To those outside these shackled walls To those who know better I envy you I envy anyone I write to you daily I think of you daily I sleep sound knowing you live a better life than me

The sentence I hold cannot be took back The lives I took will now take mine The lives I saved do not count

To those who know better To those who know of simple lives I would trade you in an instant I sleep knowing you live

I wake up to your voice Of which is not a dream You are now behind these shackled walls You who I wrote to Who I envied Who I dreamt of

You who I thought was innocent A creative mind trapped in Shackled walls Behind bars With me as a cellmate

We are now behind these shackled walls We are not the ones who know better We are the ones who envy We are the ones to die for what we have done

“Ah fuck it,” I whispered, writing a random address on the newly finished letter. I have no idea if the address even exists, but what’s the worst that could happen? “Dear, no one, I know that no one will probably ever read this but there is nothing else to do in this hell hole. So I might as well explain how and why I ended up in jail. My parents are dicks. And not like your average “aww they grounded me” dicks I mean like, they kicked me out of the house when I was 13 because I decided I didn’t believe in god and I liked rock music. So much for “we’re all god’s children”. Anyways I moved in with my friend for a bit (his mum and dad didn’t know, they didn’t like me much) and I moved from friend's house to friend's house but eventually, when I was 15, I ran out of friends to go to. Then long story short I got in with a gang (I won’t mention names because I’m the only one who got caught, lucky me.) I moved into their place. We sold drugs and made petty theft. That went well for a while. But I’m 20 now and a month ago we got an offer. They wanted a bunch of drugs in exchange for 30 G’s so of course we said yes, (I thought it was too good to be true, I should have realized then that it was) we made plans to meet in the abandoned warehouse (their idea) and of course they ambushed us, shot three of us, me being one of them. I got it in the ribs, one of the others died, and the third only got shot in the leg. There weren’t enough of us to carry me back, and I couldn’t walk. I was lucky to be alive, or maybe I would have been better dead. Anyways I pretend I was dead and the men left me. But the cops showed up, I think, I don’t really remember, I had lost so much blood I was delusional. But now I’m here, in prison. So yeah, that's all. Signed Leon.” I gave the letter to the guard and he took it, looking at the folded piece of paper she asked: “Who’s it for?” I shrugged and turned my back to her.

today I woke up to the sound of metal banging on metal. I groaned and rubbed my eyes “What?” I called “You’ve got a return letter,” said Charles. He was one of the more likable guards, he didn’t try to ask stupid questions or make conversation. “What?” I asked, more groggily, not fully awake and wondering what the hell he was talking about. “Well, you sent a letter, didn’t you? They answered.” “They what?” and then it dawned on me, the letter I sent two weeks ago, the latter with the random address. I shot out of bed and went to the door. Charles slipped the letter through the bars. I didn’t know why I was so excited but I was. Charles looked at me suspiciously and then walked away. I didn’t care. I ripped open the letter, it was short and rather disappointing. It read.

“Hey Leon, That fucking sucks for you, sorry (but like genuinely) I’m not in a great position myself. Hiding from the cops right now, sorry but you don’t get to know my real name, you can have what I wish my parents called me Lyric. I also had a fucked up childhood, except my dad was the dick. He was abusive, and after my mom slipped on ice in a parking lot and died I ran away. Same as you, got in with some people who helped me. They got me school until I graduated and now here I am. I’ll be moving, so if you send more letters I won’t get them. P.s also not religious Signed, me”

“Well that was a disappointing piece of shit” I whispered, but somehow I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Lyric and worry for them.

A week later and nothing changed, except, I got in a fight and have a nasty scar on my forehead. All of a sudden I heard a loud voice at my door say, “up against the wall.” I don’t even protest I just do as I’m told. Someone walks in behind me and I hear the door close. Then the guard says, “Meet your new inmate Andy.”

• “Dear Mother,” Jontan wrote on a notepad, sitting in the court room. He had nothing to convince the judge otherwise, and neither did his lawyer. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jo. It wasn’t you!” He kept telling himself it was going to be over soon. He would go home and let his 3 little dogs outside to play. He would call up his old friend and apologize for the time they never spent together. “Wanna go get a drink?” He’d say, and his friend would agree. “Jo! Jo!” Jontan soon heard his father’s voice from behind him. “Hurry, son!” He waved his arms, pushing air towards him, wanting to give his son a hug before they took him back. Jo was fingertips away, when they yanked him from his father’s close hands. Jontan stared at the cops as they cuffed him and took him away. His dad stood behind the railing with his arms hanging. “There goes my son. My only son!” He yelled. The other side of the court clapped in awe as they watched Jo walk away. About an hour later, Jo changed and was forced into his cell. He pulled the notepad paper out of his pocket. “Dear Mother,” he read. Jontan started to write more, and by the end of his letter, he had written close to 700 words. The letter went something like… Dear Mother, I miss you dearly. I am trapped in this horrific cage. God, I am not a dog! I should not be punished for this! I didn’t do it! I would never hurt Little Henry… But Mother, you have to get me out of here. Get me away! Tell Father I don’t want to go back with him…I just want to see you again. It’s been years, Mother. Ten years. Please, Mother… for me! For your Jonny. I beg of you… get me out. Love, your not-dead son, Jonny. Jontan’s letter sat on the table. He put his dull pencil back on the table and plopped upon his rock-like bed. There was an old man across the hall from him. “Hey! You. Old man. Yes, you. How’d you get here?” “My mother. She was a monster.” He replied. “I can relate.” Jontan said. “My mother put me in here.”

I cringe every time I see Jono’s elbow as he leans onto the table with his arm. He is double jointed and his arm bends in the weirdest way, it is truely frightful. I should be used to it, as that’s how my elbow bends too, it’s genetic, it runs in the family. We all have a weirdly bendy elbow that creeps people out when we lean onto something. It was strange to see my cell mate Jono have the same kind of elbow.

My bed gave out a wry creak as I slowly woke up when I felt pressure on my neck in the middle of the night. I opened my eyes as I let out a choking sound and I tried to push away the person that was crushing my windpipe with their knee. I stammered;

“J, Jono..stop..”

It was Jono, my new cellmate and he had kneeled onto my windpipe as he sat on top of me on my bunk. I tried to push him away. He growled.

“Don’t move or I’ll snap your neck like a f*ckin twig.”

I froze. I gasped as my eyes watered. I managed to nod a bit and the pressure on my neck eased off. I gasped to get some air as I stammered;

“W..why?”

“Been here for a good 10 years have you?”

I gave a little nod.

“Been sent here for some major assault charges have you?”

Again, I gave a little nod.

“Stabbed your little girlfriend for cheating on you, have you?

I closed my eyes. I wasn’t proud of what I had done. I felt remorseful every day.

“Y.. yes..”

“Well, Uncle Jono has been keeping an eye out for little Dean.. Caitlyn’s son. To make sure he doesn’t miss out in life.”

“U, uncle Jono..?”

“Yeah. He’s been paying for little Dean’s school fees and books and football lessons and stuff.”

This story seemed terribly familiar.

“I… read all this.. in a letter…”

Jono smirked.

“Yeah. Surprise.”

Jono was whom I’d been writing to for the past 3 years.

His hand moved those words, no matter the injuries—-no matter the mood. He had to know how things were going on the outside. Beyond those walls of energy and bars made of laser light he knew nothing, nothing except what came to him through his one allowed possession, the ancient tablet that could receive emails, which nobody had written anymore for at least two decades. There were other ways to communicate now, those ways were forbidden to inmates. His thoughts were just waking, he knew the morning cycle was about to begin. He had to rely on the rhythms of his body to know what time of day it was, down there, so far below from whatever the sky looked like now. Without those rhythms, he’d be lost to time. That was the greatest punishment he could think of. He worked hard to hold onto every day, hour, minute and second. He wanted to stay sane, the only way to stay the leader of his clan.

The morning was moving in the way it always did, the faint glow of the laser bars began to brighten and there were more coughs and clearing of throats between the deep snores of slumber. He had just written ‘Dear Brother and Child’ when he heard the slow hum of the PD, Penitentiary Droid, in its mass of metal plodding down the aisle between those cells. He heard a voice, a familiar voice, “Hey, watch it, you’re hurting me—-I don’t want to hurt you…”

The hold on his throat must have become tighter because the next words were just grunts and groans. The hulk of steel stopped and for an instant the bars flashed out of existence. Jake Origin couldn’t see in that flash of darkness, he could only hear the hulk of steel throw the man into his cell. Then in a hiss and grumble, the laser bars seared back into place. He looked up and saw his child, his brother. Jake Thirteen stood there with a look of disgrace on his face. But then that face dissolved into a sly smile, something they both could do very well, “They caught me doing what we always do best, you know what that is Jake Origin, big daddy and brother of us all.”

He knew exactly what he had meant. That’s what all those emails had been about. They had hoped the code words they had been using would not let the authorities know what they were about. Jake Origin felt a moment of panic and whispered a little bit too loud in his consternation, “But—-did you get the chance to leave one of us outside?”

That smile that he knew so well since it was his own, slid across the face of Jake Thirteen standing no more than a foot from his face. He waited a moment for drama and then said, “No worries, they caught me out on the street. They have no idea where the lab is.”

“And the others?”

“Two fully grown, three half way, ten still splitting cell for cell.”

Jake Origin sighed a deep release from his lungs in relief. He scratched the top of his head and in the same moment those walls made of energy cleared to translucence, in cells on every side, he could see his selves, two through twelve, and now thirteen. One had died long ago with a bullet through his head. He wondered how long it would take before the army was ready to break them all out of there. At least now he had a cellmate to share those empty days with until they found freedom.

There was a light ping from the tablet he had left on his bed. On the screen were the words: You have mail.

My name is Joe, I am in prison for murdering my girlfriend after I caught her cheating on me with some old dude. Come to find out she’d been a hooker for a while and not told me. Lying slut! Anyway, I walked in and they were doing what he’d paid for and I guess he had paid for the special because was doing him good better than she has ever done me, but I guess I’ve never paid for it.” I smiled at the thought of that, my half a mouth of rotten or missing yellow teeth.

I used to look better before I came to prison 15 years ago but prison does something to you. It doesn’t just play on your mind it plays on your body and emotions and your senses. You lose touch with real-world normalcy. I don't know what is going on from day to day out there. I wish I did because all I know in here is which area a white man like me can and can't go and who I can and can't wheel and deal with to get food that isn't prison slop. I don't get to go outside but 1 hour every 24 hours and my turn are usually in the evening.

Anyway back to the story “, she was earning that money I could tell I hope it was a lot because she was good! I stood in shock for a second that my girlfriend of over 3 years who I have let live with me rent-free and be jobless for a year was doing this to me hadn't quite sunk in to my very thick skull, my mom always did say I had a thick skull. After a few minutes, I slammed the front door of the apartment to announce to everyone the hardworking, putter of food on the table and payer of bills was home.

The little weasel got up from the couch and hurriedly pulled up his pants and tried to get around me, I stuck my arm out and asked she had been paid yet, she said no, I told him my beef wasn't with so pay the girl. He threw $50 at her and I let him go. After all, he didn't know any different. My girlfriend knew how I felt about cheating. I had told her from the beginning if I ever caught her it would be the last thing she ever did to me. I asked how long shied been doing it and said before she met me. Now I was really getting mad. Because I was feeling like the side piece.

She told me none of the johns matter and she loved me. I told her that she couldn't she would have given it up. I told that I was going to take a shower she better not be there when I get out or it'll all be over. Well I came out of the bathroom and she was still sitting on the couch in her little hooker outfit from the day and I just saw red, I had warned her it would be bad. I walked into my bedroom and put on some going to jail clothes and got my .44 out of my closet and walked to the living room and shot her from across the room. Then I called the police and now I am here serving life.

Now the only two people I used to write to we're my sister and my mom. Well, there's only so much they can talk about each week. So they told me they were going to sign me up for a pen palling website. That was 11 years ago. I got so many replies the first couple of months and year then it stopped. I have about 5 of those people who I still write to every week. One is a lady in Wisconsin, one is a lady in Florida, one is a lady in Louisiana one is a guy in Texas and one is a guy that moves around a lot. He tells me some crazy stories. His letters I look forward to the most because they are funny and he talks about intelligent stuff and just stuff he has done.

I haven't heard from him since he was in northern California 2 months ago and it's not like him to that long without writing. Well I haven't had a cell mate in over a year because me cellies say I am too hard to get along with. I think I'm a nice guy I am easy to get along. They say I should expect to get one this afternoon so I am pretty stoked.

Oh them yelling fresh fish he must be coming. Yeap they are stopping at my cell. Ok doors closed. I turn around and I see the guy from last weeks newspaper that I just got today. He is the serial killer the California ripper. They didn't say his real name.

After a couple weeks getting to know him he definitely seems familiar to me like I know him. But I can't tell where from. He has told me his first name but I don't think it's his real name because that was my pen Pals name. I couldn't have been writing a serial killer could I? I think I would know if I was wouldn't I? I go back through our letters while he sleeps and sure enough I had missed some of the small hints and phrases and signs that he had given me that he was more than just a regular man writing a murderer. Well now I know me and this cell mate won't fall out because we know what its like to kill.

My name is Joe, I am in prison for murdering my girlfriend after I caught her cheating on me with some old dude. Come to find out she’d been a hooker for a while and not told me. Lying slut! Anyway, I walked in and they were doing what he’d paid for and I guess he had paid for the special because was doing him good better than she has ever done me, but I guess I’ve never paid for it.” I smiled at the thought of that, my half a mouth of rotten or missing yellow teeth.

I used to look better before I came to prison 15 years ago but prison does something to you. It doesn’t just play on your mind it plays on your body and emotions and your senses. You lose touch with real-world normalcy. I don't know what is going on from day to day out there. I wish I did because all I know in here is which area a white man like me can and can't go and who I can and can't wheel and deal with to get food that isn't prison slop. I don't get to go outside but 1 hour every 24 hours and my turn are usually in the evening.

Anyway back to the story “, she was earning that money I could tell I hope it was a lot because she was good! I stood in shock for a second that my girlfriend of over 3 years who I have let live with me rent-free and be jobless for a year was doing this to me hadn't quite sunk in to my very thick skull, my mom always did say I had a thick skull. After a few minutes, I slammed the front door of the apartment to announce to everyone the hardworking, putter of food on the table and payer of bills was home.

The little weasel got up from the couch and hurriedly pulled up his pants and tried to get around me, I stuck my arm out and asked she had been paid yet, she said no, I told him my beef wasn't with so pay the girl. He threw $50 at her and I let him go. After all, he didn't know any different. My girlfriend knew how I felt about cheating. I had told her from the beginning if I ever caught her it would be the last thing she ever did to me. I asked how long shied been doing it and said before she met me. Now I was really getting mad. Because I was feeling like the side piece.

She told me none of the johns matter and she loved me. I told her that she couldn't she would have given it up. I told that I was going to take a shower she better not be there when I get out or it'll all be over. Well I came out of the bathroom and she was still sitting on the couch in her little hooker outfit from the day and I just saw red, I had warned her it would be bad. I walked into my bedroom and put on some going to jail clothes and got my .44 out of my closet and walked to the living room and shot her from across the room. Then I called the police and now I am here serving life.

Now the only two people I used to write to we're my sister and my mom. Well, there's only so much they can talk about each week. So they told me they were going to sign me up for a pen palling website. That was 11 years ago. I got so many replies the first couple of months and year then it stopped. I have about 5 of those people who I still write to every week. One is a lady in Wisconsin, one is a lady in Florida, one is a lady in Louisiana one is a guy in Texas and one is a guy that moves around a lot. He tells me some crazy stories. His letters I look forward to the most because they are funny and he talks about intelligent stuff and just stuff he has done.

I haven't heard from him since he was in northern California 2 months ago and it's not like him to that long without writing. Well I haven't had a cell mate in over a year because me cellies say I am too hard to get along with. I think I'm a nice guy I am easy to get along. They say I should expect to get one this afternoon so I am pretty stoked.

Oh them yelling fresh fish he must be coming. Yeap they are stopping at my cell. Ok doors closed. I turn around and I see the guy from last weeks newspaper that I just got today. He is the serial killer the California ripper. They didn't say his real name.

After a couple weeks getting to know him he definitely seems familiar to me like I know him. But I can't tell where from. He has told me his first name but I don't think it's his real name because that was my pen Pals name. I couldn't have been writing a serial killer could I? I think I would know if I was wouldn't I? I go back through our letters while he sleeps and sure enough I had missed some of the small hints and phrases and signs that he had given me that he was more than just a regular man writing a murderer. Well now I know me and this cell mate won't fall out because we know what its like to kill.

“Ridley!”

I slowly opened my eyes to the blurry silhouette of one of the cellblock’s guards standing at the open entranced my cell.

“Your ass better be in the cafeteria in the next 15 seconds or else you won’t ever see the light of day again!”

I didn’t even have to wipe my eyes to know that it was Holt standing at my cell door. You see Holt was a bit of, how you say, an ass. Holt was the wannabe guard captain who thought he was the shit. Most other guards would boss you around because it was their job of course, but Holt took it to a whole new level. I heard one time he even locked a pair of cell mates in their cell for the whole day just because they slept through breakfast.

After realizing who was at my cell door, I arose immediately, and wiped my eyes. I stood up and reluctantly greeted Holt as I made my way to the cafeteria alongside all the other inmates in my block. I grabbed my morning sludge and sat down in the same place I always do. To my right was Tommy. He was what some would call the ‘big guy on campus.’ He was the biggest dude in the block and could easily take on any other individual in that cafeteria. To my left was Jax. Jax was tall, slender, and smart. He was the kind of friend who’d give you a reality check when you needed it. He was the blunt bitch that no one really got along with. Excluding Tommy and I of course.

After lunch was working period where inmates could work their in prison jobs. I myself worked the stuffy white room full of paper cuts. Otherwise known as the mail room. The job wasn’t that bad though. One positive came out of it. That positive being someone I would consider to be my best friend. You see one day I was working as usual just looking at names and placing envelopes on cubbyholes. All outgoing mail had to be stamped by me and sent up a vacuum chute. One time some incoming mail was addressed to no one. Was simply a blank envelope. The only way I thought to find the reciprocate was to open it and see if I could find a “dear blank,” or a “how’s it going blank,” or something of the sort. Well the letter didn’t have a specific reciprocate, rather the letter started with, “To whomever may need it,” which I initially thought was quite odd... but I kept reading.

“To whomever my need it, You’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ve been in your shoes before and I understand it’s a hard situation to be in. Oh by the way my name is Lucas. I write this letter just as a reminder to you that there is an end to your sentence and that you are not alone in the world. I was initially sent to jail 16 years ago for aggravated assault. It wasn’t pretty I’ll tell you. I ended up serving 12 years in prison. It. Was. Hell. I got my shit rocked every other day in the yard. I was damn close to sending myself to the psych ward just to get out of that hell hole. What I will tell you though is that once your out life is 10x better than it ever was. Freedom tastes so much better after being starved of it for so long. Just like any other meal. God speaking of which, food tasted amazing the first month out. Even now I can appreciate food way more than I ever did before getting arrested. I’m telling you though that you just have to stick it through. Life is hell now, but it’s heaven when you make it out... I kinda just realized. It would suck if this got into the hands of a death row inmate lol. Anyway I wish you the best of luck random reader! -Lucas H”

Man what I would give to have a picture of the faces I made after reading that letter. I was in shock. Why would a random ex-inmate send a letter with no destination. Who would take the time? And yet I was also intrigued. I ended up writing a simple response asking why they cared so much. One thing led to another and well a year past and we were still writing back and forth. Lucas knew everything there was to know about me and I knew everything there was to know about Lucas. You see he gave me the sanity to stick through my sentence. Though it was nowhere near as long as his. Lucas was the best thing to happen to me in that damn prison.

The date was February 16th 2019. Exactly four years and 63 days into my sentence, and about a year since I had bee writing to Lucas. Imagine my surprise when I hear I’m getting a new cell mate. No no that’s not the surprising part, the surprising part is the fact that the one and only great asshole Holt was my new cell mate.

“What the fuck did you do?” Were the first words I spoke to him when I saw him in cuffs at my cell door. I was greeted with silence as he was thrown into the cell after his cuffs were removed. He rubbed his wrists where the cuffs were and stood up. He faced me and looked me dead in the eye as I was laying on my bunk.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke in a shaky quiet voice.

“I didn’t quite hear that would you remind repeating that for me?” It was clear I was trying to milk the moment for all it was worth.

“I’m sorry dammit,” Holt’s voice began to raise to a shout now, “I’m sorry for being a dick to you for four fucking years.”

I have to say I didn’t quite expect that, especially out of asshole Holt. Either way I was never one to hold a grudge. I ended up shaking his hand then and there.

“Don’t stress it ass-Holt. Just learn to not be a dick and you’ll be cool with me... but I can’t quite say the same about the other inmates,” as I gave a quick glance around the rest of the block, “good luck!”

“I also wanted to tell you one more think... Samuel,” said Holt.

I jolted back, “no one calls me Samuel. You never have and no one in here has ever heard me say that. You better not start now ass-Holt!” I said with anger in my voice. My mind went racing. How the hell did Holt know my first name. He was a guard so that was the likely hood, but no one had ever called me that not since before I was locked up. I always went by my last name: Ridley.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you didn’t like being called that here. I figured since you always signed your first name that you preferred it.”

I sat up with my jaw to the floor. It was at that moment that I realized I didn’t know everything there was to know about Lucas.

“Johnson!”

I wake to my name being yelled my the guard.

“Johnson, come out and meet your bunk mate. How about you show him the ropes some?”

I walk out of the room and meet with my new bunkie. “Johnson and you are?”

“Crisinski” he said with a raspy old man voice. Like someone who has smoked since they could walk.

————————————————————————

It started with a letter. I got it on a Tuesday. Everything was normal and fine until mail call. A letter in an orange envelope. “Dear prisoner”. The letter spoke about a site that connects prisoners with pen pals. Apparently the prison automatically signs us up as long as we’re “well behaved”.

So my letter came and it was pretty interesting so I wrote back. We talk about everything. It happened quickly too. I guess writing out the things you don’t get to say helps lift the weight. I didn’t spill anything that would compromise my case but I let him in on my life.

We never trade photos or anything that would expose who we were to the other outside of there. Though I guess he could find me with a simple google search.

Bull folded the most recent letter and added it to the stack under his bed. Norton’s letters, their monthly correspondence, had kept him sane for a long time. Bull had been given a life sentence in this hellhole for what he still considered self defense in a bar fight that the other guy started. Both of them had been drunk as skunks and the guy came at him with both fists; Bull retaliated with a broken beer bottle, the guy fell and bled out, and here he was. Norton began writing to him as part of some touchy-feely psych program through the chaplain but over the months Bull had come to deeply appreciate the normalcy of these letters from a CPA with a wife, two kids, a house and a dog named Horace.

Bull heard a key in the cell door and the guard yelled, “Up against the bed, hands up, no sudden moves. You got a new cell mate, Bull. Be decent.”

The guy shuffled in carrying his bed linens and towels. He was a short, skinny guy about fifty years old and the prison jump suit hung on him. He looked like he didn’t weigh more than 150 soaking wet, and Bull sneered at him.

“You snore?”

“Who, me?” The new guy looked up at Bull’s 6’5” of pure muscle and looked scared to deathl.

“You see anybody else in here, Dimwit? I asked if you snored.”

“My wife never complained so I guess not.”

“Okay, then. You leave me alone and my stuff alone and I got no issues with you…..yet.”

“Got it.”

The new guy made up his bed and pulled out a picture and stuck it on the wall. It was a professional photo of him with his wife and kids, and he patted it and laid out on the bed, saying nothing.

“Nice family.”

“We were.”

“No more?”

“She divorced me when I got convicted.”

“What you in for?”

The guy looked over at Bull. “You first.”

“Murder. First degree.”

“Wow.” His eyes widened, then he sighed. “I stupidly got caught up in an embezzlement scheme and the others threw me under the bus to save their own necks. They were the big guys; I was only the accountant but here I am. Name’s Norton. You?”

Bull just stared at him. Surely this could not be; this had to be some sick joke. “You said your name is Norton? You by chance have a dog named Horace?”

Norton sat up straight. “How the hell do you know that? Is this some kind of set up?”

Bull reached under his bed and pulled out the stack of letters and tossed them to Norton. “These look familiar?”

Norton thumbed through them in disbelief and then looked up. “My God. You’re Bull.”

They both began to laugh hysterically, so loud that the guard finally came to see what was going on. “You guys all right?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Norton said, snorting and chuckling.

“All is great,” agreed Bull, giving a thumbs up. “Just couldn’t be better.”