Have you ever seen someone so entirely consumed by sadness that it seems to leak out of them? Their eyes, that's where it starts, a hollowness, something just seems dark behind them. Then their smile fades slowly. This usually goes so slow that you may not even notice, then one day you can't remember what they looked like when they smiled, it's been so long. Their shoulders seem to sag, like they've been carrying some heavy weight around their neck. It feels cold and dark, you can get lost in that kind of sadness. I've seen it before, I know the signs. It happens to a lot of us here, so often that sometimes I lay in my bunk and wonder if that's the whole point. This little game, the powers that be, toying with us. Puny little ants, under the magnifying glass waiting for our skin to sizzle and for the heat to consume us. That's what I figured waited for us at the end. Heat, pain, and then, nothing.
"Prisoner 842" The automated voice said. I stood, my number was up. You never knew what came next, you just obeyed. It was easier that way. So many of us seemed blind, we stopped talking, stopped feeling, stopped thinking. We just did what the voice said. It was like being a child's toy, you just let yourself be pulled along by a string, never grasping what was on the other end. It felt like that, like your head was full of stuffing, like your feet just moved along without you telling them to. I stopped and started as the lights told me. The light above the door would flash green to tell me to go and then swing open. I would go and it would close behind me. Not that there was anything behind me. Once a door is closed, it no longer exists in my limited view.
Arriving at my new home, I saw him. My new roommate, he's got that look. That sadness that only comes from a lifetime of pain. The look that makes you just want to hug him and tell him you're sorry. Sorry that the world is cruel, sorry that there is pain, sorry that he wound up here. I stood a moment, just staring. He stared back. His eyes were dark, hollow, they seemed to regard me in a predatory manner, a human succumbed to the darkness. This is what we become after the sadness takes us so completely. A lesser being, a primal animal. He sunk back into the lower bunk, the shadows consuming him. I moved to sit on the top bunk, and just like that, my world was different.
What I remembered from the world before was hazy. It felt like trying to remember a dream after waking up, it slips through your fingers like water. It continues flowing, time continues moving, the world continues spinning, but I'm here now. This is my world now. This room, this man, the voice. These are all I know to be true. Anything before, anything after, it did not exist. I had a name once, a life, a family, a voice. I wonder if my roommate had these things. The thought drifts out into the ether, a silent wondering left unspoken.
---
The prison is automated, there are no guards, only inmates. The inmates only see each other during meal times, other than that they are kept separated. Each block has an exercise bay, and showers that roommates are sent to once a day, your roommate is the only other person you see day in and day out, so oftentimes there is an unspoken bond. Most things here are unspoken. The only voice we hear is that of the automated system. I once read about prisons before this, there were guards, a yard, women and men kept separate, it was a system used to oppress people. I suppose this is little different, but then again, maybe that's just our lot in life. The light blinks green and the door opens. It's breakfast time. My roommate, who I see by the tag on his uniform is Prisoner 722, stalks out. He walks like he's afraid something will attack him if he's not ready. I walk behind him, out meals are automated, we get a tray, the machine portions food onto it, we continue. It's orderly, silent, we file into our seats and eat. All the supplements we need to live, without any of the flavor, three times a day. Prisoner 722 eats with his hands before wiping them on the legs of his jumpsuit. He looks at my tray. Sharing food is forbidden. I eat it while I feel him watching. I know I'm a slow eater, especially in comparison to 722 who seems to have shoveled the food down his throat. I eat with a fork, slowly, as if considering the taste, texture, consistency. As if I hadn't been eating the same thing day in and day out. I feel eyes from across the table on me. I looked up, almost finished eating.
"Pocket it." The man across from me growls under his breath. I feel my eyebrows knit, what does he want? "Pocket it and palm it to me when we walk back to our rooms." He repeats, this time it's clear. He wants my food, and this is not a request. This is a demand. The look in his eyes is predatory, he's angry. Not at me, just in general. I hear a low guttural growl from next to me. Prisoner 722 is growling at the man across from me. They both fall silent. This is no less than I was fed in any other block, why are these men about to fight over my food? I finish eating and hear a little exhale like Prisoner 722 is either dissatisfied with my eating, or he is glad the man across from me didn't get my food. I don't look at him to clarify which. The lights flash and we begin filing back to our rooms, Prisoner 722 lurks behind me as we line up to filter back into our little boxes of solitude. I'm looking at the broad back, this man must work out during his time at the exercise bay.
As this thought goes through my head, something else tries to force its way through my head too. The man in front of me has swung his right arm back in an attempt to elbow me in the head. The impact creates stars in my vision, and I feel my feet sway. Prisoner 722 slows, but does not help steady me. I force my feet to continue despite the spots in my vision. As the man in front of me goes in his room he whispers under his breath "Next time I'll break your nose." And just like that, his door shut and he was gone. I wobbled but made it back to my room. Prisoner 722 stepped in after me and the door slid shut. The moment it was closed I collapsed. My eyes opened to the light flashing green for lunch. My head was pounding but I forced myself to my feet. I felt sick, but I got my food and sat down. I stared at it, unable to eat. Again, the man across from me eyed my food. Something in me told me to just do as he said. Another something in me, a louder something, said to deny him. So I pretended to eat, but slid the food into my uniform. He seems to be excited by this, he thinks I'm doing what he says, but when we line up, I give him nothing. He put his hand back, waiting. And waiting. And waiting, and when nothing came I could hear his teeth grind. "You've made a bad enemy." He snarled, as the door to his room closed. Back in my room I looked at Prisoner 722.
"I'm not going to eat this." I fished the food out and held it out to him. He regarded it like a dog looking at food offered by a stranger. He did not trust me. "If you don't want it, I'm going to flush it." I said. My voice felt odd, I hadn't heard it in so long. My throat hurt from using it after so long. Like a muscle you haven't moved in years and suddenly expect to work. I put it on the far corner of his bed and climbed to my bunk. When dinner came I was once again faced with the man. He glared at me, and when we lined up he looked over his shoulder at me with a smirk. As we began walking he abruptly swung his head back, cracking it into my face. I felt blood gushing out of my nose, he's fulfilled his promise. I stayed silent, and walked back to our room before once again collapsing. I fished the food out, I had once again neglected to eat, and dropped it in the same spot I'd left my lunch. The room was small but we had a toilet and sink, so I moved over to the sink and tried to hold back my tears as I pushed my nose back in place. By the time my nose had stopped bleeding it was our time to exercise. Prisoner 722 and I walked to the exercise bay in silence. I skipped the exercise and went straight to the shower. I sat down in the stall on the cold tile and let myself cry for the first time since I'd been sent here. I cried my first day here, but this place squeezes that out of you quickly.
I must've fallen asleep because Prisoner 722 knocked on the stall door. I stood and turned the water off, grabbing a towel and going to the changing room. He seemed to have already showered and changed so I wondered how long I'd been in there. I changed quickly, glad to be out of my bloody jumpsuit. The light blinked almost the moment I was done dressing and we walked back to our room. If Prisoner 722 hadn't woken me I'd be in trouble for holding us up. I stared at his back, wondering if maybe he had been looking out for me. Or maybe he's just looking out for himself, not wanting to get in trouble. Still, a part of me wondered.
---
The next day, breakfast came and I managed to eat some, but not all of my food. I pocketed the remainder. The man across from me, who I now saw was Prisoner 798 stared at me with an evil smirk. The horror and pain of life sometimes twists people, I thought to myself. Sometimes it just breaks them down into a subhuman state like Prisoner 722, sometimes it makes them something worse, like Prisoner 798. I wonder where on that spectrum I fell. Probably closer to Prisoner 722 given that I was allowing Prisoner 798 to beat me senseless. We lined up and Prisoner 798 cracked his knuckles with an amused grunt. We began walking and his elbow came low, catching me in the gut and making me wheeze. I felt bile rise in me but I held it in. The moment we got to our room I scrambled to the toilet and threw up all that I had eaten. I sat there with the cool metal of the toilet on my face.
"Here." I offered Prisoner 722 my food. He again regarded it with distrust. Turning, he got in bed. "Take it. I can't get up." I said. And then it happened. He said his first words to me. Well, technically word, but still. Momentous.
