The Prison Cell.

  The large iron bars locked behind me as I decorated my new home for the next ten years. The concrete walls had been etched with tally marks from the despicable felons before me. The rust on the window bars resembled the last moment of a New England summer sunset. Fittingly, this was my summer sunset. In the corner of the room was my cellmate. He was a large dark skinned man. His face scowled with hatred and contempt for the world around him. His body was riddled with scars. The scars on his back were thick and raised. Their red hue made me think they were recent. Turns out they were.
   "What ya in for?" He asked right away.
   "I'm just in to do my time." I said. And then I sat down on the bench across the room from him. Our knees were almost touching.
   "How much time you get?" He asked again.
   "Ten years." I replied.
   " Well goddam you musta done somethin' white boy. What was it you done?"
   "I killed a man" I lied.
   "You didn't kill nobody. Do you think I'm dumb or somethin'? Just 'cause I'm not articulate doesn't mean I was born yesterday. You don't get just 10 years for murder. Come on now, we're gonna be livin' together for a long time, what'd you do?"
  "Fine, fine, goddammit you're pushy. I robbed a bank and got caught. And I fled before my court date. They caught me in Chicago. So there, that's my story. What's yours?"
  He looked down at his feet for a moment. He put his hands out and began to look at them as if he were looking at a photograph. I could tell they were calloused like stones. His voice trembled, " What they tell me I was out on a boat in the ocean, I was a fisherman you see. And they arrested me for fishin' where I wasn't suppose to be fishin' I guess."
 I started laughing, "Haha, that's bullshit. Really, what'd you do."
   "I'm tellin' you the truth", he yelled. He jumped out of his chair and his eyes filled with rage.
   "Okay, okay." Out of fear I changed the subject. "So how long have you been in here?" I asked.
   "Ever since I can remember, since a child" he said. "One day I asked a guard why I was in here, you see. And that's what he told me, that's what I did. When I asked him when I could go, he told me he didn't know. Probably never. See, every time my probation comes up, or I get enough money to get outta here, they say I've been bad and need to work off my bad deeds. But I don't remember if I did anything wrong, see. I'm thinkin' the warden just wants me to keep workin' here 'til I'm dead."
   "One day you'll be gone. I'll be sure of it. You just need to start planning a way." I reassured him. "But now I'm tired, what do they got to read in this dump?"
   He sat down again, "Read? read? They don't let you read anything in here? Are you kiddin'?"
   "What? Why not?"
   "They don't want us gettin' any ideas, you see. Of escape" he said.
 I got up off the bench and looked passed the rusted iron bars at the scenery around me. The overgrown crops go on for miles and miles. The rolling hills are never ending. The iron shackles around the prisoner's ankles in the courtyard send shivers down my spine. I can see the fat warden in his penthouse next to the sniper tower laughing with his guards. God I wish his glutinous fat body was dragged through the streets like mine was. Near the entrance the dried blood from the prisoners who refused to work that day turns black in the fading daylight. And here I am in this prison cell. Soon to lose the feeling of freedom like my cellmate. And become a mindless drone of work and labor for the gun toting guards. I soon feel myself coming short of breath and hyperventilation.
   "Woah, come on now, sit down before you go crazy boy" my cellmate said. He grabbed my arm gently and I fell to the floor. Suddenly my eyes became fascinated with one of the concrete blocks under the bunk. It was slightly smaller than the rest of the blocks and there was an edge of empty black around it. I poked it with my hand and it slid like a drawer. I pulled it open. It was a box. My cellmate got down on his knees with me and looked me in the eye. He gave me a nod. I opened it up and inside was the King James Bible.
   "We're saved!" I screamed. My cellmate started to cry.
   "What is it?" I asked.
   "I can't read" he said.
    I put my hand on his shoulder, "I'll teach you. For now, I'll read it to you." I opened up to Exodus and started reading to my cellmate, careful to make sure no guard saw me with a book.