The Prisoner

     A melancholy valley just north of our city harbors a deep and dark secret few know and even fewer will speak of. Drive east on Pantranco as it bisects the business district towers that hold the engines which drive our robust economy, until it crosses Edsa. Edsa, unlike Pantranco, winds through low hills, studded with fine homes. Many drivers of the businesses that line Pantranco built exquisite mansions, occasionally glimpsed behind ivy covered walls and screens of ancient and spreading oak, laurel, and hawthorn trees. Eventually Edsa twists out of the tony neighborhoods, passing through haphazard collections of increasingly modest environs until deadending into Wurzbach Ave; surrounded by the shanties of new arrivals and day-laborers. Wurzbach runs north between vast hulking factories; piles of soot smeared bricks that belch noxious plumes which spread across the district. Eventually the sweatshops, warehouses, and freight-yards taper off and Wurzbach slips under the turnpike, sheds a few lanes as it disappears into craggy hills.

     Most people do not pass the turnpike-boundary; very few even know of the district and the story that lurks on the edge of the city.  Within a few blocks, Wurzbach sheds the pretense of name, becoming a two-lane blacktop that winds in between increasingly wild hills. Highway maintenance crews rarely venture out this far. Weeds and scruffy bushes soon march up to the edge of the lumpy tar-striped road. If you pay attention you may spot a dingy white sign with nondescript black block letters, hanging slightly askew on a roughly welded iron pipe frame. Underneath the words, Falstaff Correctional Facility, an arrow points you down an even narrower rutted road.

     Now, twisted ancient oak trees line the road, reaching out for the periodic passing truck or car; all the while doing their best to block the few rays of sun that slip past the interminable clouds and mist. Dark, devoid of color, the craggy toothy ridges suck up hope as you pass. The road follows a ravine which passes between hills that continuously creep closer, steep cliffs threatening all passers with periodic landslides and the isolated boulder. After a few miles the ravine debouches into a small box canyon, home to Falstaff Correctional Facility, known the inmate and correctional officer alike as FCF.

     Built several decades ago, FCF, a moldering pile of roughly hewn stone, exudes isolation and despair being literally and figuratively at the end of the road. A windowless edifice garlanded with rusted coils of razor-wire fills most of the small valley. The small gravel parking lot swallows up the road. An arched, portcullis guarded, entry consumes far more than it releases. Rusty iron letters stapled in an arc above the entry point proclaim, “Pass this portal to pay your penalty.” Mirror-windowed strongpoints guard each corner and the midpoints of all walls. A single smokestack points an accusing finger at the leaden sky. This is the place where society discards the unwanted, undesirable, and incorrigible. Citizens send those they wish to forget, even the correctional officers, to this dark, desolate corner of the landscape. As the weary and warry traveler reaches the inside, passing through the narrow dripping tunnel, what little hope remains slowly fades away.

     Deep inside one of the cell-blocks a small, rusty iron door guards a winding staircase which descends into a dark subterranean space far below the surface.  A few dim caged bulbs scatter desultory light into this grim, lonely space. At one end of the hall another ancient rusty door, pierced by tiny barred window, guards the worst offender in the facility. Next to the door a malevolent guard slouches on a decrepit gray metal chair; his neural-enforcer propped against the wall, close at hand. He waits out his shift, guarding the monstrous criminal society wants to forget. Mounted on the grimy wall, a black-Bakelite telephone provides a tenuous connection to the world above. What heinous crime incarcerated the man behind the door; forgotten and discarded? The phone on the wall comes to life, its clattering ring echoing off the dark, moist stone walls barely visible in the gloomy distance.

     Surprised, the guard stares uncomprehendingly for a few moments at the phone wonder filling his porcine face. Which is more surprising; the fact that the ringer works or someone would have cause to call all the way down to this cell? Heaving his bulk up on spindly legs, the guard snatches the phone from its cradle, “Yes,” he mumbles, “You want the prisoner now? Yessir, right way.”

     Bemused, he fishes an old skeleton key from the small jingling cluster clipped to his belt. Picking up the neural-enforce, he raps the door with it. “Hey you,” he grunts, “get up!” A hideous liquid grunting and scraping slips past the small window in the door. Slowly, something very heavy makes its way to the door. As it draws near the door, a malodorous wind surges with it, the reek gaging the guard. The door creaks open with agonizing slowness as the guard strains at the handle; rust slowly drifting off the nearly immobile hinges. Ducking slightly to clear the lintel, the criminal shuffles out, heavy iron fetters binding his arms and hobbling his feet.

     As the criminal steps into the dim circle of light the guard barely stifles a gag. Unrecognizable as a human the monstrous criminal stands, panting slightly, covered in a thick layer of black slimy moss. A quick poke in the ribs with the neural-enforcer elicits an agonized bellow from the criminal. “Com-on you!” huffs the guard, “Enough complaining. Your day has come. You knew it was coming and I’m glad it’s here.” Slowly, painfully the criminal shuffles down the dark cavern as the guard follows, disappearing into the gloomy darkness.

     At the end of a long steamy corridor a small group of guards wait. A small group of dark suited officials gather on the witness balcony.  At one end of the room an ominous machine waits, thrumming slightly. Conduits and leads emit a soft green glow as engineers clad in heavy leather aprons and goggles adjust various taps, vernires and dials. One of the witnessing officials inquires, “Is The Light of Justice ready?” One of the goggled men turns, nodding in ascent. Slowly the condemned makes his painful way into the room as a gaggle of neural-enforcer equipped guards keep watchful eye on the monster. As the iniquitous transgressor mounts a slightly elevated pad a small group of guards steps over and quickly shackles it to large staples set in the basalt floor.

     “Transgressor,” an unseen speaker bellows, “You stand condemned of unspeakable crimes of humanity. You have been sentenced to stand in the unremitting light of justice. The state will now execute your sentence. Do you have anything to say?”

     The creature slowly shakes his bowed head as chains scrape and clank.

     “Officers, do your duty,” commands the unseen speaker. At the command, the leather clad officers spring into action and a huge lens swings up as a throbbing hum fills the cavern. Slowly, inexorably a

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green glow fills the lens rapidly shifting into blazing white. With an audible snap a shaft of brilliant light leaps from the lens stabbing at the dark slimy mass, shackled to the floor. An agonized bellow fills the room.

     Alone in the harsh, burning light of justice the monster writhes and cries out as the hum grows. Smoke and popping competes with the throbbing machine. All the witnesses and guards shield their eyes from the bright stabbing light and writhing smoking mass. Capacitors expended the light snaps off. The criminal, strangely diminished, stands smoke drifting up from glowing spots.

     “Again,” the speaker commands, and the light flashes out once more and a harrowing bellow fills the air. This time the light continues to burn until the monster collapses with a death rattle in a smoking ruin. One of the guards steps forth and checks the condemned for signs of life.

     “He’s dead,” the guard announces.

     “Put him back in the cell and seal the door.” The guards move forward and drag the smoking carcass away.

     Three cycles later a clangor rouses the guard sleeping outside the sealed cell. “Quiet in there,” he shouts! Despite his repeated commands the commotion continues. Eventually, curiosity aroused, he steps to the door, peers in, and then unlocks it. It slowly swings open and with a hiss the guard steps back. A slight dark-haired bearded man steps out and smiles at the guard.

     The sun breaks through the clouds as the portcullis slowly creaks up. The slight dark-haired man steps out into the unusual light. Slowly turning, he smiles and strides down the road.