Vignette from the Prison
The warden was a man of strange compassion. Years working this obscure detail had invested in him a preternatural sense of guilt and innocence - a gift which apparently could not have simply been gifted to the judge, whose job it was to know such things.
The man before him, his chin supported by the none-too-tender leather riding crop pushing up against his throat, was guilty. If he was guilty, he was meant to be here, and he was meant to work his sentence.
“In the morning,” barked the warden, “you will be up and working before your arse realises it’s out of bed, do you hear me?”
The man struggled to breathe, and nodded. He was guilty. All he had to do was wait out his sentence, at which point he would become innocent once more, absolved of his misdeeds by some curious preconception of the law. For that man, time will drag its heels but the day of his freedom would seem like it was already near.
The next man was dragged, kicking and foaming like a rabid dog, struggling to escape the captivity of law. He looked into the warden’s eyes with hateful mistrust. He’d been brought here against his will. The law had betrayed him, why wouldn’t the warden oppress him? The warden looked deep into his eyes and saw the hateful gleam of innocence staring back at him. That refugee gleam didn’t belong in this place. The eyes didn’t belong in this pit of sinners, and thus neither did the man. If the warden had the power, he’d simply boot men like this out on the street after twenty lashes and warn them never to be in the wrong place at the wrong time again for as long as they drew breath. But if the warden had that kind of power, he probably wouldn’t be able to devote so much time to standing in this obscure detail, watching prisoners come in or crawl out. Inwardly he sighed, but outwardly he was already belting the prisoner across the jaw.
“You villainous cur!” he shouted. “What is your crime?”
“Innocent!” rasped the man. “I’m innocent!”
“They all say that,” growled the warden. That was true. “But I don’t listen to ‘em! You’re a thief, a murderer and a traitor, my boy! That’s what you are.” None of this was true.
“Very true,” interjected the magistrate, stepping out from beneath the shadows. The warden caught a familiar glint in the man’s eye. The man was as guilty as they come, of everything possible for a man to be guilty of. “This man is an enemy of the state, and must be treated as harshly as your office will allow you to treat a man.”
The warden nodded in absolute agreement. The placard around the man’s neck said that he had 15 years to languish in this hell-hole. The warden didn’t expect to live that long, but he didn’t expect the man would outlive him if the judge had his way.
“Go back to your court, your honour,” he grimaced. “Send me some more men like this, won’t you?”
The magistrate was startled, but nodded his assent.
The prisoner waited in silence and darkness for another moment. The warden wheeled on him, delivering a vicious left hook, liberating a tooth from the captive’s mouth.
“A man like you doesn’t need rest,” he declared. “It’s hard labour for you, night and day, night and day. You don’t rest till you pass out. You don’t eat till you can’t move. You don’t drink till you can’t lift a pickaxe. If I find you lying on the ground, I will crush your skull beneath my boot in that instant.” The last statement was mostly bravura for the retreating magistrate, but his men recognised the tone in his voice. Innocence.
The man was dragged away, kicking and screaming for children he would most likely never see again. There were no more prisoners in the room, just himself and his men. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The innocent victims brought here often ended up just staring at the wall, moaning for their loved ones. Give them even a moment of time to reflect on what they’d lost, and they lost themselves as well. For some of the most hardened criminals he kept inside these walls, prison was a stop-over between crimes, a place where you simply waited and marked time until you killed or robbed again. For this man, prison was an unnatural place, and every moment would make itself known, gnawing at his consciousness. But the sooner he was broken down, the better for his own mind.
The warden was a man of strange compassion.