Solitary Refinement Chapter 33

Dear Diary June 18th 2019

It’s been just over a year! The air is so much cleaner and bright out here. Especially after breathing that stale concrete air of prison for so long. I’m so glad I’m out of there. The guard who’d told me he was surprised at how long I’d lasted as Kal’s cellmate, he testified for me in court. Just self defense he said, everybody knew what Kal could be like. The other guard, the one who’d ignored me said much the same. Must have felt guilty.

I’m finally with my kids! Full custody once the divorce was settled, she didn’t even fight me hard on it. I think she and Josh moved downtown to a fancy apartment, good for them I guess. I’ve got the real treasure as far as I’m concerned. The first time I saw them I just stared at them unblinkingly and wept. They’d changed so much, Alister had gotten so much taller and stronger and Nina taller as well. She had gotten longer hair and her face didn’t have as much of the baby fat it had when I left.

I don’t think it really even hit me until after I got released what happened with Liz and Josh and the divorce. She cheated on me, with my best friend, while I was wrongfully imprisoned. Wow to put it into one sentence like that really makes it real. It really happened, I’m a divorcee. I always imagined going home and having Liz in the bed next to me to wake up to. I woke up the first morning and there was just nobody there. Once I realized it was time to move on that things were never going to go back to the way they were, it was like trying to pull off a jacket that was stitched right into your skin. It hurt, in a very private way that I don’t talk about much and I try not to let the kids see. I don’t know if I’ll be able to trust somebody again like I had trusted her, I gave her everything, I shared all of myself and she rejected it. I tried so hard just to please her and do right by her and she left me for my friend. Every time I say it, even write it it’s like shoving a razor blade into my heart. It’s easy for me to say I’m over it, that that was over a year ago and I’m ready to move on. It’s a lie though, I’m not ready, it’s all about the kids now and I’m happy with that.

I’ve learned a lot and changed a lot since I’ve gotten out. When I’m home I’m playing with the kids making blanket forts and racing our bikes and having them help me make pizza and cake and different things like that. We read stories and sometimes make stories up too. It is the absolute best. When I’m not doing that and I’m not cooking at the diner down the street I’m reading books myself. A few months ago I was in the library looking for some new books. I stumbled across this big brown paper bag, full of books. You couldn’t see what was in it, just a mystery bag of library books. ‘Heroes’ was all it said on it. I grabbed it and started reading the stack. There were some fiction and some true stories and the thing that struck me was how different they all were while still residing under the heading of ‘heroes.’

Some were brave and cunning warriors who could defeat any enemy in combat no matter how bad the odds. Other’s were non-violent, creating change with their kindness and patience. Some who were rather silent and provided behind the scenes support for others, things they couldn’t have done without. I suppose courage takes many forms. I don’t know who put this mystery bag together but it was very interesting to see the different interpretations of what it means to be a hero. These heroes were so vastly different from one another yet it is obvious to anyone who reads their stories that they were heroic in their deeds. They were all joined with a passion for justice, but with such different avenues they all explored to get there. Justice, what a joke. Justice has never gotten me anything but trouble and regret. I went in to jail innocent and came out guilty. How messed up is that, after a year of trying to ignore it I can say it’s really not working. I’m not sleeping well again. Now when I close my eyes I’m transported back to that night.

I remember the look in Kal’s eyes when I killed him.

I remember the look in Trevor’s eyes when I killed him.

I remember the look in Ziggy’s eyes when I killed him.

It was the same look I had seen in my own eyes a hundred times in the mirror. I saw the cave in their eyes too. I couldn’t think about it then, I couldn’t have the distraction from what I thought was a terrible but inevitable and necessary duty. The veins in their eyes like roots running along the forest floor, stopping abruptly before the rock. The stone cold unblinking gaze of being petrified with terror the moment before they didn’t feel anything at all. I watched the moment their eyes changed from portraying fright to simply nothing. They were all scared just the same as me, the three people in the entire prison I thought least likely to be afraid. How did they hide it so well? Maybe they didn’t but I didn’t notice because I was so afraid myself. Kal, huge hulking Kal who’d terrified me for months and made it difficult for me to sleep. What had happened to him to make him feel fear? Those are questions I don’t have answers for, all I really know is that I saw the same fear in their eyes as I’d seen in my own. After seeing it I still decided to end their lives. So if I can make those decisions after seeing that those other people were just as frightened as me maybe I’m not a hero. None of the heroes in these books are like that, there’s such a vast array of characteristics but none of them would have done something like that. I’d like to be counted among heroes but I don’t think I can be.

I reminisced on the incident again. I was absolutely in control of my actions, as soon as Trevor walked into my room that night I calculated exactly what was going to happen and it did. Kill Trevor, kill Ziggy, make it look like they killed each other. I didn’t even question it or hesitate or try to reason with the idea I just did it. I executed that plan, with the deft fingers of a man who’s done something a hundred times.

For the first long time after I got free I slept so well, it was wonderful. After a while though I had this dream once or twice a week. A month later it was every other night, now it’s every single night. In this nightmare there was the cave again but different than when I was young. I wasn’t in the forest being dragged into the cave. In this dream I found myself in a dark place, I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of me. I started scratching at the walls, noticing that my fingernails were longer and stronger and sharper than usual. Soon I realized I could see a faint path, and my eyes were different. Everything was grey, no colours to speak of. I followed the path with haggard breath and staggered steps but at a quick pace. Then around a bend a wide opening and three men all looking at me like they want to kill me. I didn’t waste any time, I leapt out from the darkness of this place. To my own astonishment I heard growls and barks come from my own mouth and saw claws long as sabres coming out of my hands, except they weren’t hands. Mercilessly cutting into flesh and tearing the men to pieces, I felt afraid when I did it because they were trying to kill me too but I didn’t stop. When they were dead I took their bodies one by one into what was now clearly the cave and when I was dragging the last one, I saw my own reflection in a puddle. I had long claws, fur, bright green eyes and a lupine face. Long dark snout and nostrils releasing spurts of hot air into the sky. That’s when I woke up. I’d always been curious but too afraid to explore the cave, and now it had explored me and found I belonged there. That I had experienced being both the scared man in the forest and the beast coming from the cave that was also curiously frightened. I couldn’t deny it anymore, the truth was unavoidable. Everybody is scared, and everybody is capable of terrible things.

I’m not so naive anymore, I see people for who they are and I don’t trust everybody so easily now. I see that everybody is looking for the same thing. Everybody wants to feel accepted, like home is a real place. Like somebody could know them through and through and not hate them. People don’t often get that acceptance or feeling of security so they act out, or do things that make them difficult to trust. I just have an easier time seeing the disease rather than just the symptom now.

Prison changed me, made me a person that sees more and understands more. I know I’m not a hero, and there are real people who are heroes. So maybe it’s possible to become a hero, somebody the kids can really look up to. They look up to me now, but they don’t know what I’ve done. The way I talk to them, about homeless people or about mean people we see on the street they probably think I’m passionate about justice just like all the heroes, but I know better. I can’t sleep, this is tearing me apart. I’m a murderer and liar walking free and everybody believes I am simply a wrongly accused man. Some people recognize me from newspapers and say things like, “I’m so sorry,” and, “so tragic, what a world we live in that things like that are even possible.” They don’t know the half of it. It makes me sick, literally. I’m losing weight. I don’t have that much of an appetite these days. I just feel like I don’t deserve it.

Everyday that I am free I feel like the gap between me and the heroes in those books widens and widens.

I can’t get this one quote out of my head, “You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.” Maybe if I had a real passion for justice I’d do something about it, and I think I know what it is too.

It terrifies me.

Well that’s a start.

THE END

P.S. Leave me a message, would love to know what people are thinking.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 32

Dear Diary May 20th 2018

They’ll put me back in general population tonight. They had me in the psych wing for a while to investigate me on account of my saying I wasn’t in control of my own actions when I killed Kal. I heard just earlier today that the man who had ‘hired’ me before I was ever slammed in jail got caught at another robbery. He made a deal to get a few years off of his sentence as he was connected to a whole string of robberies obviously. He admitted that somebody had taken the fall for him before, that they didn’t know what they were involved in. Those dots were quickly connected to me.

Once realizing that I’d actually been telling the truth I was issued a formal apology and cleared of all charges related to the robbery.

There’s still Kal though. Tomorrow they decide if I will be charged with the murder of Kal or if I will be acquitted because I acted in self defense and nothing more. It would help if some people who knew more about Kal would testify on my behalf.

Then there’s what they don’t know about… Trevor… Ziggy.

I did not expect to see Trevor coming in to my room that night. I was in the room trying to sleep without success when the lights went out. Now I’m wondering if it was the storm or if Trevor had Mark or someone else turn the lights off and that’s how he’d gotten into the wing at all. Whatever the case the lights were out. Just the faintest amount of light and it took my eyes a minute to adjust. When they did I saw the silhouette of somebody standing in my doorway.

“About time you got rid of him.” Muttered Trevor’s voice as he slowly walked in. I had forgotten how short he was.

“What the hell are you talking about.” I said to him, I had just killed Kal not long before and had the worst day of my life. Learning about Liz and Josh, I don’t know what happened to me it was both liberating and terrifying. This thought that I’d let things stand in my way that I shouldn’t have. If there are obstacles in my way I should just remove them, the only thing that matters now is getting back to see my children someday, no matter how long it takes and no matter what I have to do. Liberating that I could theoretically just fix this all myself and make it better instead of trying to trust untrustworthy people over and over and over. Terrifying because I didn’t know exactly what I may have to do to get back home unscathed. When Kal was climbing up my bed I just reacted. This was different.

“You finally killed Kal, I was wondering when you’d finally do it.”

“Is that why you told me to protect myself!?”

“You’re so naive, when you walked in hear all those months ago I just new I had to have you. So cute and scared. I tried to get you to trust me but that eventually went south. So then I knew all you needed was a push to get rid of Kal yourself so I could have you moved to my cell. This though, tonight, this is my reward for arranging everything so perfectly.Now I have you, and there is nobody here to protect you and if you don’t cooperate I’ll gut you.” With that he produced a blade from the waist of his pants. I saw it glint in the dim light. It’s strange how I felt in that moment, I wasn’t scared. At first I couldn’t identify what was missing but then I realized I wasn’t afraid, I had been afraid minute of every day since I got here and it had only been getting worse. I had been carrying fear around like a ball and chain getting caught in doors and making me unable to move freely around this place.

It took all of three seconds to decide how I was going to handle the situation, nothing mattered but survival now. I was going to kill Trevor and make it look like Ziggy’s fault and never doubt that it was what was necessary. Once I’d arrived at that decision there was no way that Trevor was going to have his way even when he had a weapon and I didn’t. The gravity of the decision I’d just made combined with the adrenaline that was still coursing through my veins I felt as though I had the strength of ten men inside of myself.

Trevor walked closer and closer and while there was still six feet between us I calmly walked over to the wall where there was a box of gloves, I put on a pair. I turned around, and lunged. He swung and missed with his knife and then I knocked him onto the ground. I was moving so fast there was no way he was going to keep up with me. I grabbed the knife from his hands and threw it across the room and then I punched him in the throat, seven times. Every one of those blows was like a freight train taking out all of the pent up panic and fear and rage and anxiety that I had been carrying inside. Then with both hands I clamped down, hard, harder still. He kicked and tried to scream but no sound came. Movies always make choking someone look like a quickly accomplished task. It is not true. I was there, choking that man to death for over five minutes I’m sure. My grip never loosened and my resolve never wavered. In that moment I didn’t even have a choice, I needed to kill everybody that was threatening the safety of my imprisonment. I remember looking into Trevor’s eyes as he breathed his last breath, or tried to breath it I should say.

Next came Ziggy, I actually liked Ziggy and definitely understand him making security on his own terms now. If he were still alive I might even thank him for that. He was always kind to me, but all the same he had to die. I retrieved Trevor’s knife from the floor and walked over to the room Ziggy was in. I just watched him for a minute. Sleeping peacefully, breathing steadily. I envied him really to be able to sleep so well considering where he was. I regretted not taking his help earlier. No going back though, I raised my knife ready to plunge it into his temple. It was then that his eyes opened.

I didn’t stop.

He was gone in an instant. I don’t want to think about what I saw in his eyes right now either. I set to the work ahead of me. I dragged Trevor back to his own bed and then with much more difficulty moved Ziggy in there too, letting him lie crumpled on the floor. I put the knife in Trevor’s hands.

Removed the gloves.

Started screaming for help.

P.S. Only one chapter left people. Drop me a line let me know what you think.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 31

Dear Honourable Deborah Fletcher May 10 2018

Good morning your honour and the jury. Sorry I’ve never been on webcam before and as I wish to be thorough I have written down my statement so I will be reading it in its entirety. I apologize if that seems rude but I don’t want to miss any details as I know they are important for the jury and their decision.

The events of the night of April 28th 2018 as I experienced them are as follows. I had earlier in the day had the first visit from my wife that I had had in the entire time I had spent incarcerated. I was informed that she was having an affair with my best friend and was seeking a divorce.

Later that night my cellmate Kal attempted to climb into my bunk to assault me. I know this because he had threatened me a week earlier saying he was going to assault me sexually and that I wouldn’t be able to escape him. I had tried to tell a guard once but he simply ignored my worries and told me to get in my cell before lights out.

So on the night of April 28th when Kal made his approach I made a wide slash at his face with a broken knife I had obtained from the kitchen. When he grabbed my wrist and wrenched it free and continued his ascent I grabbed my second knife. This one also obtained from the kitchen that I took cooking classes in. I made a straight lunge into Kal’s throat while both his hands were gripped onto the bed frame ready to swing himself on top of me. He bled down all over his own bed and fell to the ground. I regret my actions and regard them as morally wrong. My actions were done in self defense. Between the jarring news I had received from my wife just hours before, and the threat of this assault made a week prior I was in a state of incredible anxiety and was not in control of my own actions. A guard by the name of Mark then took me to a room in the hospital wing where I would be looked over in the morning to see if I had sustained any injuries myself. I remember walking into the hospital wing, seeing Ziggy in one room, I think he hit his head outside slipping in some mud. I also saw Trevor in another room, I don’t know what was wrong with him or why he was there. I was led to a third room and left to spend the night there. There had been terrible weather, wind and rain that day. There was a brief power outage in the middle of the night for maybe ten minutes, I remember the lights in the hallway going off and it taking a while for them to come back on. In that time the lights were off I heard screaming and smashing in the next room and ran to see what had happened.

In Trevor’s room I saw Ziggy on top of Trevor with his hands closed tightly around his throat, he may have struck him in the throat to start as he was coughing up blood and struggling for air. I ran over to try to pull Ziggy off but just as I grabbed Ziggy by the shoulders Trevor pulled a blade from his pocket and stabbed it through Ziggy’s temple. I got a lot of Ziggy’s blood on my hands and then I was left to watch Ziggy slump off dead and Trevor die shortly after gasping for breath through his shattered windpipe. I went yelling for help and soon people came and told me to go back to my room. Shortly after the lights came back on.

I was surprised at first to see Ziggy attacking Trevor the way he did. I then thought back on some of Ziggy’s past actions, and what I’ve learned about Trevor since and it started to make sense. Ziggy had previously made me an offer to commit violence to protect me from Kal before. Since Trevor’s death I have learned about his past crimes, those of being a serial rapist and pedophile. If Ziggy knew this it would only make it more likely that he would do what he did. His own crimes being ones of vengeance against sexual misconduct, if he learned the truth about Trevor he could have wanted to lay down justice as he saw fit. Trevor and I had up until recently had an agreement that I would do a portion of his chores and he would keep me safe from Kal. Having previously tried to offer me protection, if he learned about the fact that Trevor had retracted his own protection from me from a known sex predator, combined with the knowledge about Trevor’s own gross sexual misconduct I have very little doubt about why he may justify taking matters into his own hands the way he did.

That is the extent of my knowledge concerning the events of the night of April 28th 2018. Thank you Judge Fletcher and the jury.

P.S. Drop me a line!

Solitary Refinement Chapter 28

vagabondprophet:

Dearest Elizabeth April 20th 2018

Liz I don’t have a lot of time. This could be the last letter I send. Last night my cell mate tried to attack me, I managed to keep him at bay but he went to bed with a warning for me. He’s coming for me soon Elizabeth, I don’t know if I can defend myself or escape again. Kal is huge and strong and we are locked in a cage together every night. Guards don’t listen, will you?

I’ll do what I can to survive, I’ll do what I have to do to survive. I want to come home to you one day, it’s all I want. Sometimes I dream about waking up to go to work and it’s bittersweet when I have to kiss you goodbye, but at least you’re there. At least we’re together.

I love you Liz, I always have and I always will. I once believed you loved me too, lately I’ve doubted that. Please disprove my doubts, come visit me. Tell me you love me and miss me too. Tell me some excuse about why you haven’t written, I don’t care I’ll believe it I just want to see your face. If you’ve ever loved me come see me now. Do you remember that cave I told you about? The one in the woods that I’ve always been scared of? Well I feel like I see the entrance in my own eyes every time I walk by a mirror. Like I’m always standing at the mouth of it, not being able to see into it but hearing the scraping noises of something coming my way. That kind of terror is what I’m living with right now. I have a terrible fear that this could be goodbye. I really don’t know what might happen over the next few days.

Sincerely,

Your Husband.

A.N. Getting closer to the end! Would love some reviews, I totally thrive on criticism. Shoot me a line and let me know what you think :D.

vagabondprophet:

Solitary Refinement Chapter 25

Dear Joshua                                          April 3rd 2018

Hey Josh, I think I’m ready to talk to you again I just need to set something straight. Don’t talk bad about my wife. I get it, you see your friend being treated badly by his own wife and you want to say something about it and from your position I can see how you can see it’s not a ridiculous thing to wonder about. I just, I know she wouldn’t do that. If I let my mind wander that way I know that I’ll go crazy. I can’t take it to lose the hope of having my family back again one day.

    So I got confirmation that I’m definitely not overreacting by being freaked out by Kal, just the other day I saw one of the guards that I hadn’t seen in a long time tell me he’d be worried if he was me. He said Kal’s cellmates never last this long and that Kal must be getting frustrated, said to be careful and watch my back. It seems as though the guards can’t do anything about behaviour like Kal’s though, until he actually does something to me and I make an official complaint they can’t move me or him or anything like that. How wonderful it is to have my fears confirmed and then be told that there is no solution available to me. I’m so freaking done, every morning I look in the mirror and I see a frightened pair of eyes in a weary body.

    When I’m not working in the kitchen I’ve been in the library here, I just realized they had one recently. I used to like reading as a kid but as an adult after work and playing with the kids I always felt too tired to read and would fall asleep shortly after ever picking a book up. Now since I can barely sleep anyways I am actually able to read again. They have a few poetry books that I am enjoying, reading over and over as much as I can in the few minutes I have to spare. I love novels, but poetry is different. I’m learning lots of new words from them that I have to look up in the dictionary. It’s just so interesting that the pain and suffering of these poets chose to manifest itself in such beautiful ways. It helps me feel even though I’m going through this terrible season in my life, it can maybe just maybe mean something to somebody.

vagabondprophet:

Solitary Refinement Chapter 24

Dear Diary March 27th 2018

I really noticed my eyes today, I think for maybe the first time ever, or at least since I got in here. Bloodshot, wide gaze, icy blue with not enough pupil. I always liked my eyes, I thought they made me look good, girls like blue eyes right? I saw more than that though, I saw deeper, I saw fear and a panic just barely undercover.

I remember when I was a kid and I’d go for walks through the forest there was this cave my dad always told me to stay away from. It had a wide mouth but you could see the path quickly narrowed, and after a bend it turned pitch black. I never went into it, always curious, but for the warnings I never satisfied that curiosity. My dad never told me what was in there, I asked him he must not have known either. He would always just say some basic dad advice about how you don’t go into the dark unprepared.

Even once I was an adult I never went in there, it’s fostered in me a fear of the dark and what beasts there lurk. Even well into my teens I had nightmares of something coming out of the cave at night, all I could ever see was long claws and glowing eyes. I always hid and it always knew where to find me. I would be snatched by a grip so strong it was like iron, and as I screamed it would pull me turn after turn into the cave. I always woke up screaming and right at the point where the blackness was becoming complete. That was the worst part, that even in my dreams I couldn’t find out what was in there, I just knew that it meant me harm and I couldn’t escape it. Just a vicious blackness, a hungry chasm, a sinister darkness. Something to be feared for sure but having no name for it made it worse I found.

In the mirror this morning I saw the entrance to that cave in my eyes. The thin bloodshot veins leading to the pupil like the roots of trees that stopped before that hellish corridor. No wonder I’ve been afraid lately, I’ve got fear itself living right inside my head. How fitting that it should find a way to colour everything I look at with its hazy hue and awful whispers in my ear. Even when I’ve been so far removed from that forest, all the worst things come with you into prison.

I think it was one of the presidents that said something like, “There is nothing to fear except fear itself.” Okay, wise words to be sure. Not exactly comforting if you see fear itself in the mirror though. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget the cave now that I’ve seen it. What option now but to live in fear? Or go boldly and explore the cave with torches and pitchforks. Only if the entrance to the cave is inside myself, is the beast then also?

Solitary Refinement Chapter 23

vagabondprophet:

Dearest Elizabeth March 20th 2018

I love you. I’ve been wanting to say that again for a while. I couldn’t wait any longer to write you, I tried. I just couldn’t do it. I needed to say it, but to be honest it’s never been as nerve wracking or scary to say that. For the first time in years I was worried that you might not actually feel that way about me anymore. In three short months I will have been here for a full year and I haven’t heard a single word from you, all I’ve gotten from you is my own parcels returned back to me.

Do you have any idea what this is doing to me? Do you remember right after we had started dating I had just got that lousy car? The one that was way louder than it should have been and had a key broken off in the drivers door so I always had to unlock your side first? I wanted to see what the gas gauge looked like when it actually went empty because it’s different in every car, sometimes above the red line sometimes below it remember like I told you? That one day I was driving you to work and I finally ran out of gas and I had forgotten to put some back up gas in the jerry can and you were late by thirty minutes.

I feel something like that car must have felt, like you’re just waiting to see how much of this torture I can take before I finally give up and die. I just want to hear from you. Could you do that, I need to know if you’re safe and alive and happy with the kids. It must be hard with the kids alone, but I promise you there’s no way it’s as bad as being alone without them. I am beyond confusion, like I understood that you would be mad at me that I wound up in prison because of my stupidity but that was nine months ago. No change in heart or missing waking up to me? Just tell me something simple, like how it’s a drag to have to take the garbage out yourself or something like that, I know you hated that. Or how you have to figure out how to make coffee for yourself. Just talk to me for goodness sake, I really need it, I need something to look forward to. If I knew I might be receiving letters from you it would make waking up above my awful cellmate a little less awful. I love you, but I’m kind of losing hope here. Don’t you want your children to speak to their father? I just don’t get it, help me understand.

Sincerely,

Your Husband.

A.N. This isn’t going to go on a whole lot longer. I hope people are enjoying it. Reviews would be lovely.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 28

Dearest Elizabeth April 20th 2018

Liz I don’t have a lot of time. This could be the last letter I send. Last night my cell mate tried to attack me, I managed to keep him at bay but he went to bed with a warning for me. He’s coming for me soon Elizabeth, I don’t know if I can defend myself or escape again. Kal is huge and strong and we are locked in a cage together every night. Guards don’t listen, will you?

I’ll do what I can to survive, I’ll do what I have to do to survive. I want to come home to you one day, it’s all I want. Sometimes I dream about waking up to go to work and it’s bittersweet when I have to kiss you goodbye, but at least you’re there. At least we’re together.

I love you Liz, I always have and I always will. I once believed you loved me too, lately I’ve doubted that. Please disprove my doubts, come visit me. Tell me you love me and miss me too. Tell me some excuse about why you haven’t written, I don’t care I’ll believe it I just want to see your face. If you’ve ever loved me come see me now. Do you remember that cave I told you about? The one in the woods that I’ve always been scared of? Well I feel like I see the entrance in my own eyes every time I walk by a mirror. Like I’m always standing at the mouth of it, not being able to see into it but hearing the scraping noises of something coming my way. That kind of terror is what I’m living with right now. I have a terrible fear that this could be goodbye. I really don’t know what might happen over the next few days.

Sincerely,

Your Husband.

A.N. Getting closer to the end! Would love some reviews, I totally thrive on criticism. Shoot me a line and let me know what you think :D.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 25

Dear Joshua April 3rd 2018

Hey Josh, I think I’m ready to talk to you again I just need to set something straight. Don’t talk bad about my wife. I get it, you see your friend being treated badly by his own wife and you want to say something about it and from your position I can see how you can see it’s not a ridiculous thing to wonder about. I just, I know she wouldn’t do that. If I let my mind wander that way I know that I’ll go crazy. I can’t take it to lose the hope of having my family back again one day.

So I got confirmation that I’m definitely not overreacting by being freaked out by Kal, just the other day I saw one of the guards that I hadn’t seen in a long time tell me he’d be worried if he was me. He said Kal’s cellmates never last this long and that Kal must be getting frustrated, said to be careful and watch my back. It seems as though the guards can’t do anything about behaviour like Kal’s though, until he actually does something to me and I make an official complaint they can’t move me or him or anything like that. How wonderful it is to have my fears confirmed and then be told that there is no solution available to me. I’m so freaking done, every morning I look in the mirror and I see a frightened pair of eyes in a weary body.

When I’m not working in the kitchen I’ve been in the library here, I just realized they had one recently. I used to like reading as a kid but as an adult after work and playing with the kids I always felt too tired to read and would fall asleep shortly after ever picking a book up. Now since I can barely sleep anyways I am actually able to read again. They have a few poetry books that I am enjoying, reading over and over as much as I can in the few minutes I have to spare. I love novels, but poetry is different. I’m learning lots of new words from them that I have to look up in the dictionary. It’s just so interesting that the pain and suffering of these poets chose to manifest itself in such beautiful ways. It helps me feel even though I’m going through this terrible season in my life, it can maybe just maybe mean something to somebody.

Solitary Refinement Chapter 24

Dear Diary March 27th 2018

I really noticed my eyes today, I think for maybe the first time ever, or at least since I got in here. Bloodshot, wide gaze, icy blue with not enough pupil. I always liked my eyes, I thought they made me look good, girls like blue eyes right? I saw more than that though, I saw deeper, I saw fear and a panic just barely undercover.

I remember when I was a kid and I’d go for walks through the forest there was this cave my dad always told me to stay away from. It had a wide mouth but you could see the path quickly narrowed, and after a bend it turned pitch black. I never went into it, always curious, but for the warnings I never satisfied that curiosity. My dad never told me what was in there, I asked him he must not have known either. He would always just say some basic dad advice about how you don’t go into the dark unprepared.

Even once I was an adult I never went in there, it’s fostered in me a fear of the dark and what beasts there lurk. Even well into my teens I had nightmares of something coming out of the cave at night, all I could ever see was long claws and glowing eyes. I always hid and it always knew where to find me. I would be snatched by a grip so strong it was like iron, and as I screamed it would pull me turn after turn into the cave. I always woke up screaming and right at the point where the blackness was becoming complete. That was the worst part, that even in my dreams I couldn’t find out what was in there, I just knew that it meant me harm and I couldn’t escape it. Just a vicious blackness, a hungry chasm, a sinister darkness. Something to be feared for sure but having no name for it made it worse I found.

In the mirror this morning I saw the entrance to that cave in my eyes. The thin bloodshot veins leading to the pupil like the roots of trees that stopped before that hellish corridor. No wonder I’ve been afraid lately, I’ve got fear itself living right inside my head. How fitting that it should find a way to colour everything I look at with its hazy hue and awful whispers in my ear. Even when I’ve been so far removed from that forest, all the worst things come with you into prison.

I think it was one of the presidents that said something like, “There is nothing to fear except fear itself.” Okay, wise words to be sure. Not exactly comforting if you see fear itself in the mirror though. I don’t think I’ll be able to forget the cave now that I’ve seen it. What option now but to live in fear? Or go boldly and explore the cave with torches and pitchforks. Only if the entrance to the cave is inside myself, is the beast then also?