Authors note: Not my best work, but a story sprung to mind so I spent a quick hour jotting it down. I will not be coming back to this, but I hope you enjoy regardless!
The wrong place at the wrong time is a saying that can relate to many aspects of life. Not many end up in prison because of it. A cold blistery night, Jack Hobbs makes his way home from a club, drunk and disorientated. Snow batters against his face and through teary eyes, he notices a scuffle going on in the ally. Jack was a trained boxer, aged 19 and already on 16 wins, 0 losses, 14 by KO. This wouldn't exactly do him any favours come his impending court date. He approached the scuffle and made out two men and a woman, whose screams were being muffled by some sort of cloth stuffed into her mouth. Jack's vision came back and he saw red when he realised what was happening. A flurry of fists later and Jack, having just potentially saved a girl from rape, if not death, was now due in court on a GBH charge.
10 years, for protecting a girl, Jack now had to spend 10 years inside a prison, a 19 year old mixed in with hardened criminals. It wasn't easy for Jack, he was stabbed numerous times, beaten, raped and all whilst trying to stay clean, be good and attend rehabilitation classes. The 10 years came around slowly. At times he wanted to quit, but he carried on, he tried to stay on top of things. He knew if he retaliated, if he harmed anyone, his sentence would be increased and it would be an age before he was released. He carried on training when he could, he was not the smallest person, but his lack of retaliation kept him as a target for years.
When he finally got out, the world was different. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow, with no memory of the past 10 years, no memory of the technology, no memory of the changes that have occurred. The world was strange to him. An intelligent boy before. An uneducated man after. You hear about a lot of people who are unable to adapt to the outside once leaving prison. For Jack it was no different. He was banned from fighting, the thing his life had revolved around. He gave his life two weeks. All his friends had abandoned him, his family had disowned him, he couldn't get a job and his life was in tatters. All this time waiting, but what for. He took a knife from one of his drawers, sat in the bath and slit his wrists. It took a week for the police to find his body, and only due to him missing his parole. The local papers read: 'Local thug commits suicide after failing to adapt from prison life'. A single person gave their respects to the dead man. The girl he saved 10 years ago, she paid for a funeral that only she attended and planted flowers for him on a regular basis. A villain to the world, a hero to a single person. The woman went on to lead a happy life, she married and had children. This was the legacy that Jack left behind.
