Stories That Crawled From My Brain

Killing Time

“Good to finally have you with us, Michelle,” said the old prison Governor. He was a small, pale man with huge round spectacles, who looked as if he was drowning in his oversized grey suit.

“Pleased to be here, sir,” said Michelle.

“You no longer have to call me sir, remember, Michelle. I'm no longer your superior. Terry will do just fine.”

Michelle nodded briskly. The old Governor was right. Up to that point, though, she hadn't thought about that aspect of it. And in that moment, it felt good, knowing she would never have to call anyone else sir or madam ever again. Or, at least, as long as she remained in her new post as the new governor of His Majesty’s Prison Winstable. 

HMP Winstable was an old prison, founded in the Georgian era for criminals who had done something too severe to simply be deported to the colonies. It was a prison for murderers and rapists and all the rest of the absolute dregs of humanity, such as those who committed treason or witchcraft. Back then, it was the place they would stay as they awaited the noose, or the firing squad, or in the cases of treason, the four horses. Now, of course, nothing as awful or inhumane as all that happened to the inmates…

Oddly for these sorts of decaying prisons which were either decomissioned and used as museums or, if still in operation, usually used for lower rankings on the prison security A-E scale, it was still a category A, the highest on the security scale. And, instead of having been razed to the ground and replaced with some ulta-modern monster made of concrete and steel, HMP Winstable had instead been repeatedly updated and re-enforced. Michelle presumed that this was because the building was quite beautiful, with Grade Two listed status - and looked like a Georgian manor made of red brick, though instead of being set amongst a manicured landscape, was surrounded by ashpault and by a twenty foot tall walls topped with barbed wire. 

Michelle, of course, being grounded in the normal, orthodox understanding of the world, could never have imagined the real reason so much money had been funneled into the facility. Well, soon, she would no longer need to use her imagination. She would see it for herself.

“Will you indulge me, Michelle?” asked Terry. “This is my last day, and despite the building being full to the gills of the most despicable sorts of people you can find in this fair green land we call England, I've become quite sentimental, and want to walk its halls once again, one last time.”

“Of course, sir - I mean, of course, Terry,” said Michelle. 

Terry smiled a full-faced smile, and he seemed so happy for Michelle's compliance, that every wrinkle on his face joined in with his mouth. 

“Great,” he said, and popped out of the chair with a surprisingly virility for a man his age. Before Michelle could rise out of her own chair, Terry was already at the door to his office, holding it open for her.

“Thanks,” said Michelle, as she followed him out into the hallway. As with all prisons, the hallway walls were built of breezeblocks painted a sort of grey off-white, the ceiling was built of a sort of grey off-white styrofoam panel and the odd blinding white light, and the floor was an austere blue carpet about as thick as a few sheets of paper. In a strange way, the consistency of this felt comforting to Michelle, like the awful smell of old people that reminds you of your grandma's house.

“This way,” said Terry, and he began walking down the hallway, nodding and bidding farewell to each of the short-sleeved white shirted, black tied and little black hatted prison officers, who each looked genuinely upset to see Terry going. 

“Ma'am,’’ each would say to Michelle, each with a touch of recalcitrant fear, each seeming to be a tiny bit afraid of her, their trepidatious eyes avoiding her own. Good, though Michelle. She was not entirely not surprised - she had a not insignificant reputation in His Majesty's Prison Service as a bit of a hardarse, and she had no intention of making any changes to that at HMP Winstable. Whilst the prison was smaller, it was a category A, the highest level within the UK prison system, and the type of individual here required a much firmer hand than those at the much larger B prison for which, in Michelle's previous role, she had been Deputy Governor.