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ForumsInteractive Story Board → Not really interactive, but a story anyway
Not really interactive, but a story anyway
1999-10-11, 9:56 AM #1
If this is too long, feel free to delete it. I wrote this for my creative writing class, so tell me what you think!

N. 541
Elliot Boutin

Sleepy Hollow has been there for as long as anyone could remember. That was saying something around here at The Bluffs high security prison. Here, the inmates never leave; they just are simply deposited, ridding the world of its moral waste. The warden here takes pride of being the dumpster of scum in the region, and the prison’s conditions show it. We’re forced to scrub the floors to a point where even a blind man could see his reflection staring back at him from the ground. Sure, there are other menial tasks abound, but this is mine, and mine for life. It’s like everything else here: once you’re assigned, there’s no turning back. And any hope of getting out of here is as false as the shiny, ebony floor, which is coincidentally the first thing that is treaded on.
Anyway, I’m number 541. I have a real name, sure, but that doesn’t matter around here. Personality leads to unrest, as the warden would so eloquently put it. And to strip us of that, what wouldn’t be better than a hefty chunk of solitary confinement each day? It never changes; at five A.M., I’m bullied down the corridor to the psychiatric ward, subject to the random blows from the chuckling guards. That doesn’t bother me, I can take the abuse. The worst is yet to come. Solitary confinement will break any normal man in a matter of days. Sure, they’ll look fine the first few days, but you have to look close. Really close. In his body, there is a reaction transpiring, more complicated then any nuclear reactor. It starts out slow enough, with the poor fool cursing those who got him in here, blaming all his faults on them. Events from the past will become hazy and distorted, manifesting itself in a schizophrenic outlook on life. After his sanity erodes away into nothing, the prisoner resorts to violence. I’ve seen them throw themselves from side to side in their cells, subjecting themselves to the heartless impact of the frigid concrete walls. Number 468 was found hanging naked the other week, using his clothes as a noose. Ingenious to the end, that one was. Anyway, as I said, solitary confinement will break a normal man. But then again, I’m no normal man. I may be beaten in theory, but I still have one thing that they can’t have. What is that, you ask? That’s me. Sure, they have my flesh, they have my possessions, but they can’t have the fire that burns inside me. They can try to stomp it out through starvation, they can try to quench it with hours of solitary confinement, and hell, they’ll even beat me to extinguish it. For that fire is the most dangerous thing here at the Bluffs, and everyone knows it.
Their latest method of stripping me of my spirit is psychology. For this, I go once a day before my hours of solitary confinement to the office of the esteemed Dr. Hertzwelder on the west side of the penitentiary. Like our rationed mush, it’s the same thing every day. I sit on his dusty, lavender couch and mindlessly answer his inane questions.
“So, Five-Hundred Forty-One, How are you today?” He will open.
“I’ve been better,” I’ll retort bluntly.
At this point he’ll jot something down in his notebook. “Indeed. Let’s get started, shall we?”
“Shoot,” I’ll mutter, mind in another place at the moment.
“I feel that we made some process yesterday. Let’s jump back into that. Tell me a bit more about your brother.” His beard will twitch, mocking me. Look at me, 541. I’m educated; I’m better than you.
Blinking away the thought, I make something up. “He wasn’t a bad guy, got mixed up in a street gang. Got shot, that was about it.
“Indeed,” he’ll answer, “right here it says he lives in Tampa with a wife and three kids.” He reclines triumphantly, eyes focusing on me. I caught you, 541. Why do you lie? Don’t answer that, I already know. It’s because you’re street crap, you’ll always be street crap.
Biting my lip to keep my sharp comments out, I respond nonchalantly, “Really? Interesting.”
Nice try, street crap. I know you’re lying. It’s all that street crap like you can do. That and kill their own parents.
That’s when my head will begin to buzz. I’ll get all dizzy and close my eyes, moaning like a beached whale. Hertzwelder will smirk for a moment, then phones the nurse. After I receive my shot of tranquilizer, I’ll be lead down to Sleepy Hollow like a docile pup.
The solitary confinement wing, or Sleepy Hollow as we so affectionately call it, is simply a colorless kennel, devoid of any sound. A cell consists of a stone bed and a bedpan. The smell of human waste is staggering, and when inhaled over a period of seven hours, often causes fainting. The guards snicker as we gasp over the fumes, as they are instructed not to clear the rooms out until our shifts are over. So we are left to our own devices, supposedly to repent our past deeds. I block these as far away as I can, focusing on the problems out there. People don’t know evil out there, sheltered in their suburban, middle class houses. How can you expect them to be able to understand what it is that I fight against? Drug pushers, prostitutes, drive by shootings and thievery were all aspects of my daily life. When a man gets shot, you people cringe. The only way to stay sane out there is to laugh. I laugh at fear, I laugh at death, misery, and poverty; that is the only remedy. The only way to combat the psychological effects evil is laughter. And guess what, all you scholars and intellectuals? I didn’t learn that from a book.
“I apologize for yesterday’s session,” Hertzwelder opens, “I hope today is much better.”
I nod in agreement.
“Let’s stray from that topic, shall we? In fact, let’s do something else entirely. I’m going to show you these pictures, and you tell me what you think of them, alright?”
I brought my arm out to meet his and received the cards. It was a Rorsarch test, how trite. “I see nothing in this picture, it’s just a smudge. This one too, oh and same thing here. Surprising.” I scattered the blots over his chestnut coffee table, and sat back, arms folded across my chest. He, to my surprise, did nothing but quickly write a note in his pad.
“Alright, may I ask you one question?” I demand of Hertzwelder.
This time, it is he who nods. The buzzing begins.
“Why?” I ask.
His tongue trips over itself like a drunk. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Because.
“Yes, you do. I’ll clarify anyway: why do you want my fire? What’s in it for you?”
“Fire? What are you talking about?” He dodges.
Because.
“That won’t do, because is not an answer, Doctor.”
Street trash! Ghetto filth! Cold-blooded killer!
“That’s enough for today.” He looks unsettled.
You’re the virus and I’m the cure!
“Guard!” He shouts, trembling beneath the weight of my interrogation. The door is flung open and in barges a faceless sentinel. He raises his club over my head and strikes. There is blackness.
Trash! Scum! Filth!
Trash! Scum! Filth!

I wake up in a cell, head no longer on fire. The icy stone chills my back as I tenderly massage the rising lump on my skull. Strange, the pain was gone. As I sit in my cell, I try to think about where I am.
Where? The Bluffs. Still here, I guess. How long am I in here? There is no time here. You are here forever. Forever seems like a very long time. Can I escape? Death is the only escape, and they made that impossible. They? The warden. Who am I?
I sit back pensively. I am number 541, condemned to a life of punishment for a crime done so long ago. Why do I live? This question stumps me. Where? The Bluffs. How long am I in here? Forever. Can I escape? No. It asks itself once again, why do I live? I do not know.
“Water!” I wail like an infant deprived of his bottle.
The guard brings me a cup of water. I gaze into it to see a pair of nebulous eyes staring vaguely in my direction. They are gray, lacking any color. There is nothing behind them, no drive, no desire. No fire.
Days have passed. Once again I find myself in Hertzwelder’s office. “Now 541, will we cooperate today?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Let’s get started.”

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The End
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