Solitary Refinement Chapter 8

vagabondprophet:

Dear Joshua       September 20th 2017

So I’ve been working a lot around here. There’s labour type of stuff to do all the time like raking leaves or mopping or washing dishes. They give you credit to trade for a handful of stuff they have on a list they pass around. I’m hoping to see if I can get something for Nina’s birthday and send it to her. I haven’t seen the list yet I don’t know what’s on it if there isn’t anything good on it maybe I can send you something worth the right amount and you could pick up the thing I have in mind and drop it off at the house? I know it’s asking a lot but I’m grasping at straws here man.

When I was working the other day raking leaves in the yard, I saw over my shoulder Kal sitting on a bench just staring at me. I don’t think he even blinked he was glaring at me so intently. We made eye contact and he wouldn’t break it. Luckily Trevor came over and started talking to me, Kal got up and left then kicking at the ground on his way. That dude really makes me worried.

Trevor knows some of the guards pretty well and has been introducing me to a few. The one I’ve interacted with the most is a guy named Mark. His shift is always changing but when he’s on nights he watches our cell block, does a walk up and down every half hour to make sure lights stay out after eleven PM. Mark is okay, he’s nicer to Trevor than he is to me but so are a lot of people. It seems like Trevor knows everybody he always gets extra dessert and at breakfast the cafeteria workers make sure he gets fresh coffee instead of old stuff.  This Mark guy though, he’s really tall, like two full heads taller than Trevor and his curly dark hair makes him look like an asparagus. I want him to like me it just seems like he’s the kind of guy where his favour is earned or maybe even bought? I wonder what Trevor did to make him like him. I’ve been trying to figure out if people are just nice to him because he’s such a likeable dude or if it’s like respect or something.

I listen to him because Kal leaves me alone any time he’s around, I feel like he keeps me safe and so ya I’m loyal, so a few times I’ve raked his patch of leaves while he sat down and smoked. He hasn’t asked me to do anything bad, nothing that would get me in trouble.  You don’t have to worry about anything like that.

The stuff I find myself missing here isn’t what I expected I would. I expected to miss the kids and Liz and I do, but it’s the other stuff that I’m surprised by. Stuff like music and colour. Sometimes I find myself lost in this day dream staring into my tray of food in the cafeteria, where everything’s the same colour and I sit in a monochrome prison. The only flash of colour is the orange we all wear, like we’ve all been literally painted with the same brush by somebody who only sees what they want to see and what they want to see is wickedness. In this day dream I’m lost in an art museum and I couldn’t be happier. I used to hate getting lost almost as much as I hated art museums. A place where you have to be quiet and silently admire things you can’t touch and can only look at from a distance.

I preferred to walk in the forest where the art didn’t have to be transported there by trucks but is just what ought to be there, necessarily beautiful. When I used to walk in the woods I would be silent just as I would be in the museum but not because of rules, because taking it all in took all of me not just my eyesight. The crunch of leaves underneath my feet, the colours of the leaves and the sky, the sound of the birds, the smell of rushing water. It always gave me the feeling that everything that was beautiful there was experiencing me rather than the other way around. Like the beauty around me judged me and found me wanting, but still wanted me there.

If you’d have asked me back then if I wanted to go see a new art exhibit I’d have said no, I’d have told you I had the good fortune of waking up next to true beauty every morning.

This dream of the museum however is different altogether. As I wander through the halls I find a painting on my left a colour I don’t know the name of and it speaks without words and says,

“I make you hungry.”

I keep walking and find a sculpture on my right that says,

“This makes you happy, you’re experiencing joy now.”

I keep walking, aimlessly but happily towards whatever pleases my eye. An endless catalogue of dictated emotions felt with full force.

“You miss your grandfather.”

“You’re scared now and you want your mother.”

I love it, riding such a poignant roller coaster it’s exhilarating but it always ends the same way.

“Hey! Hey man!”

“What?” I come back to the real world a little disoriented .

“You okay?”

“Yeah fine, just tired.”

“Alright dude, you do that a lot.” And then Trevor goes back to his food while I resume my plate of mashed potatoes with pale gravy complete with bland pork and a dry salad. Then once I finish eating I get up and walk back to my cell or to do some work and I realize that all day I haven’t heard any music. It’s been months since I heard a sound designed to please the ear.

Sorry to ramble on there, if I talk about feelings or anything like that to people here they’ll think I’m weak or like they can walk all over me. So I spill it all into my letters to you, that’s not fair to put that all on you. I’ll try to find a journal around here somewhere to write all that stuff down in, like my day dreams and things like that. I’ll let you know once I see that list of stuff and if you can expect something from me soon to get to Nina for her birthday.