The Space Race

A Short Fiction piece, highlighting the growing need for space in our prisons. Also a social comment about mercy and how far it can be taken.

The doors of cell thirty-two opened and from the other side of the corridor Jonathan Walker watched. He watched the man exit his cold concrete box for the last time. He watched the man walk down the long corridor towards the door with the white light shining under it. He watched the man head towards freedom. Tomorrow that would be him. Tomorrow he too, would be free.

Jonathan had been imprisoned for over five years. He was involved in a drunken bar fight, a man was dead and his recollection was hazy. The tiny details he could remember were shaky and his story was full of holes. The jury had sentenced him to life, without parole. A life of containment, caged and out of public view. A life where he could not hurt anybody else, ever. Though now, he had been informed some big new evidence had arisen in his favor. He lay on his bunk, dreaming of the endless possibilities for his life, after walking through the iron gates that loomed at the front of the prison.

When he woke the next morning, Jonathan felt uncomfortable. He did not sleep well and what sleep he did get was plagued with horrible dreams. Unearthly creatures paraded through his head all night. The creatures bore uncanny and unhealthy similarities to skeletons, as they marched through their fiery abode, taunting him, laughing at him.

Thoughts of freedom and life, soon took over those of the horrible dreams and Jonathan began to relax. He dressed and sat on his bunk, hands clasped in front of his body. Finally, the door at the far end of the corridor could be heard opening. Loud footsteps made from nicely polished black shoes on hard concrete followed, growing closer and closer. The footsteps passed every cell, and each of the other inmates, always audible over the jeers and taunts of the other prisoners. Four guards and the warden soon appeared just beyond the bars of Jonathan’s cell.

‘Cell two twenty five, open.’ The warden’s voice was unmistakably harsh and raspy. ‘Prisoner step forward.’

Jonathan rose as he was told and stepped toward the barred door. The door jolted and opened slowly. The guards stood statuesque, unmoving in both posture and facial expression. No happiness, no sadness, still and emotionless. Two guards took position either side of him, the other two behind, and under instruction from the warden they began to walk. They were headed toward a large white door, the one he’d seen so many others walk through. The door he’d always walked away from on the way to the lunchroom or the yard. When he moved cells late last year, further down the corridor, it seemed like a sign that he would always get further and further away, an omen of his eternal confinement. A bright light always shone from behind that door, seeping through the gap between it and the floor. The light beckoned him to come closer but he never could - until today.

The white door was bigger than Jonathan had thought, from close up it loomed over his pathetic 5’4". It was at least 8 or 9 feet high. The warden turned the large handle and it gave a loud mechanical groan from the force. Creaking, it finally opened and beyond the silhouetted warden in his path, Jonathan saw the source of the bright light he’d pined to be soaked in. Disappointed with what lay behind the door, Jonathan took in the new scenery. It was yet another corridor with bright lamps lining the walls. Surrounded by freshly pressed blue uniforms, he followed the warden to its far end. The corridor led to a small room which contained a single bed, the type found in any doctor’s office and a small, stainless steel bench, covered in surgical tools. Both sat in the center of the room and a single uniformed nurse stood beside them. Her facial features were menacing and her skin resembled that of somebody who had been in the tub too long. The nurse’s blood shot eyes made her look as though she had been stuck in the harsh, unnatural light for days. Jonathan lay on the bed as instructed by the nurse. A fluorescent light hanging from the roof shone directly in Jonathan’s eyes, making it hard for him to see.

’This is just for the pain’, the nurse’s croaky voice said quietly in Jonathan’s right ear. Deep in his arm he felt a sharp pain and the vein pulsed with the addition of a foreign substance.

’Patient dosed with 5mg morphine.’ The same voice, that of the nurse, spoke into a small voice recorder sitting on the bench. She then strapped him down. Large leather shackles held his wrists and ankles tight.

’What are these for?’ The morphine slurred Jonathan’s words.

’Just in case,’ was the short, vague reply.

The guards left the room in single file, followed by the warden, but not before he gave Jonathan one last stare down.

The morphine was already pumping through Jonathan’s veins and his head and eyelids felt heavy. He struggled to see anything in the light, and now being strapped to the bed his neck movement was limited. A male voice could be heard. Straining his neck, Jonathan noticed a short man, bald and round, in the room. The man, who he presumed was the doctor, spoke into the hand held voice recorder the nurse had earlier used.

’Patient number 11342. Walker, Jonathan David. Discarded from system. Final analysis before removal. Patient restrained accordingly.’

The doctor’s black outline appeared in the light above Jonathan’s head, like an eclipse. His head was outlined with a glow while his face remained in complete darkness. He lifted the lids of Jonathan’s eyes and searched them with a small torch.

‘Slightly dilated pupils, nothing out of the ordinary.’ The Dictaphone listened intently to every word the doctor spoke. He then checked Jonathan’s pulse and listened to his heart, recording every finding. Once the checkup was complete the doctor left the room. Jonathan was alone, the light shining in his eyes. He lay still. The doctor returned shortly, wielding in his right hand a needle, larger than that filled with morphine and housing a cloudier substance. It shone in the bright light. The doctor stepped towards the bed and looked into Jonathan’s eyes.

‘Jonathan David Walker, for failure to abide by the laws of society, we the people and the jury of your choosing, have sentenced you to death. The life of another was taken by you and in return you must give yours.’

Then the needle punctured his arm. He watched, shocked, with his chin on his chest as the cloudy liquid left the syringe and invaded his body.

The lights began to fade and the faint voice of the doctor was all he heard. Darkness took over.

‘Another day at the office, Jim?’

The warden walked towards his new car, keys in hand, chatting to the prison’s doctor.

’Yep, another one out of the way. You know, my son was saying the other day what we do is cruel. I tried to explain to him, it’s their fault, really. If they’d just stop committing crimes, we’d have enough room, but he wouldn’t listen. Just went on about it being unfair and what not.’

‘Ahhh kids! If only he realized we are doing them a favor. Not like they know what’s coming. Be an alright way to go I’d think, not knowing and all.’

‘That it would Peter, that it would.’