An intimate first person non-fiction storytelling experience about incarceration in the United States.
A lot has happened this week. On Monday, all of us were issued homemade facemasks per directive from the director requiring facemasks to be worn at all times. A week ago supplies were purchased, and thousands of masks were made here by us inmates. By coincidence, at my facility the first COVID-19 case amongst staff was confirmed on Wednesday. The staffer in question was one of the outside contractors.
Continue reading “#24: Video Fridays in 60 Seconds — COVID-19 Arrives Here Behind Bars”
It was my third summer of incarceration, and I’d spent it outside working out and running the Hamster Wheel as much as possible. I was a short distance sprinter in high school, and I was accustomed to outrunning most everyone. However, if you could make it 400 yards without me catching you, you had a good chance of getting away. That summer I’d told myself I was going to change that, and I set my sights running the mile. I remember watching a woman on television from Kenya shred everyone in the mile. She established a steady quick pace, and then sprinted the last 1/3 of the mile. Wow. That’s 1760 feet of balls to the wall fury. Absolutely inspirational. I told myself if she could do that in just under 4 minutes, then I sure as hell could run a 5:00 mile. It was something I’d never done in my life, and something most people can’t do. I was determined to prove to myself I could do it.
In a strange way this week I discovered what it must be like to live in that one walled in commune in a post-apocalyptic world that you see in the movies. While the world out there is succumbing evermore to coronavirus, strangely the 1,200 person community I live in behind these razor wire fences is like an oasis. The only thing missing are zombies wandering outside the perimeter.
Continue reading “#23: Video Fridays in 60 Seconds — Coronavirus, Facemasks, and Early Release”