The Guilty Blade: A Narrative Fiction

I sat in a small, dirty and crowded holding cell in Fort Bend County jail. Sitting here waiting to get processed and see the nurse, Mane! These men in this holding cell were all fucking trifling. There were cells for suicidal inmates, crazy inmates, murderers and those going through drug withdrawal. The smell of musty underarms, alcohol and feet made it unbearable to breath. It was time for me to live with the consequences of the choices I had made. The newest consequence was the foreboding environment of a small, overcrowded county jail.

As I walked, the air of this haunted, dreadful and sorrowful land had sucked the life out of everything and roared as humanity began to disappear. As I carried on walking, I noticed that the small fraction of light was getting smaller and smaller, until it had been engulfed into a think black ash like smoke. Aggressively, the wind walked past the building with its cruddy feeling, blowing away all signs of life. Deeper and deeper into the land was a burning car door. The fire roared and crackled. The roaring and crackling of the burning car door merged with the aggressive air and created the loudest sounds ever heard on land. Growing darker, the skies made me feel nauseous. The fear of not waking up if a human fell asleep towered

The walls close in around me. I cannot not escape the endless, darkened walls of this cell. I sit in the corner, I see the sharp corners at each edge of the room. The dismal paint on each of the walls carries a burden of memories where men and women drawing closer and closer to their death had been scraping at the walls. Looking up from the corner of the cell, I see the light coming down from the window, it is the only hope and light that is left in this retched room in which they have confined me.

Most of us won’t really live for a minute behind the walls in order to be empathetic with the prisoners and that’s probably the reason we normally don’t feel a thing even if we read the inner life of the American prison (Gopnik, 2012). Adam Gopnik (2012) describes the life as “ not that of lock and key but that of the lock and clock.” Time frozen behind the walls and electronic securities with panic, paranoia and

Prisoners are locked behinds cells confined in a small space without windows for 22 to 23 hours per day. Cells are illuminated by artificial light with no means for prisoners to control the brightness. These lights remain on all day so inmates have difficulty-distinguishing day from night (Arrigo and Bullock, 2008). At times the prisoner may be confined the whole day if they decide to misbehave. Interaction with other human beings is strictly prohibited. The only contact prisoners have is through a closed-circuit television to talk to their visitors or when correctional officers placed handcuffs and other restraints (Pizarro and Narag, 2008). From the extreme isolation, such inmates tend to fear

Hassine begins his narrative as he is entering prison but this time as an inmate. Prior to his incarceration, Hassine was an attorney (Hassine, 2011). Even then as an attorney, the high walls of prison intimated Hassine (Hassine, 2011). As Hassine was being processed into the system, he expressed how he systematically became hopeless from the very prison structure itself as well as because of the intimidation he felt by uniforms. Prisons of the past actually had a goal to aid individuals through rehabilitation by instilling new values in order to correct the wrongs that one may have committed during their lifetime but today this is no longer true. . Hassine draws colorful depictions of how dim and unfamiliar a prison can be in which instills fear in an individual soon as he or she

The location utilized in this short story is an ideal prison location. It is considered to be a secluded area with nobody but a mansion at a particular landscape. “It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, three miles from the village” (Charlotte Perkins Gilman). The description of the place by the narrator shows an exact image of what the critic calls “Foucauldian prison.” “The narrator is confined to a nursery at the top of the house that is similar to a cell in Panopticon.” “In short, it reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather of its three functions—to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide—it preserves only the first and eliminates the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap” (Michel Foucault, 1979). The prison in which the narrator is held is unlike every other prison that is known in the outside world. Rather than iron gates being used as doors to confine all inmates to a particular cell, wallpaper is used as bars instead. The critic believes that the light from the wallpaper was so bright. This is a feature not seen in an everyday prison.

The rusted metal door scrapped shut, followed by the jingle of keys in the lock. Footsteps of free people echoed throughout the dry air and bounced off the low ceilings, growing fainter as they moved toward the exit of this icy room. Another door slammed shut, screeching loud metallic echoes in my ears and scattering my brain. After a while, the only echoes, to be heard, were the quiet voices of private conversations and the rustle of paper, which melted together in a blissful orchestration. Florescent lights hum and buzz overhead; one blinked every so often as if it were about to die, much like my happiness had long ago. This description captures the true horror of imprisonment. A close examination will reveal

Before they had even gotten off from the bus they experienced a gang fight and saw the Thought Police take them away. The area was all gray, dark, and there was no greenery. “A gray street. Gray buildings. A gray and drizzling sky.

Amidst the swirling ripple of faceless people meandering around fire hydrants, pedestrian signs, and ragged newspaper stands, he stood; embedded within the relentless stream of continuous people trickling by him. The occasional nudge threatened to dislodge his balance as he gazed across the road where two buildings laden by carmine shaded bricks separated. The same two buildings he walked directly pass early in the dewy morning and late in the brisk evening weather everyday for the past two decades. Surely he knew every wondering power line and dimly lit alley of the surrounding neighborhood? Yet something glimmered from in between the impossibly small gap separating the buildings. His conscious turned from thought to action as he leapt from the scuffed curb and into the high voltage current of traffic without a second

“Alright Leslie, you’re here!” some lady exclaimed. The whole town was in a type of quiet unison. It was implausibly light outside despite the fact that it was only 6 in the morning. The streets were flawlessly black with no cracks whatsoever. It was so peaceful considering that it was 200 people outside and Leslie was quite frightened by it.

Walking into the correctional facility felt as if I was walking through a college campus tour. They had dorms, they had a gym, they had a library, they had a dining hall, they had special rooms for special people. I can assure you this is not the college I would want to go to. The students here, also known as inmates, looked demoralized. While we were there, the prison was in a state of overflow. They had to many inmates that they needed to pack them like sardines in the meeting area of the dorms with bunk beds. The living conditions seemed inhumane. The campus was chained in by barbed wire and any escape would put up major signs of danger. Walking through the courtyard I felt a feeling of being trapped, and I was not even the one in chains. I never realized how terrifying prison was until this experience. The effects of isolation were clearly visible through the inmates.

Imagine a wonderful life surrounded by friends and family, a world where hope, warmth, and love fill the air. Suddenly the clang of a cell door jerks you awake to a cold room with grimy stone blocks, a ripped blanket, and isolation. Endless you stare out of a bared tower window slowly rotting away. Days bleed into years with no hope, no light, no way out. The only company lies out of reach, in the realm of dreams.

The street was eerily quiet as I crossed. So was Mike. Staring at me unwaveringly, he said nothing as I approached. The crow's feet framing his eyes, the ridges in his forehead, and the crinkles in his cheeks still stand out in my mind. How many nights had he lain on that bench, covering his face as the wind whipped against it? Now he hugged his body tightly. He was wearing an old pair of tan khakis, a shirt that I couldn't see clearly, and a light multi-colored jacket, its sleeves ending above his pale wrists, that was just slightly too small and clung to his body. As I gave him the money in my wallet, he took it--slowly--and stared at it for a second in disbelief. Although the street in front of the library is usually an amalgam of car horns, headlights, whining engines throughout the night, nothing--not

The cinder block walls were gray with years of dust and grime. The sun shined on me through a small barred window that was about the size of my head. When designing the rooms, the designers did not make it any bigger in fear of prisoners escaping. The room was about the size of my closet; a tight space with just enough room for me to straighten my arms. I was still wearing my white t-shirt and jeans. Actually, the shirt was no longer white because I’ve been trapped in this cell for over a week awaiting my fate.