looked up from his board. “You’d realize you’re being used. Wouldn’t really like the sound of that, you’d think, ‘Shit. That’s what got me here in the first place, everyone’s using someone else for something, and here I am being used again.’ And I know you remember that from before.” I laid there in the uncomfortable bed, lower back starting to ache from simply sitting up, some pieces starting to come together, some seemingly drifting further apart, the greater picture still just as far out of reach. “Everyone fights back at some point, then they realize a little order is what keeps us all from losing our damn minds. Everyone doing what they’re supposed to, everything where it’s supposed to be.” The earlier anger had dissipated, beaten out quickly and without mercy, the culmination of all his built up self pity and rage resulting in… an example. I look over at the doctor taking his notes; I don’t think he’s an actual doctor. “That what you doing? Doing what you’re supposed to do, being who you’re supposed to be? Being used?” I guess that’s all you can be in a place like this. Maybe some semblance of self purpose could be useful in a place where all self and purpose was certain to be stripped. Some measure of comfort, some shadow of how things used to be. “All you can be isn’t it? I was a shitty doctor outside these four walls and now they all look to me. Make yourself useful, make yourself safe.” Just where my mind was going as well. Seems the only way to move past the spiral of rage and shame was to distract yourself long enough. What skills did I have though? ‘Vic’ had only gotten as far as waiting tables at a nice restaurant. I liked to keep moving, and that seemed hard to do within the confines of such encroaching, sturdy walls, but I could apply my inability to simply sit still for a second. Couldn’t I? I looked around the room again and still found myself alone, except for the lone liaison of wisdom, now done with his notes and lounging in a chair with a single faded cushion. That was the only cushion I had seen on any seat anywhere in the prison, and a seat alone was scarce. “So, it can be better?” The ‘doctor’ looked over with a look of mild annoyance. “So you’re saying, if you can make yourself useful, you can still have some kind of life?” The ‘doctor’ looked back towards the ceiling and breathed out heavily. “Depends on your definition of life. But yea, sure. I thought that once I got in here, I could skate on by, not worry about living, just about surviving. Lord knows I had enough on my mind. But I learned long before I got in here that nothing was free, but it wasn’t until I got in here that I learned that even free will costs something.” Seemed like some kind of life; for however much I loved to forgo my responsibilities, they at least established a kind of routine, binding me to those with bigger ambitions. A guard holding his baton (slapping against his palm) came in at that moment and asked for the doctor’s assistance. The doctor reluctantly got up, but looked over and stopped to say one more word of wisdom to one bargaining with the reality of a life confined, “I’ve found that a limiting of choices makes the decision to acquiesce to someone with greater ambitions, and, of course, the means to fulfill them, that much easier, and that much more beneficial to the only one looking out for you. And believe me, there is no else looking out for you.”
4
Similarity to Familiarity
The first real advice I’d gotten for not merely how to survive in such a place, but to live, eased the churning waters lying under the skin. It wasn’t long before weeks went by, and Gideon finally let me be, understanding that I knew how things went now. He made work hard for me at first, but that was nothing new; being put to work for all I was worth wasn’t new. Laundry, mail, manual labor, and sleep, became my routine through the weeks. I didn’t think of days anymore, it was easier to think of each task as its own mountain to climb, and that included sleep. This change in my perception of the slog of time helped to break me away from the rage I felt for the life taken from me. I knew I had taken it myself, but reconciling with that fact seemed as unlikely as getting the life itself back. That life didn’t exist anymore, only the next task. It was easy to fall in with the other ‘fish’, but there were enough ‘men’ around to remind us that life could be better if we simply stayed in the lane set. Work and reward is set to where you are in the hierarchy. The origin of this economy no longer mattered, only the perpetuation of it by those who had been here, to those who were new. It probably never did matter, only appreciated by the powers that be for the self enforcing nature of it. I had simply been added now, after some, and before others, either way we were playing the same game. There are us ‘fish’, who get old cards and cheap cigarettes, and one day off to make use of them, and there are the ‘men’, who get more means of distraction on their one extra day off, and more methods of avoiding sobriety as much as possible. The difference between the two is thin, but just wide enough on just the right things to keep us all pitted against each other. On the outskirts of it all are ‘managers’, or as everyone else calls them, ‘moms’. They’re the ones that make sure everything goes smoothly, meaning the ones that kiss the most ass and cause the least amount of trouble. It’s a good system for the guards, and a better one for the warden, and an especially good one for Gideon. They were above it all, gorging themselves on what all we reaped, never having to care for how it was sown. The good thing about a hopeless workforce is they expect little, and give them the means to touch oblivion, the means to attain a measure of respite, then they’ll never even ask why they’re sowing. They’re just happy they are, and happy they can go back to that sweet nothing at the end of it.
“BANG, BANG, BANG.” Fists fell into the table, the metal clanging only being matched in volume by drunk yelling. “Cheater! Liar! Don’t touch me! Get away from me!” The racket at our one table was still more drowned out by the others surrounding. It was Sunday. Our day off. Everyone’s day off, except the guards. Today was the only real day the guards needed to worry about breaking up fights, people were usually too tired from working, having a black eye or sore ribs just made the hot, menial work that much harder to get through. That didn’t mean it still wouldn’t hurt when they went back to work, hangovers always made Mondays more mundane, but a little bit of freedom amongst absolute control made people irrational in how they exercised it. I was put on extra laundry shifts this past week because some of the fish had been moved up to men. It was a hard week, but what kept me going was knowing that the more I sweat, the more the drinks at the end of the week would hit; and they damn sure had. The room is choked with cigarette smoke, making my eyes water, and lungs burn. The card game just ended, but it takes me a second to catch up with the cheap liquor working its way through my veins, like sap. Iris never came out on our off days, instead using the time of quiet in the cells to read in peace. That idea appealed to me all the way until I got my pay on Saturday night, and everyone else in the laundry room cheered together at the idea of all the sharp pains accumulated throughout the week dissolving away into sweet nothing. A hand hits my back, and the sweet stench of whiskey breath hits my face, “You believe that bitch Ronnie?” Spit flew from the wrinkled face as he laughed. “It wouldn’t matter if Big Don was cheatin, he’d still lose!” I never really paid attention to the feuds around the table, but Shakes always kept me up to speed on all of it. Shakes talked enough for the both of us, which made it easier to get through gambling nights without everyone ganging up on me. I didn’t have many friends, but people knew me. Wasn’t particularly on anyone’s bad side, but not on many good sides either. Shakes earned his name cause he did, cause he was old, and he was a good friend to have. It was hard to have good friends, everyone kept their distance, because everyone wanted to be moved up, because everyone’s tolerance went up, so everyone always needed more, and the guy next to you just might be moved up before you. There was sometimes camaraderie, but there was always a distance, the competition inherent and always underlying like heat steadily rising underneath the skillet we were all being cooked in. Shakes wasn’t competing like everyone else, which kept me from getting too involved myself, though that itch was hard not to scratch. Shakes didn’t care cause he knew none of it mattered, but he’d been here long enough to have a sense of humor about it. I hadn’t been here long enough. I never do particularly well gambling, and I didn’t tonight either, though I still did better than Ronnie, but most everyone did. It always started out as competitive banter, but there was always more underneath, I had felt my blood rising and my thoughts spilling from my head to make room for that red hot rage underneath the numbness, but Shakes pulled me out before I could let those thoughts spill out into action. He was a good friend to have. After a few swigs from Shakes secret flask, the nothing calling from my stiff bed sounded more appealing than the lot of noise I’m not drunk enough to drown out. I slap Shakes on the back as I get up, tell him goodnight, at least in my head, while he continues to laugh and watch the circus continue, and nod to the guards as they let me back to my cell. There really weren’t many at all, like they all knew exactly how everything was going to go, just as it always had been. There were the two looking from the balconies around the top of the lunch room; one was awake, watching, but the other was asleep. The one I nod to as I walk out is in an office with a kid nodding off with the glow of his phone illuminating the drool pooling on his shirt. My footsteps echo as I walk to my cell in the darkness, the yelling is faint now; it would be easy to imagine it as rain while I drifted further into the darkness. There is a dark gold light coming from the top bunk as a guard opens my cell for me to go in. He doesn’t say a word and neither do I. Iris looks down from the top bunk, “alright?” His eyes are wide, he is awake, book open under a night light. I can feel my mind drifting as my legs guide me into the stiff bed, “yes.” That dark gold light flickers in the darkness as my aches fade further. “Good.” His shadow retreats behind the top bunk, leaving that dark gold light lone in the darkness, for me to reach for it as I fall into nothing.
I find nothing. I feel its emptiness. I feel my thoughts, then I feel the darkness all around; I can see it, I can feel it. A dark gold light glimmers in front of my eyes, expanding out and giving color to everything that was before shrouded in darkness. What was once darkness, is now populated with people milling about in a bar I recognize. Dark wood walls, the night light spilling in through windows spaced around the side. I’m at work, behind a bar, peoples faces all directed at me, though talking to each other. Drink tickets are pouring out the printer, dishes are piled up, more people are pouring in. I am at work. Thoughts fall away into habit, there is a lot but I just start going one at a time. I turn and grab the tickets, organize them across the bar, and start making what’s quickest and working from there. Voices clamor from all around, trying to grab hold of that most valued validation, only acquired through attention, lubricated by alcohol, they carry far and fight for space. While all the motions come back, so do the emotions, the thoughts. Why am I putting myself through this? Is this worth it? Sure, I’m making money, but I’m missing my best friend’s birthday. Instead, I’m spending time with people who care less about me than I do about them, all to get enough money to live. The night speeds on, my unending movement matching the passing time, and before I know it two hours have passed and I’m cleaning. It seems so easy to push off that weariness when I know it would soon be lifted along with my sobriety, as I went to other people much like myself, only working later. That dark gold light grew in the center of my perception again, growing outward, until taking the form of a lightbulb hanging down between myself and my friends, at a table filled with empty drinks and two full shots, in front of me and my best friend, sitting right in front of me, “Bout time you got here! You fuckin ready or what? C’mon don’t be a bitch, down this shit and start numero dos!” I smile, reach down and grabbed the shot glass, “Who you callin a bitch, bitch?” I down the shot and it burns its way down my throat, threatening to raise a bile in the back of my throat as I work to keep it down. Seth starts coughing after taking his shot, making me hold my composure all the more. I raise my arms, “C’mon bitch, let’s go for two!” Two more shot glasses are brought over by Seth’s girlfriend, Alaina. She smiles at me, it makes me feel the drink for a moment, but I’m gonna need another if I’m gonna swallow my self-pity, “Oh, c’mon now, you can’t look like a bitch in front of your girlfriend! You ready?” Seth looks up at me, eyes red, “Shut the fuck up! You ain’t been here all night, that was your first fucking shot, talk to me after five!” I down the shot, hold the bile down, and look into his eyes. There’s a look I can’t miss, but I hope it’s just the drinks. I take the shot from in front of Seth and down it too. I look back up at Alaina, and meet her brown eyes. My eyes follow her black hair down her shoulder, but I feel the drinks hit me and meet Seth’s eyes again, “Alright, that’s three right there, you don’t have an excuse now! Let’s keep em coming brother!” I laugh with everyone else at the table before I catch Seth’s eye again, “Oh, fuck you man. Fuck you. You’re gonna show up late, after barely showing up at all for the last few weeks, and think I’m not gonna remember all the shit you just wanna forget about?” It all takes me a second to understand, it catches me so off guard. A weak laugh escapes my mouth quickly numbing to alcohol, “What?” I suddenly realize I know what is happening, and that I know how this is going to play out. I still feel the heaviness of the alcohol on my eyelids, that part is real, but a darkness starts encroaching on the edge of my vision, like I am being pulled back into my head, reality becoming a movie that I’m watching on an ever shrinking screen. I can see and feel the darkness again, the voices echoing in the vast pitch-black theater, nothing makes sense, it’s all voices saying words overlapping one another in an ever escalating torrent that crescendos in silence; only accompanied by the faint sound of rain and then a dark gold light that illuminates the darkness in the distance. A shadow looms in the midst of that light, red spilling and washing out into the dark gold, turning the darkness all around a red the color of blood; I can feel the air thicken, like blood is replacing the very air, trying to drown me, until the light goes away again, plummeting me back into the heavy darkness.
The heavy darkness gives way to sharp pain as my head connects to the top bunk, “fuck!” I fall back into bed, hand still on my head. My sheets are soaked and my whole body is sweating. Iris’s light is off now and all is silent, even the faint yelling. Through the window outside, the inky black gives way to a translucent gray. Work would be starting soon, and I don’t feel an ounce of rest, just the sinking feeling of remembering what I’d put off for so long. An even worse feeling rises in the back of my mind, like bile rising in the back of my throat, both making me want to throw up. That cycle of work and the illusion of connection, it all felt similar before, but different enough that I still wished to return, but it’s not similar, it’s familiar. It’s the same. I didn’t take my own life, I simply switched the aesthetic.
5
The Cure
My new understanding did nothing to make time or work go by any easier, it simply made me see the ways in which my inability to reconcile myself with reality had been ever present, echoing in the hallowed halls of my mind no matter the change in my material circumstances. It felt so easy to slip back into dissociation, like a warm glove protecting a withered hand from feeling the bitter cold. Work went by with empty faces, everyone was simply working for the weekend, though it was only one day. You had to be delusional to get through a place like this, which was difficult for me as I knew how to be numb, because I couldn’t be delusional. The normal thirst I got midweek for that one day rest where I could drown my sorrows again seemed to grow stronger as the nightmares seeped further and further into my waking thoughts, never leaving me to peace, only staying to remind me of its proximity; like a shadow following to remind me of the darkness never letting go. That thirst, that need, for that sweet nothing continued to build and build as I sweat and sweat, like the harder I worked to get away from the nightmare, the more I anticipated the release of oblivion. As my thoughts are taken by the lingering nightmare, my feelings are taken by a need for numbness, so my body is taken by a need to work, to sweat, to move, for if I stop I fear I will sink. While I usually had no need for a distraction, today it was welcome. Shakes always seemed to find me, as if they knew that even if he did work, it wouldn’t be worth much. “You been workin like a horse Vic, I know management ain’t gonna say nothin, but you know I ain’t got nothin better to do.” It was enough to take me from my thoughts at least, there was a part of me that felt good to be asked, even if it was because I had nothing else to do. “What you know about horses, Shakes?” I continued the labor of working the laundry in the big vats, steam obscuring vision and coating my face in thick sweat. “Ha! What would I know? I’ve been in here 20 years, ain’t seen a horse in longer than that. Not since bein a kid. I do remember how much my daddy would work that horse. All day in the hot sun, pulling that plow across the black dirt. I always wanted to ride it, y’know, see the view from way up on high, but it was always too tired by the end of the day. Never did get to ride it.” Shake’s words were nice, distracting me for a moment from nauseating realizations I knew not how to escape. “You ready for tonight?” I stopped working for a moment, and looked down at the old man, shriveled up and wrinkled under his brown overalls that used to be gray. “I’m always ready for a break. Seems the only things I live for now, though what I need a break from right? Ha! Ha…” I tried not to hear the breaking in his voice, knowing that one day I would be the same: dried up of use and only waiting for that sweet nothing to take me completely. “What else is there to live for now?” I didn’t even mean to speak it out loud, it just came out of that pit that had been slowly widening all week. I didn’t want to hear Shakes answer, I knew it wouldn’t help, so I turned back to work and left Shakes to do whatever he did in the meantime. I heard him say something faintly before I heard his voice further down talking to someone else, leaving me back to the work that would drive the darkness out in favor of that sweet nothing.
More laundry was brought, more work was done, less thoughts were had, more anticipation was built. As the day wore on, the guards had to keep everyone working cause they were getting antsy, ready for the night when they could drown their sorrows and weariness. Eventually, the bell rang, a dull blaring that denounced the pause of endless toil, except for today. Today it meant a sweet release. All the fish poured out of their various jobs, none changing out of their sweat soaked clothes, for soon they wouldn’t feel it anyways. They met the men on their way to the cafeteria as well, immediately establishing an underlying tension fueled by the stark difference between the two groups, as the men had also come from work, but less tiresome, sweaty work; instead working more directly under Gideon and the warden for ‘personal matters’. That gave them a modicum of pride, splitting up friends, and creating clear distinctions to be reinforced through jealousy and envy. It was a balance, only carefully maintained by the carrot forever on the stick, forever just out of reach. They were still watched and managed by the moms but it was better than the mind numbing work the rest of us were stuck with. As we filtered into the cafeteria, there was immediately a difference that we all felt viscerally. There was no alcohol ready, nor tables set up for evening gambling games. Instead, Gideon and the warden overlooked from the balcony as we all filtered in. Guards stood round the perimeter, with the moms standing in front of them, and under Gideon and the warden. It seemed whatever was going to be announced would be put on the moms. For the time my internal fears were subverted by the external ones. I was surrounded all around by angry, sweaty, numb men, who were just a moment ago hotly anticipating the payoff to the last week of searing sobriety. Now, the tension was palpable, fear ran rampant in the eyes of those who needed more than anything that sweet release, that oblivion that made it all worth it. I included myself in that mosh pit of men on the brink of breaking. The depression inundated by the nightmare realizations of how little control I had ever had over my life, had given way to an acceptance that there could only be one cure now. That cure that I had awaited acutely, now was threatened by something ominous, something out of my control, but everything always had been, just as it had been for all the other lost souls I was surrounded by. No one sat down, all stayed standing, anticipating what would be said. We all stood in the stuffy gray air, light from the setting sun engulfing only the balcony where Gideon and the warden were standing. The warden looked down at the moms in a line, waiting for them to get on with it. One stepped forward; bigger guy, looked like he could handle himself in a fight, but he’d been in here almost as long as Shakes, so we all knew how much of a cheat he was at cards, how much he had gotten away with over the years, and most importantly, what he’d done to get in here. He was a child molester. Those were the type of guys who were moms. Guys that needed leverage given to them, cause they sure as hell weren’t getting any from any of us. “So…I know how y’all work, aanndddd I know how much ya look forward to your reward.” He gulped, his receding hairline glistened with sweat as he stood not ten feet away from where we all stuffed like sardines. “But we’ve also been having trouble, as I’m sure you’ve all been noticin’. We got a good system going here guys. We don’t wanna be screwin that up. Now, the warden has been kind enough to let us have these days, but…” he looked up again, as if that light would soon come down to land on him, but the sun was setting. He was stuck in the darkness. “Jesus christ! Get back in line with the other ass kissers. Fuck.” Gideon walked forward, the warden standing back. He wore a white suit, perfectly clean, untainted by the filth he stood over. “What nutless over here is trying to spit out, is that you’ve been slacking. We keep eyes open for a reason, and it really feels like you’ve lacked appreciation for the life we’ve let you have.” He smiled as he finished the end of the sentence. His eyes were hidden behind blacked out sunglasses, the sun only shining to encompass the lower half of his face now. Showing that yellow smile, and only pure black above it. “Because of what you all have cost us, you will still get your day off, on two conditions. First, an example.” Shakes was thrown on his knees beside Gideon, engulfing him in the waning light. “Take this…– thinks he can get away with being a moocher! No, no, no. No, we all need to participate. We are a team guys! I mean c’mon, we gonna just let this sack of shit get in the way of that? Can’t have a rusted cog in the system.” The transition from used car salesman to cold accountant was instant. Like any empathy he ever had drained out at the sight of something he saw as so below him. “Do it.” Just before Shakes was thrown over the railing, he was smiling, eyes closed, and basking in the fading light. He didn’t make a sound when he fell. Only the crack of his skull on the floor echoed within the concrete walls, drilling into our ears. No one made a sound after he fell. We all just stood, soaking it in as we stood in our filth. “Tragic. No one should have let him up here. Now. As I said, you will be allowed to go to your cells to enjoy the rest of your night off. So, you can be good and sober for your shift in the morning. To make up for what was lost this week.” So…we could be good…and sober? The darkness that had been kept at bay thus far came closing in, darkness enveloping the edge of my vision, distance being put between what was happening and what I was comprehending. I was in a dark tunnel, looking out into a darkness only faintly gray, into a sea of palpable tension. “NOOOOOO!” The voice didn’t come from me, but it echoed what was bouncing around in my own mind. “NOOOO!” I looked up to see Gideon sneer, whisper something to the warden, the warden motioning to the guards around the perimeter, then the guards pushing forward the moms. The warden spoke up as the guards inched closer, shouting over cries of terror, “Everyone just needs to stay calm. If you go back to your cells in an orderly fashion, we can get everyone some nice hot showers, a good dinner, okay, so everyone just needs to caaalllmmm dooowwwnnn.” The man in the black suit sounded like he was talking down a classroom, but we were anything but innocent. “NOOOOOO!” This time it did come from me, and everyone around me joined in. The windows through which I saw reality were painted red, running with the blood surging through my veins, as I screamed in agony over what I had lost in that sweet nothing. I needed it. I saw Shakes’ smile, in the last light, and knew I would never get such a good moment to die, and because I couldn’t drown myself so as to not feel that pain, I gave in. I accepted it. We surged like a tidal wave into the human shields the guards were using, pummeling them into the ground or using them as rams to get through the shields of the guards. It seemed like we all had the same itch we had been waiting to scratch, as if we had all put our everything into the last week of work and had that which fueled our every breath, taken away. We were one writhing mass wreaking havoc on guards unprepared for our fury. Where once I was afraid of the absence of that sweet nothing, now I exulted in the pain of being forgotten, discarded, and used up so all I had left to use were my fists and my most visceral feelings. Its searing fire ran through my veins, filling me with a need to show everyone what I had been hiding, what had been lurking beneath the whole time. In my soul laid bare, I saw the consequence of negligence. We watched each other fall into that black pit for so long, ever awaiting the inevitable fall. Out of our lifeless husks came wrath, rage, the vengeance of the damned.
6
How Many Deaths Does it Take to Change
Painful light brought me from the comforting nothingness yet again. Like the other times, I wasn’t alone, but now I was accompanied by the moans, groans, and stale smells of people left to their pain. Next to my bed sat Iris, reading with his back to the one window in the infirmary. The doctor sat asleep in the same chair as before, still on the only cushion I’d seen in the place. He was asleep, and the sun had a sideways slant-it seemed to be early morning. So, the groans of pain were deep, rested ones, fueled by the nightmares resurfaced from the subconscious. Iris looked up from his book, eyes heavy but voice clear, “Ya alright?” Always the same question, never the same answer. “I…don’t know.” He’d only asked me that a few times, but always at the right time, like he’d been waiting for the right time to ask. “I mean, what happened? I can see flashes of…pain and…joy. Like they became the same, and it all made sense. Like…I released all the pain and…and then…” It was hard to put into words, like drawing crude shapes to describe pure beauty. “Then, there was a riot Vic. Y’all swarmed the guards, trampled most of the moms. What few did survive aren’t in great shape, but they’ll survive on account of the docs lack of sleep.” The scattered pieces started to make more sense, but the feelings felt so strange now that time had separated then and now. Now, it was quiet, maybe peaceful, like all the anxiety from the past week had seeped out into that one explosive moment. It was strange being on with all those bodies; it was as if our anger and rage had been congealed into one spot, and prone to burst, it did, wreaking havoc to all in the process. And then Shakes. That last smile came into my mind like a final nail in the coffin–pounding the truth in place, irrefutable. “Ya hear about Shakes?” I just needed consolation. “Ya. You see it happen?” He just needed to hear it from a friend. “Ya. Looked quick…but I don’t know.” That sound of him hitting the concrete still echoed in my mind–lodged deep so as to be unescapable. “Either way, at least he made it out of here.” Just what I was getting to. “Wish I coulda gone with him.” Anything to escape this prison consisting only of the echoes of death. “Don’t you?” I needed someone to understand. “I already have.” He met my eyes, and despite the bags like mine underneath them, his hadn’t lost their luster, where mine had long seemed dull. “Didn’t think you the kind to use. This place will do it to ya tho.” All roads seemed leading to the same conclusion. He smiled, held up his book and tapped on it, “this is my drug. Best way I’ve found of escaping this hell-hole.” The satisfying thump of his fingers hitting the book drowned out the wet crack that hadn’t gone away thus far. “Never been much of a reader.” A question came up as the words went out: and what have you been? While a question came to my mind, an answer came to his, “I’ve heard that a lot, but no one’s a runner till they walk, and most people ain’t runners, but that don’t mean you can’t go on a walk.” I looked at him a moment, trying to work through the brain fog. “Sorry. I read too much honestly. That’s why I don’t talk much, cause I’m usually thinking something different, and people don’t like not understanding.” It felt nice having an honest conversation. “Well, I’ve never understood much, so maybe it’d do me good to hear something different.” He smiled, and looked…relieved, like a weight had lifted from his shoulders. “In that case, what I was saying is that you don’t need to be a ‘reader’ to find a story you connect with, you simply have to find one. We are the only creatures who use stories to relate to one another. In my opinion, its our creativity, and our cruelty, that separates us from all other creatures. So, maybe, the reason you’ve felt like just a creature, just a tool, is cause your not exercising your humanity–your imagination, your creativity, your conscious mind. That make sense?” It did. I hadn’t felt human cause I wasn’t being human. I was acting as a machine, a cog in a machine made to make more and more but never for me, always for another. “Yes. Thank you. Like I said though, I haven’t read anything in a while.” I was already getting anxiety over disappointing his hope in me. “That’s alright. I’m not saying you have to constantly like I do, simply that it can be a good escape to live another life for a while through words.” Live another life. It seems I’d destroyed my own so much that little hope remained for a new one, but maybe another was still possible. “So, what’s that you’re reading?” He hesitated a moment, then let out a small laugh. “This is called Notes from Underground. By a guy named Dostoevsky, but this is not what you should read first. This isn’t an escape for me, it’s a reminder. But I’ve got some good choices for ya, how do ya feel about Lord of the Rings?” Don’t think I’d ever need a reminder, but the idea of an escape actually made me feel…something. “I mean, I ain’t felt much in a while, so if ya think it’ll help I’m game.” For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt hope. Rain had started spattering on the glass as we talked and had steadily grew harder and louder, and the sun had been covered by clouds. A light came on over my bed as the room grew darker from the storm, it had a golden hue, and with the sounds of the rain hitting the window, I remembered standing underneath that streetlamp after I’d damned myself. I remembered worrying that God had found me there, trapped me in his light to judge me and cast me into hell where I belonged. I guess he had, but here I was, in an echo of that moment, feeling a glimmer of hope, and that was enough.
Black Stallion Publishing 