The
prisoners were let into the yard for their daily exercise routine. Their frustration had continued to grow
throughout the previous months. A new
gang leader had been elected.
The
prisoners that had wanted to continue with having the other gang leader running
their lives (just as he had for the last four years) were angry. His supporters thought that the winning gang
leader had cheated to win and were shouting their derision at the other
prisoners.
The
guards watching it all unfold could only chuckle. Just a word from their warden and they would
significantly diminish the number on both sides.
Their
job was to just follow orders; no need to overthink it. They were all a bunch of criminals down there
anyway. Why would any one of them not
cheat to win?
Gazing
down from his window overlooking the guards and onto the prison yard, the warden
could almost sense the tension between the inmates. He knew that the next prison riot was at
hand. All that was left was to decide when
the guards would be ordered to intervene.
Had
the other gang leader been elected once again, the warden knew that the riots
would have already begun. But starving
the prisoners out would eventually accomplish the same goal. That the prisoners could somehow be duped
into believing that their misery had anything to do with each other was why
they were the prisoners and he was the warden.
But
now the warden was stuck with another problem.
The gang leader who had lost the election wanted to form a splinter-group
apart from the rest of the prison population.
The
warden was at first angry at the hubris of a mere prisoner thinking that he could
dictate terms to those in charge of the prison system. But the warden knew that it was his own
fault. He had allowed the gang leader
too much power over the other prisoners and he had become greedy for more. But the warden also knew that as long as he
had control over the guards, no revolt would be successful. Any sort of violent action would only result
in the prison administrators’ being successful in accomplishing their agenda.
And
the agenda was, of course, to cull the prison population down to a more
manageable size. The prison
administrators were very clear about that and the warden knew that he could
easily be replaced if he didn’t go along with what they wanted.
Sometimes
the warden wondered if his situation was any better than those down there. But memories of the prisoners slaughtering
each other with the guards cleaning up the mess afterwards all due to his gang leaders’
manipulations soon made him begin to feel better.
The
warden then saw something in the prison yard that he could not at first
believe. He observed many prisoners
coming in through the walls!
Yes,
they appeared somewhat transparent, but even at that distance he could see
these apparitions materializing in great numbers. And so could the other
prisoners.
And
then the warden understood. These
ghostly figures were those who had fought in the prison yard before and had
all died on the inside. They were the
ancestors of those about to once again be turned upon each other. These apparitions told the prisoners of the
mistakes they had made due to believing the lies told to them by the “authorities”
of the prison system.
These
ghosts told them that it was the guards that were really the most abject of slaves
as there were many guards who had been there longer than the prisoners. Only the guards would remain inside the
prison walls of their own accord.
And
then those in various colored uniforms came through the walls. These apparitions had been the guards killed
in the prison yards both here and abroad.
They warned them of the approaching horror of watching their own progeny
being enslaved under the very system that they had so blindly served.
In
a moment of stark clarity, this entire circle of slaughter was emblazoned upon
the consciousness of everyone in the prison yard. And everyone knew that both the guards and
the prisoners were slaves of a system that now wanted them dead.
The
prisoners and the guards processed it all as quickly as it was revealed, and a
sad soft laughter could be heard moving across the crowd. They now understood their folly of tying
themselves to this endless cycle of selfless subjugation enforced by their own
hands. Some of the guards and the
prisoners even exchanged their costumes in hopes of cheating the wheel of its
next spin. They now knew the way out.
The
apparitions then took the hands of those still of flesh and blood and they
simply walked out of the prison. It was
no great feat as no prison wall could hold anyone for long without being
guarded. And now the future of those who
were once prisoners and guards was limited only by their imagination.
As
for the warden, all of his power had been drained from him, for his only
strength had been his ability to steal the power of others. It was then that he knew the same fear of so
many of his previous prisoners.
The
administrators would not be pleased about having empty prisons.