The Art of Solitude

"Should I open the door?" she asked herself as she walked past the jail cell. "No, maybe I shouldn't. I have never done these before. Dealing with these types of people is so difficult." She stared at the table inside. There were a few notebooks apart and a book named, "The Art of Solitude." The book always attracted her. "The Art of Solitude", a very interesting name. The name was written by hand. Is that red ink or he literally drew the cover with blood? It looked like blood. She slightly knocked the door of the cell. The prisoner turned around from the bed and said, "Hey miss, what brings you here today?"

She smiled, "What is that book about? I am always intrigued by the name. Like you have been sentenced here for atleast seven years, that too solitary. Why do you have a book that calls solitude to be an art?" The scene was simple. She was about twenty-five years old. She was the daughter of the old jailer and she used to come here sometimes with her father. The prisoner, on the other hand, Rakesh, was convicted for serial murders. He was younger than her, probably twenty-three. Still, seven murders in a year and in such interesting ways and no clue to the investigating officers. Starting with his own family members. "Solitude is an art, isn't it? You stay alone, you converse with your own thoughts, you can iterate and reiterate on your plans and how you will do or approach something." She said, "Yeah, I understand your point of view. I read your case as well. Very interesting. You legit spend weeks locked yourself in your own room before each murder. You had zero interaction with anyone at that time. How did you manage to plan everything?

"Did you ever hear of computer simulations, miss?" Rakesh said. "Yeah, I myself use them for my studies. Don't say you used social simulation networks. It is a crazy thing."

- "No, I didn't use any computer aided tools. Did you ever know that you can force your brain to be in a state of semi-lucid sleep and simulate scenarios? It is just like computer simulations, but you don't need to use anything. But then again, it is difficult, and it needs a lot of practice. Correct breathing pattern, correct muscle movement pattern, everything. Otherwise, you fall into a limbo."

- "What is a limbo?"

- "Jeez, did you never watch Inception? Unconstructed dream space; raw infinite subconsciousness."

- "You mean that? Is that not just fiction?"

- "Fiction? Hell no. I have been there myself. And trust me, every part of that movie is effing accurate. Except that shared dreaming thing. Current technology is not so capable of doing that. Everything else is super accurate."

- "So, you mean layered dreaming is true?"

- "A dream within a dream? Hell yeah. That is where I plan my actions. And trust me, since we have a lot of time down there, it gives me more time to plan every step."

- "Where did you learn these?"

- "Learn what?"

- "These, about dream."

- "Why do you want to know?" Rakesh asked firmly.

- "I am just curious. Like you could have used this in other ways as well, instead of for murders."

- "Oh yes, I did them. When I used to be in the college, I used this limbo for studying and practicing the academic stuff."

- "That's intriguing. Why did you take this path then?"

- "That is too easy. You see, the jail walls are high, but the north side wall has trees beside which I can climb. Now, talking about the live wires that run over the fencing, it is a bit tricky. I have seen that all connections to the jail come from a single power distribution box with no added miniature circuit breakers. Same supply comes to the jail bathroom lights. I just have to break a light in the bathroom and throw a mug of water on it to short-circuit the line, resulting in a failure of the circuit breaker. This would give me precisely 3 minutes to run to the north-side wall, climb the tree and jump out. Now, there might be guards but they go for lunch around 2 PM. Pretty easy to escape from here."