Last night, as I lay in the dark reading by booklight, a man walked purposefully into my cube. I’ve written about him before and called him
The Questioner. Lately he’s kept mostly to himself. He’s lost a decent amount of weight, so his skin hangs funny now. His greasy black hair is overgrown and uncombed and he’s developed a rash around his eyes and forehead.
I figured at first he’s come to speak with my cellmate who used to speak to him quite often until he realized that The Questioner was bat-shit crazy.
“Told you so”, I said to him once he reached the same conclusion I’d been foretelling for months.
“Shut up,” my cellmate told me.
Since then, my cellie has done everything from blantantly ignoring the Questioner to screaming at him, but still the crazy man comes back for more.
“I warned you,” I told my cellie.
“Shut up,” he grumbles back.
The Questioner just stands there looking at me. I sigh and take out my earplugs.
“Yes?” I said.
“Is it…Is it…” he holds up a finger, signaling me to wait. He blinks rapidly, then continues. “Do you agree that the government knows that they are giving Federal prisoners too much time in prison? That the staff,” more rapid blinking, “That the staff know it as well but the sadistic son-of-a-bitches get off on watching us suffer, that they don’t care a murderer - a murderer - gets only 10 years and we - the non-violent - get 15 or 20 for using a computer? It’s sick. It’s sick and wrong. And the government and BOP encourages it.”
He falls silent.
“What?” I ask, seriously confused about what brain processes led him to a man, in bed, obviously reading to bear witness to this diatribe.
“Thank you for your time,” he said and leaves. I stare at my now empty cube.
“What the fuck was that?” I say to the shadows.
They don’t answer.
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