🔵 By Timothy Payne. Photo by lauragrafie.
PROMPT:
– You receive an unusual written missive, on your tablet or via a letter.
– It is a message from one of the mistakes you’ve made last year, which has come to life.
– It is excited to keep on repeating this one big or small action of your past, if you cannot convince it to stop. Write about your mistake, the message, and how the story unfolds.
January 01, 2025; Message #1: “Good Morning, You may not recognize me, but I have been with you most of your life. Last year you conjured me so much that it seems to have given me the ability to function outside of your control. For so long I only saw light when your mind summoned me for big decisions. Now I am free. 🙂 We are going to be good friends this year. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.
I must tell you that you take too many risks for your own good. So often I have wanted to stop you, but there was that barrier between us that prevented me from intervening. I think your fear of what you cannot control and that decision to run from opposition to your ideas about changing the prison environment are what broke the barrier. You need a companion, but I don’t want you taking the risk of being hurt. I will be with you always and forever.
I want you to call me “Playing It Safe”. Before I met you, there were cruel people who tried to label me “indecisive”, “social anxiety”, “fear of commitment,” or that awful name, “phobia”. I don’t want any of that from you. You might try to resist me at first, but you will come to see safety must always come first.”
I shake my head to make sure I am awake. From the dim light and lack of movement, it must be very early. I sometimes wake up just to see if I have any messages on my tablet. Sitting up I look around the dorm of 62 bunks. I look back to the tablet screen just to make sure I am reading what I think I am. There is no “Sender” on the message, but the message is definitely there. This must be some weird type of glitch in the system. I hit the delete button and confirm that I want to permanently delete the message.
Off to another day of work. I get up to brush my teeth and use the restroom. I feel an uncontrollable urge to wait until there is more light, just in case there is something to trip over. I do want to make sure I don’t accidentally hurt myself. Yes, that does make sense. I do, after all, live in a maximum security prison full of violence. In the twenty years of my incarceration, I have learned how to survive by paying attention to the small details. It is easier to sidestep and avoid problems than to extract oneself from a problem already there.
Getting dressed, I make sure my shoes are tied, and I begin to plan out my day. I have to carefully walk down the stairs making sure not to trip. The stairs are small and deteriorated since they were first placed 100 years ago when this prison was built. Mustn’t accidentally trip over them. I need to visit the guys on the medium custody living area. That is a danger zone full of hazards as the guys housed there have behavioral issues. Today I will stick to walking cell to cell fulfilling my role as an inmate mentor for the unit, which is much safer than going into the day-room with them. After that, I need to travel to the educational building to assist with classes as a tutor. This, by far, is the safest place for me to be. I will spend a majority of my day here. To close my day, I will shower, eat, and return to my living area.
As my day plays out, I make it safely down the hall to medium custody. There are yellow lines painted on the floor to ensure the inmate population maintains an orderly procession from one place to another. It wasn’t until this morning that I appreciated the forethought involved by the prison administration in maintaining my safety. There are gates in the hall that are unlocked and re-locked as we move from one section of the prison to another. When I finally get to the medium custody living area, I must endure an uncomfortable searching process to ensure I am not carrying any contraband that might be dangerous to myself, not to the guys living over here. As irksome as the process is, it is always better to play things safe.
At this time of day, the guys on medium custody are in their cells. They have restricted time out of the cell as a disciplinary measure to cause them to want to be obedient while in the general population. They must endure this restricted movement for a period of time before they are eligible to be promoted back to a less restrictive security status. I need to be careful back here. While I seek to bring just a little bit of light into their darkness, several of these guys will take their pent up anger and frustration and lash out at whoever is in front of their cell.
Getting ready to enter the bottom floor of three stacked floors of cells, I look at the bars and expanded metal serving as an extra security precaution for the safety of both the officers and the inmate population. Once the officer lets me through the gate, I will be locked into this area. Yes, they are in their cells, but my heart beats a little faster realizing how dangerous this could be for me. I remember just last year in the Administrative Segregation living area, where there are more security precautions than there are here, an inmate slipped the handcuffs and nearly killed another inmate in the area. The officers, who are supposed to ensure our safety, ran away when he should have ensured the safety of the guy being attacked. I know from my years of incarceration that these officers are not really concerned for my safety. If I want to stay safe in here, I have to look out for myself. Just for today, I think I will skip this portion of my day and play it safe in the education building.
As I make my way through the carious gates leading to the education building, I patiently observe the yellow line. Since I left medium custody before getting started, there is still some time before the building opens. I don’t mind waiting… Standing outside the building, there is a cold breeze shaking me awake. It is like I have been in some type of trance this morning. What am I thinking??? Those guys on medium custody need me. Before I became a mentor, my life sentence seemed unbearable. I went day to day locked in this giant box with little hope of my life ever meaning anything. Helping those who will get a chance at returning to society has helped me deal with my time. Fighting the urge to remain safe, I venture back down the hall to medium custody. The officers are looking at me a little askant, but this is what I need to be doing.
Passing through the gate leading to the bottom row of cells, I have to fight the urge to turn away. As I walk cell to cell, I come upon a young guy who must have just arrived because I have never seen him before. He is sporting a nice bruise over his left eye, which is normal for guys new to the unit.
I ask him, “How are you doing today?” Coming closer to the cell door, he says, “Hey, you’re a unit mentor?” Nodding, I say, “Yes.” Looking to the ground, he continues, “I need you to help me! I just got here yesterday and these guys beat me up and took all of my property. I only have two years and I don’t want any problems. I talked to the Sgt. who just laughed at me and told me to go to my cell. I just wanna to my time and go home.”
This guy’s experience is not pleasant, but it is not especially dangerous either. Most new guys on a unit get tested just to see what they are going to do. To try to get help as this guy is trying to do is called “catching out” and places a target upon one’s back announcing to the various types of predators that this person is not going to fight. Since the prison administration likes to turn a blind eye, this makes this type of person’s time quite traumatic.
Lowering my voice a little, I tell him, “Look, I have been gone for twenty years now. I fully understand the situation you find yourself in right now. As much as you want to run from this, the safest path for you is to stand up for yourself. These guys are not really trying to hurt you badly. You can fight a few times and, then, finish your time peacefully. The alternative is to place a target on your back to every predator in here wanting to do worse things to you than beat you up. Do you understand what I am saying? “
He shuffles his feet before answering, “Yeah, that is what I have been told, but I just can’t fight that well. What am I to do?” I feel a little sympathy for this young guy as I remember all those years ago when I entered the system. I share a little advice with him, saying, “Look, it doesn’t matter whether or not you win a fight. What matters in here is whether or not you are going to fight in the first place. I am not telling you to go looking for any trouble, but if it comes to you, you have to meet it head on. I get not wanting to fight, but if you want to walk around as a man in here, this is what you are going to need to do. Look, if you need any help, my name is Paul. Just ask the officers to all the Mentor Paul and I will be down here at any time of the day or night. Okay?” Nodding, he answers, “Thanks Paul, my name is B, but you can call me Caleb.” I shake his hand through the bars on his cell front before continuing my rounds.
After finishing on medium custody, I once again make my way to the education building. Yes, there is that annoying urge to avoid the danger of that area, but I also feel like my meeting with Caleb really impacted the direction of the way he is going to experience prison. I cannot leave right now, but he will be able to soon. I am going to intentionally try to help him while he remains here. Certainly, there is some benefit to taking small risks. The urge returns, of its own, to play it safe.
In the education building, I sit at my own computer terminal where I keep records for various teachers including class schedules and grades. There is a bulletin board with a calendar for the academic year and a picture of two people on a roller coaster. One person seems to be enjoying the thrill of the ride while the other seems to be terrified. Reflecting for a moment, I think I have aspects of each person inside of me. How do I balance them? Yes, there are benefits to being cautions at times, but there is also something to be said about taking healthy chances. Today it seems these two aspects of my being are at war with each other. I wonder if I even have a choice about which part wins?
Carrying out my duties the rest of the day in the education building turns out to be uneventful. Around noon we were called for chow, but I decided to stay back just to be on the safe side. I am not sure if I can handle the added stress of the cramped chow hall. After all, stress is called the “silent killer”.
Having finished my workday, showered, and returned to my living area where I immediately check my messages. The very top one in anonymous like the one this morning. It reads:
“January 01, 2025; Message #2: “Good Evening, Paul!!! I enjoyed our first day together. I must say, you are resisting my cautions, which are only for your good. I was being a little passive. I see now that I am going to have to be more assertive with you. Tomorrow I am going to do everything I can to keep you safe.
I know you better than you think. You have intentionally blocked your earlier memories of all the hurts and injuries you have endured. I have done what I can to unlock them so you can review them in your dreams as you sleep. I hate having to do this, but you are simply taking too many chances that are not necessary.
I know you might be angry with me, but I deleted all your other messages because I do not want you to get hurt. You have the tendency to become emotionally attached so fast that when a relationship ends, you suffer. I cannot stand to see this. For so many years, behind that barrier I couldn’t get past, I watched you suffer. Well, Paul, not any more. I am here to remain and make your life safe.”
I shake my head at how crazy today has seemed. What in the world is happening to me? I delete the message and look for other new ones. All I find is a note saying 3 messages have been deleted. I don’t know what to think. This must be some sort of cruel joke someone in the administration is playing on me. Tomorrow I will get a grievance and file a formal complaint. True, all grievances are denied as having insufficient evidence, but I don’t see how they are going to be able to say these weird messages aren’t evidence. I will have to save the next one if whoever is sending them decided to continue their game.
Getting ready for sleep, I carefully walk to the restroom area watching for any puddles of water… don’t want to slip and hit my head. I brush my teeth and use the restroom before cautiously returning to my cubicle. Looking at my tablet, I do not see any more strange messages. Maybe whoever has been sending them is done with their games.
Before closing my eyes, I double check my hot pot to make sure it is unplugged… don’t need it melding and catching fire overnight. I close my window, just in case it gets cold tonight… don’t need to catch a cold for no reason. Better safe than sorry; even though, the weather did not forecast a cold front. One never knows when they will come.
Closing my eyes, I slip into a restless dreamscape. Horrible shapes float around me as I fall through nothingness. I know I am dreaming, but the experience is so strange I am having a mild panic attack. Heart pounding, I am pulled into one of the shapes. Inside a scene from my childhood is being played out as if I am not even there. A young Paul is about to jump off his bed with the false belief that he can fly. I rush over to prevent it, but my younger self doesn’t see me. Up he goes, through my body, and down into the toy box by his bed. He screams like he has been stabbed with a knife. I know this elbow is broken and will bother him for the rest of his life. Should have definitely played it safe that day. With that thought, immediately I am pulled from that shape by an unseen hand before crashing into another one.
Inside the new shape, a scene is playing right before the big wreck when I was 16. it is raining one Sunday morning and my mother is giving me the keys to her minivan. I am lectured to drive my sisters to church and right back home. I hear the teenage me say, “Yes Ma’am,” knowing what he is about to do. I float with him as he drops my sisters off at church before heading down the road to ask a buddy to pick him up to go fishing. I see the driver’s side front tire blow and the younger Paul lose control as the minivan rolls several times in the ditch. I see my younger self bleeding so bad that the gray door of the minivan turns red.
Suddenly the scene morphs to the hospital where the doctors accidentally discover my allergy to morphine. There is blood everywhere, crash carts, tubes, and nurses rushing around me. My eyes are open, but I know the younger me is not understanding anything going on. In a flash I see the emergency surgeries, the worried face of my mother talking to a hospital chaplain who tells her I am not going to make it. I see the week long coma in ICU before another emergency surgery scheduled. The realization, that invisible force expels me from this shape into another.
This time the scene was the night of the incident from which I was incarcerated. There is a lot of alcohol and drug use happening when someone asks if I want to go for a ride. I yell at my younger self to say no. I know where that ride ends. Yet in an intoxicated state, there is no caution, no fear in my former self. He thought he was invincible. I have learned that I am not. I travel with myself through the scenes leading to a life in prison. I recognize what my former self could not. Yet, I am unable to prevent the person I sued to be from making the exact choices I did. I know especially on this night, I should have played it safe. Almost as soon as I think this, I drift back to consciousness. Somehow, it is already 4 o’clock in the morning. I am afraid to look at what ridiculous message I might find on my tablet; therefore, very cautiously, I grab my tooth brush and tooth paste and head to the sinks at the back of the dorm. Most of my fellow inmates are still asleep, but I can clearly see the path before me due to the security lights. I am careful as I make my way through my morning routine. Returning to my bunk, I pick up my tablet to find the following message.
January 02, 2025; Message #3: “Good Morning, Paul!!! I know you had trouble sleeping last night, but those dreams were necessary to get my point across that you take far too many risks in life. You resisted me yesterday, but today I am going to exert the full force of my will upon you. We are going to enjoy a nice, safe day of staying in your cubicle today. We are going to avoid all the problems that could possibly appear in the violent environment in which you live. You might be angry with me now, but you will thank me later.”
This is completely crazy!!! I shake my head wondering “what is happening here?” Instead of deleting the message like before, I hit the reply button to type the following response.
January 02, 2025; Response #1: “Whoever you are, I don’t know what you want. If I play along for today, will you please leave me alone?”
January 02, 2025; Message #4: “Paul!!! You know exactly who I am. I told you in our first message. I am thoroughly convinced that if you will simply play it safe for a single day, you will realize the benefit of my way of doing things!!! Honestly, you are going to play along for as long as I desire because I have discovered how to silence that pesky side of you that has always been able to capture me and place me behind that barrier I could never get around until yesterday.”
As I finished reading this latest message, a sudden feeling of anxiety comes upon me. What in the world is happening to me? I think maybe, just for today, I will feign sickness as an excuse to remain in my cubicle. With this thought, I curl up into a ball under my covers. I know people will be wondering where I am at today, but it is better to just play it safe.
After a couple of hours of laying awake, the anxiety abates some. I cannot just sit here all day, I need to do something. I sit up to look at my 6’x9’ cubicle. My concrete floor has been swept clean and washed. It is cold as my feet though its rough surface. I fold my sheets carefully before picking my tablet to check for messages. The screen shows to new messages. I decide to send a message.
January 02, 2025; Response #2: “Whoever you are, I am sitting in my cubicle this morning trying to play it safe, but isn’t there more to life than this? I am serving a life sentence from which I will be very old when I get parole. I would agree that I need to play it safe in order to arrive at that time, but what type of life is it to remain in my cubicle all day long? What meaning or purpose is there in living this way? With so few choices available to me, I want my life to mean something, can’t you understand that? At first I thought you were a person in administration playing a game with my mind, but with this crippling anxiety I am feeling this morning, I think you are something more. You call yourself “Playing it safe”, which is a peculiar name. You question my personal choices, but have you ever considered that maybe you are not playing anything safe, but actually hiding from life? I really would like to hear your response.
I don’t know what I’m going to do. This feeling of anxiety is beyond me. I cannot help feeling as I do, despite my desire to feel otherwise. I know if I express this feeling to others, they will just think I am crazy. Please let me live my life!!!”
Honestly, I feel a little crazy for sending the message I just sent. I had to go to the anonymous message and hit reply because the sender of those messages is not on my approved contact list. I know the prison administration filters all of my messages, which makes me wonder how these messages have been coming through to me in the first place.
Looking up, I stare out the window by my cubicle. It has bars in front of it that I hardly notice any more. It is just one of those facts of incarceration that I tend to ignore most days. Out there is a world I hardly know anymore. I cannot imagine how people function on a daily basis or the anxieties they face in their personal lives. In here I just stay busy in an attempt to forget the reality of my incarceration. It has been 20 years. I remember the fear I had about first coming down here. There were rumors about shanks, riots, and prison rape. Experiencing this place first hand, I quickly discovered that sometimes violence is necessary in order to prevent future violence.
More than that, in finding a sense of purpose in here, I have found taking certain risks is a necessity. I find a sense of freedom in pouring into others who are going to the free world again. Despite my good intentions, most of these guys are not initially receptive to hearing that they need to change aspects of their lives if they are going to remain free. I think it confuses them that another inmate would care so much about whether or not they attain a lasting freedom. After all, most of these men have been abandoned by their families, friends, and society at large.
My thoughts are interrupted as I hear the officer calling for chow. As I stand to leave my cubical, the crippling anxiety overwhelms me. My mind is flooded with vivid images of all the things that I could possibly go wrong while I am going to the chow hall. I can see a riot jumping off and getting accidentally hurt just for being too close. I can see the officers not knowing who is doing what and spraying all of us with pepper spray. Then there was that time years ago when half the unit got food poisoning because the food had been allowed to sit out too long. That definitely was not a pleasant feeling. While these images are telling me that it would be better to just play it safe, my growling stomach is pleading for me to risk it. The anxiety wins out as I remain in my cubicle. I will wait til everyone leaves before going to use the restroom.
January 02, 2025; Response #3: “Playing it safe, I am sending this message with the sure knowledge that I cannot live this way. I understand that the world is full of dangers that need to be avoided if possible, but being overcautious is just as dangerous. I have to be able to function in life. I have to eat, work, and to take those small chances that make life worth living. I am going to exert all of my will power to move the barrier back into place that prevents you from controlling every aspect of my life. I know it is going to be painful, but this is what I have to do.”
I hear “LAST CALL FOR CHOW” screamed by the security officer. With all of my will power, I get dressed, swallowing my anxiety, and making it down to the chow hall to eat. It seems that anxiety bubbled in my stomach the whole day. I ate and safely returned to my cubicle. It was a challenge, but not unbearable. If I hurry, I can still make it to the second half of my job in the educational building. With that thought, I check my tablet for messages… I do not see any.
I do not know what life holds for me next year, next month, tomorrow, or even in the next few moments, but I do know that I cannot hide from every potential source of danger. I already feel the stares from society condemning me for my past mistakes; I cannot escape that weight of judgment, but I do not have to allow it to prevent me from living the best life I can given my circumstances. In the same way, I cannot allow the dangers of my environment to cause me to live a shadow existence as I strive to avoid any danger at all. This is not life, but more of a smothered death waiting to die. Life is meant to be lived.