Short Story: On the theme of ‘Prison Works



How Prison Works

A prisoner contemplates the reality of prison life

Three metres. That was the distance between me and the rest of the world - three torturous, tantalising metres. I could smell the dancing trees beyond, with emerald fronds waving to a gentle breeze. An azure sky carried with it tastes I once knew so well: a summer surf unrolling, barbeques smouldering in the afternoon, outstretched fields of barley and wheat.

Up above, the sun threw down robes of warmth, drawing down the shadow of the wall before me. Two thrushes murmured greetings upon its ugly, razor-wired rim, like Angels come to pay a visit to the borders of hell.

‘Come on now,’ a stern voice called out behind me.

With loathing I rejoined the stream of prisoners marching to work. Blindly I became part of the flow of men, trailing smoke and curses in their wake. Guards stared down on us like the flotsam we were, their eyes cold and undeviating. No rift could be wider than the one that defined our differences.

The iron-gated doors of the workshop lay open. One by one, the prisoners went in. The gaffer stood with a clip-board at the entrance, checking off names. His face bore the marks of thirty stress-fraught years. A fringe of silvering hair was made even whiter by a thick, black moustache.

I stepped through the thresh-hold.

Rows of fluorescent lights could not chase away the darkness within. About sixteen inmates sat and stood in groups, talking loudly. My place was adjacent to a man who had imported cocaine from Europe. His large stomach bulged against the edge of the worktable. I could almost see my reflection in the bald sheen of his tilted head. Like a lightning bolt against an ebony horizon, a zigzagging scar ran across his forehead. He scanned the room with a robotic stare.

‘Another day in paradise,’ he sighed.

I had been working only a few weeks, despite being in the prison itself for five months. The work was repetitious and boring, but it was better than being locked in a cell. The wages paid just enough for a few days tobacco and phone credit.

The gaffer slammed and locked the gate, then walked over to our table. ‘Alright!’ he announced, waiting for the other inmates to be quiet. ‘I’ll be off next week, which means no-ones leaving here till it’s spotless.’

‘No-one covering you, ‘guv?’ another prisoner interrupted.

‘Unlikely, Richards.’

That was not a surprise. There never seemed to be enough staff, even on the wings.

‘When I left yesterday,’ the gaffer continued, ‘there was glass on the floor. That’s right, glass. Right by my office. Anyone want to own it?’

No-one responded.

‘I thought not. Just be mindful…’

Before walking off to the office, his frowning eyes seemed to fix on me, sending a subtle message of warning. Turning to my bald companion, I mentioned this. He simply shrugged and went back to reading a newspaper. That was prison for you: no-body cared. You were on your own.

To the system we were but numbers; statistics of cruelty, disillusion and greed. Behind the walls and fences, our crimes had earned us confinement and segregation. Every day differed only in its degree of monotony. Seasons passed like broken dreams, half-glimpsed in a perpetual twilight.

The man beside me had dealt drugs most of his life. He was a millionaire and proud of it. Dave, the inmate working behind me, had been in and out of prison seven times. Most of the others had similar records. Crime was a way of life; as normal to them as sugar in tea. They knew no other alternative. Time inside was time wasted; very few used it to contemplate their actions, to change and to better themselves. At best, it teaches the importance of not getting caught. At worst, it fuels bitterness and anger at society – so that on release the prisoner seeks vengeance or recompense for their time lost. That was the tragedy of the prison system.

Three hours passed before it was time to hand in the tools, tidy up and leave the workshop. The gaffer stood by the door, rubbing us down to check for anything we might have stolen. It was a purposeless exercise – serving only as a reminder of our collective label, another tick in the box for ‘security’.

Walking back to the wing, I forced myself not to look at the cloudless sky and trees that hovered above the fences. In my realm all was grey and black - from the concrete on the ground to the steel teeth that gripped every window. Green was outlawed.

Back into the dungeon that they called a ‘Houseblock’, or ‘C wing’, the unique noise found only in jails rebounded off the walls. Prisoners from the three landing tiers streamed down to get their dinner: old faces, young faces, black and white – it could have been anywhere in the world. But these were broken men, in one way or another. Their eyes said it all.

No fairground could boast of a ghost train as fearful as the one that led up to the 3’s. Each iron step was a railing towards oblivion. Hours, days, weeks, months, years – spent in a space no bigger than a cage. One by one, the cell doors slammed shut. Each was an echo of a life destroyed; a repetition of heartache and pain.

Would there always be someone behind these doors?

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