Writing Assignment #2

The man lay on his cot, in his bright orange jumpsuit.  He stared, unmoving, at the ceiling, listening to the whispers and sounds of his fellow inmates in adjacent cells.  Separated only by thin walls, he could hear the goings on of the state prison.  The janitors sweeping up the day's dinner of fish sticks, and the cries and moans of fellow prisoner as they talked in their sleep.  It was his first night in the joint, with countless more to follow.  He cell was sparsely furnished, with a toilet and sink in one corner, and a broken A/C unit sitting alone and forlorn in the dead, still, Georgia air.  The entire cell was solid grey concrete, save for the formidable iron bars of his door, pillars of oppression blocking any hope of escape.  He wished he was Peter, from the Bible stories he'd learned in his youth, imprisoned by the government and freed by an earthquake.  If only that would happen to him, imprisoned for preventing a white man from stealing his car.  The argument had escalated, until the white man lay dead, killed in the conflict.  He had hoped then for a fair trial, but now he could count himself lucky he was merely beaten by the cops and not lynched by a mob.  He dreamed of it often, the light of the torches reflecting off the shards of broken glass, fragmented over the dead man's head.  He bloodied hands tied back, the noose around his neck, the rough cord wet with blood as it bit cruelly into his neck.  The hateful crowd gesturing angrily at him, urging the violence on.  He would always awake then, into an even more hopeless situation.  He awoke now, sweat dripping from his face, (sploosh! sploosh!)  clutching his thin blanket with all his strength, for all else had deserted him. His life over, nothing to look forward to in the future, not his family, his friends, his church.  He had nothing now that made him who he was.  No hope, nothing to live for.  If only the mob had had their way.