Dreams

One Morning

"Just wait. One morning, we'll just walk, and we'll be free. See 'em out there?" He pointed towards the large double doors at the end of the hall. "Once you go out those, you're free forever. Anyone who has ever gone out has never come back."

To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to it. The doors had always just been doors to me and nothing more, just like any other bleak portals in the prison, always leading into another concrete hallway, like an endless labyrthinth of more and more prion. The thought that freedom might be on the other side never crossed my mind: freedom, to me, was something absent, a total abstraction. After twenty years of imprisonment, pacing tracks into my cell, freedom didn't exist. 

I should have of suspected as much, however, given the tense excitement of all the inmates whenever it was mentioned. Every morning, when the warden would call role in the cafeteria during breakfast, he would chose one prisoner to walk through the doors - a special role called the 'elective'.

"And today's elective....." said the warden, flipping through the papers on his clipboard in front of the assembly, " is Mr. Robert Rice."

A unanimous groan sounded around the room, most disappointed that it wasn't themselves.

"Mr. Rice, please report to the warden's office at nine sharp this morning. Thank you everyone, and return to your schedules."

Except no one wanted to return to their schedules. Breakfast was always the same: cold mashed potatoes with a splash of gravy. Lunch was always the same: cold mashed potatoes with a splash of gravy. Dinner was always the same: cold mashed potatoes with a splash of goddamed gravy. Everyone wanted to be the elective. What was beyond that door? Nobody knew. They could only conjecture: whatever it was, regardless, no body ever came back.

The door become this sort of mystery and a air of paranoia gathered around it.

"Did you hear from Robert yet?" asked a prisoner to another as they scrubbed the bathroom floors. "Dod he make it?"

"Sure did," said the other, in a whisper. "Cleaned out of here real quick. Said he's headed to Chicago with six-hundred bucks in his pocket and a cadillac. Said they lead you out of the door, give you a fresh set of clothes and car keys and you're scott-free."

"His record?" asked the first man.

"Clean as a whistle."

"Jeee-sus, what I wouldn't give to be him..."

And life went on as it had been, uneventful and bland, until this afternoon as I talked with my cellmate about the door in the small period of time after dinner and before lights out at eleven, huddled around a battered wooden bench in the common area. He had made plans concerning our release, and had arranged a small pocket of money for us once we got out. He had some connections with the guards, which he had forged over many months in prison, and he claimed that he could get us through without a hitch.

"How sure are you of this plan?" I asked. "I can't take any risks." It was true: one more mistake, and that was it for me .

He shook his head. "Airtight, man. Airtight."

The bell rang, and a call from the guards signified the final lights out.

"Alright," he said, smiling thinly, "Catch you tomorrow. We're gonna be free, soon enough."

The truth was, my hands were tied. I would have to try to escape; there was no other choice. God only knows how long it would take to be elected: what was the process of getting elected anyways? Who elected who was to be set free and who was to stay? How long was it going to be before I was going to get elected? I had no idea.