As
the black of night un-shaded to gray—with the morning dawn light
fighting against the cumulonimbus clouds and spinning winds outside—a
glimmer of sunshine peeked through a needle-sized hole in the
tempestuous billow above the isolated and once abandoned prison in
Joliet.
This
newly formed string of sunlight shot into a single cell window fifty
feet above the dirty, weeded grounds on the outer east wall.
As
it entered through the thick bulletproof glass, the ray enhanced,
enlarging into a circular beam about the size of a man’s eye.
Within
the cellar, the window rose roughly fifteen feet above the floor and
was secured by slender, gridded, rusting, and unreachable metal bars.
Finding
a gap between the bars, this tinge of light landed softly atop an
equally slender, rusty creature curled penitently upon a fetid and
grungy cot.
The
cot—supported by a rotting wood bed frame—lay crooked and
off-kilter in the center of the cell, and in the middle of this
mattress slept this creature—a
teenager.
Striking
the top of the young man’s newly shaven scalp—spotted with
numerous slits formed by aggressive cuts from his most recent
shearing—the radiant stream steadily scaled down the prisoner’s
pale and yellowing forehead toward his swollen, purple eyelids.
This
small sensation of incandescence shot like a bullet through the young
man’s baggy eyes to his brain, waking his restless mind before
dissipating as quickly as it came.
Half
opening his collapsed gaze, the juvenile flickered his long, youthful
eye hairs while at the same time rolling the balls of his royal blues
back into the black of his head in slumber; however, this did not
satisfy—he
was sick, shivering, and starving.
He
rolled himself back-and-forth, side-to-side, right-to-left, then
left-to-right on his dirtied and flattened bed in order to claim some
sort of warmth, but soon recoiled once more into the furthermost
center of the cushion in hibernation.
The
miniature springs in the deflated bed stabbed through the top of the
cotton fabric, pricking him incessantly with every minor movement he
made.
These
sticking prods, accompanied by the thundering electricity of the
raining firmament outside, further urged him to wake against his
will.
For
the first time that morning, he released his shut, self-stapled eyes
to reveal the shocks of red which scribbled across the white of his
sclera and bordered his ocean-colored iris as they swirled
perpetually in orbit around the black hole of his pupil—the
gate to his soul.
He
adjusted his legs and felt one last pinhole perforation split the
mantle of the mattress into the crust of his flesh, entering unheeded
into the meat of his back.
The
thorn-like twinge forced a silent yelp out of his mouth as he
simultaneously sprawled in painful annoyance, flinging himself
helplessly upon the stony cold of the concrete floor.
The
thud of his weightless body smacking the ground refused to make a
sound.
All
that could be heard (if one were to listen close enough) would’ve
been the faint exit of empty air puffing out of his hollow lungs upon
impact.
Though
he was blanketless and nearly unclothed—wearing nothing but a
holed, oiled, and once orange-ish jumpsuit (now gritted brown)—he
took to the chilling surface of the slick and cracked gravel below
him as if it were the same green-bedded forest he felt secure him in
uninterrupted sleep just a month previous.
Relaxing
every muscular fiber, his body allowed itself to droop deep into the
tangible rock made corporeal by this sinking of his flesh which
filled the fissures of the cellar floor with his skin, making him one
with his circumstance, one
with the cell.
His
eyes clinched shut as his face shifted from stoicism to distress, to
uncontained emotion, then unrelenting sobs.
Tears
splashed the cellar floor, wetting the nadir with thick greasy
residue formed from the eroded grime once stationed grimly between
the creases of his tear ducts and cheeks.
His
decrepit form compressed once more into fetality as the bottoms of
his individual toes clinched, clutched, clung to the meaty bottoms of
his forefeet.
His
sickly hands and skinny fingers searched to warm his core, though his
boney arms provided little if any radiance as a result.
Endeavoring
to suppress his cries, the youth sought after a greater sense of
solace through increasing his immediate suffering.
Grinding
his flesh against the grated cement beneath him, he tried tirelessly
to produce any type of torridity by means of friction and
self-mutilation.
Perhaps
he thought the warmth conjured from open wounds and his body’s
natural healing processes would clot, scab, and callous against the
frostbite gathering around his frigid limbs.
Only
he, the walls, the ceiling, and especially the frozen floor he sunk
himself into knew.
They
heard him, for they held him through the moans of his sorrow, his
starvation, and his coughing struggles.
They
heard his cursings, his confessions, his prayers, and accepted them
without judgment, condemnation, or response.
This
place connected with him in this moment better than any human ear
could or would.
This
was his new home—it became his, and he resorted to being its.
The
young man strained to pull himself up onto his knees and raised his
face to the window—we
can see him clearly now.
The
scraggles of his pubescent facial hair were bubbling to the surface
in patches on his chin, left jaw, and right cheek while a thin line
of tiny whiskers dotted like a reviving forest sparsely above his
upper lip.
His
two dark brown (nearly black) brows were thick and merging gradually
into unkempt unity.
His
ears appeared normal-sized, though the effects of countless beatings
from inmates and guards were manifesting themselves visibly and
individually as the early stages of cauliflower ear: growing like a
fungus under the skin and inside the encavements surrounding his
earholes.
He
opened his mouth, revealing his gums—blue, almost violet—in the
initial phases of gingivitis.
His
teeth (or what was left of them) were in the midst of decay; one was
still white, most were yellow, others were a lighter brown, and the
remainder either blackened or missing.
We
can see his mouth moving, but no words can be made out—the
walls walled out his voice.
He
raised his half-life arms in anger, shaking his fists in apparent
rage in the direction of the window, which permitted the trickle of
light to sneak through the gloomy sky into his eye—who
was he speaking to though?
He
rose to his feet and stepped slowly, but indignantly—his brow bent
downward, curving incredulously over his narrow gaze—as he closed
the space between himself and the barred glass window above and in
front of him.
He
pointed his right pointer finger toward the window in supposed scorn;
turned himself about and pointed towards (potentially outside) the
white, paint-chipped gates of the cellar; then back again towards the
window.
His
screams were more felt and seen than heard as the veins in his neck
pumped vengeful blood to his weakened appendages in an attempt to
give their strains of contempt strength.
He
wasn’t speaking to the walls, ceiling, doors, floor, or even the
window though, but
through them—at
something, at someone without the structure in the stormy heavens.
He
lifted and threw the oak chair in front of him out of the way to make
his perpetual path to the window more accessible.
The
chair collided with the immovable wall to his left and splintered.
The
reverberation caused the toilet bucket in the corner nearest the wall
to shake, spin, then tip over, spilling excrement across the cellar
bottoms, running fecal matter and urine milkily toward his feet.
He
looked down at the brown slush filling the cracks between his toes
for a long time (what probably to him felt like an eternity) then
back toward the window—the
gate to his soul.
He
turned away from the window for a split second, but quickly turned
about in confusion.
His
eyes eagerly searched through the window for something his shifting
eyes said he heard.
He
moved around the cellar to grasp a glimpse of the object that spurred
the noise.
Chirp,
chirp—a
dove flew past the outer window bringing with it evaporated glum and
a free azure sky.
The
full vivacity of a new dawn blasted itself into the cell.
The
lad closed his eyes to shade himself from the abrupt brightness
blinding him, fell to his knees, and inserted himself into the
flooding pool of his feces until he felt himself swimming in
it—himself, free.
