Tom Moses

Flames lick my skin; singe the hair at my legs.  I walk through the fire and yet I feel no pain.  I look all around as would a curious child, everything seems so upside down.  It’s like a fever dream, the floor is above me, yet I walk upright…just on the ceiling.  I can feel the prickling texture of the drywall at the bottoms of my bare feet.

It’s so very strange, where am I?

{You humans are funny creatures,} a voice calls out to me, familiar, I’ve heard it sometime before.  I look behind me, expecting to be sucker punched by another pansy but I see nothing.

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The trio of cops groaned, and watched as their new team leader bolted across an open field with tiny explosions kicking up the grass all around him.  He sprint until every muscle in his legs screamed to make him stop, his lungs were about to burst when he saw Prodic’s body and he skidded across the wet grass and scrambled to check if he were all right.  Nearly lifeless eyes shuttered open and a smile tried to form on his lips.  He tried to speak, but only dribbled blood instead.

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Just as evolution takes it part to cleanse the earth of useless species, it can be said the same thing happens to societies.  Small towns will eventually give way to larger districts, small cities and eventually a sprawling metropolitan area will consume what had once been just a small frontier town on the basin of a river.  This is the same sort of story that happens to locales all over the country, but there are few cities quite like River City in the heart of America’s Midwest.  Snuggled in close to a large enough river, smugglers found it home almost two centuries before and until recently the criminal element decided to grow quietly, content with its place in the socio-economic system.  But just as evolution had it in for the dodo, it seemed too that River City was doomed to a life of lessening social grace every year.

Now Entering:  River City, home of the 1993 state champions, girls volleyball team.

Population:  1,203,559

Est. 1798

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His office would’ve been much more impressive if every stick of furniture hadn’t come from particle board put together at prison industries, the quality of work produced by felons was quite evident the moment Jules laid eyes on the wannabe mahogany desk. Though this behemoth of a man was certainly brave enough without suggesting that Jules come to see him without handcuffs on, but so many of these guys were like that, brave on the outside but cried themselves to sleep whenever something went horribly wrong. Jules sighed and took a seat, this guy was harmless, and helpless but there was probably little in the way of power he had over the institution other than making the inmates feel better about themselves so that they might push less grievances against the reformatory.

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Jules slid his feet over the polished tile floor, walking had proven difficult enough but really, why was there any hurry? The officer stuck closely behind him and Jules thought about how funny it was that no one else paid any attention to his presence. No stray glances, no gawking, not even an unkind phrase was good enough to acknowledge him. He kept on the straight path toward the elevators guided only by the officer’s occasional word: “Right” or “Left”.

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He reached over and felt the bracelets that gripped his arms to the bars he could only feel. His eyes still didn’t work, not that they didn’t open, but he heard the doctors speak about contusions, brain trauma, and partial blindness. Jules, coughed and it startled the doctors. A nurse rushed to his side and starting asking questions a mile a minute, but he could only barely hear her.

“Stop,” he pushed a struggling voice passed his lips.

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Cold and raining, Jules Perrish can felt every bit of the weather through the orange jumpsuit, but more importantly he could feel every eye tearing through his soul. The classification center, had no fence, hardly much room for much else than triple bunked cells and a weight room, as inmates spent only as much time as was necessary to send them to their new homes away from society. For Jules, on that first day stepping off the bus from county jail, getting out of the classification center was only the first step in a twenty-year sentence.

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