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blanket, a wretched, broken prisoner, I wait.
Sleep comes, but it's a harsh, cold sleep. I have a nightmare about the
electric chair, and somehow I'm both in the chair and up against the wall
hanging by the manacles. It switches back and forth, depending on the whimsy
of a dream's perspective. I am both a spectator and participant in the
electrocution. Sometimes I am myself, sometimes I am
Heather. In the end I am where I actually had been, hanging from the wall in
chains. The figure in the electric chair is black and charred, with slow
tendrils of smoke drifting up from the arms and head.
When I awake I'm only half-awake, moving weakly to a less-uncomfortable
position, peering around at the cell which hasn't changed. Thirst and hunger
has become a dull ache which feels like I'd been shot in the stomach and am
slowly bleeding to death. I care less and less about the world. Hours drag by
and I sleep again. I dream a short, happy dream where Tom and Aaron has come
to get me out of this place, but I awake and find myself still in the same
cell, with the same weakness and pain.
The light embedded in the ceiling has a funny yellow tint to it, and I squint,
looking at it, wondering. If only I could move through the dimensions. If only
I could remember how I did it. I've seen the multi-dimensional landscape
before, how come I can't see it now?
I stare for a long time, and space around the light seems to bend back on
itself and there's a rainbow effect in the light. That's it, I
think to myself wearily. Either I'm seeing through, or I'm hallucinating.
Either one is fine with me. I force my gaze away from the light, and look
carefully around the prison cell. There's a moment of vertigo, and then
there's an amazing shift in my perspective. The walls,
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t floor and ceiling all pull apart from each other at the corners, leaving big
gaps in between. I can see around the walls, floor, and ceiling.
I stand up, walking weakly to the nearest corner. I'm smiling. It's so absurd
--- here I am, a four-dimensional creature feeling trapped in a
three-dimensional room. The builders of the jail did not build in four
dimensions, so here are gaping holes in a prison cell. Smiling weakly to
myself, I step right through.
10. GHOSTS
Stepping around walls feels like I'm playing a drunken game of hopscotch. I
weave in and out, back and forth and around, keeping to the rear of the cells.
Other prisoners look at me in astonishment as I
appear in one corner of their cell and disappear into the other corner.
At last I reach a blank wall, but then duck under it and come up from the
lower corner. I emerge in the middle of a long corridor, startling the hell
out of a guard. He drops his gun in his excitement, shouting at the top of his
lungs, so I dive to the other side and roll under the far wall. When I come up
again I'm in a deserted office, and in the corner there I find a water cooler.
Feeling dizzy and seeing spots, I stumble across the room to the rolling desk
chair and use it as a walker to reach the water cooler.
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There I sit down and with shaking hands pull a paper cup from the dispenser
and fill it with water. I drink five cups one after the other, then sit back
and feel it flowing through my body. It feels like peace.
I'm not going to die.
Outside the office door I hear footsteps run past and some indistinct
shouting. I smile, then drink more water. My perception of the gaps between
walls has not changed, and I doubt that it will. Like a holy man finding the
voice of God while starving himself, I seemed to have snapped into a new
mindset. I drink more water, then decide to leave the sanctuary to go in
search of food.
I find the prison kitchen, which is deserted. The only food are the guard's
lunch sacks in the refrigerator; they don't seem to feed any of the prisoners
here. I pull out several lunch sacks and turn around just as a guard comes
walking in. Without a word I drop to the ground and roll under the wall. On
the other side is an unoccupied cell. I drop the food there and walk to the
corner, stepping around and back into the kitchen behind the guard. He's
slowly backing away from the spot where
I'd disappeared. When he's within reach, I lean forward and snatch the pistol
out of his holster. He spins around, is mouth open and his eyes wide, and he
cries out in fear. I don't recognize him --- he's not one of the ones who'd
tortured Heather, so I leave him alone, stepping around the corner again and
into the cell with the food. There I sit and eat, not really tasting any of
the sandwiches or enjoying the fruit, simply feeling it fill my stomach until
I'm about to be sick.
Keeping to the back walls, I play hopscotch again through the cells, searching
each one for Heather. Up and down all three floors I
go, not finding any hint of her. I hope they let her go, but I'm also thinking
they might have raped and killed her. I hold the guard's gun tightly in my
right hand, not really knowing how to use it but determined to try. For the
first time in my life my heart feels absolutely black with hatred.
#
The night shift goes off and the day shift begins. I spot the square-nosed,
big-chinned guard as he comes in through the front door. I
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t follow along as best I can, dodging here and there, keeping tabs
occasionally as I walk between walls. I hear him mutter in disbelief when he's
told there's a ghost loose within the prison. "Fucking nonsense," he says. I
follow along after him, waiting to catch him alone. He sits at a table with a
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