By Hunter Perez

I blinked myself out of slumber, but I was in a sorry state. The back of my head throbbed and my body felt cold and stiff. But once I began to regain my composure, I could see why I was cold and stiff – I was naked on a stone floor, with nary a thread to separate me from my surroundings.

Even though my eyes were open, I had trouble focusing. I thought there was someone in sitting on a desk looking down at me, but my vision was too blurred to make out who it was.

“Nicky?” I asked. “What kind of crazy jokes are you playing on me?”

The blurry figure didn’t say anything, and I rubbed my eyes trying to regain my sight.

“I’ve got the worst headache,” to the person I couldn’t see. “Can you get me a couple of Tylenol, please?”

“A couple of what?” responded the person in a low, dull male voice – I couldn’t tell if it was Nicky or someone else.

“Tylenol,” I repeated. “I can even take a regular aspirin, it doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” my still-blurry companion responded.

My grogginess was overpowering, and I found it difficult to sit up. I tried to remember what happened and could only piece together some disjointed recollections – Nicky pulled a prank on me with a jail cell, then he turned some crazy machine on me that made a lot of noise and commotion, then some of his friends pretended to arrest me while we were in the tourist Western frontier town we were visiting.

Wait, was there a tourist town? Or was it an abandoned ghost town? I couldn’t recall exactly what happened. I thought it was a ghost town, and Nicky kept calling it a ghost town, but after I got out of that damn jail cell it was a bustling town, like the type you would see in a John Wayne movie. Everything became a jumble, and my ass was starting to get cold on the stone floor.

“And what’s with me being naked?” I asked. “This is really childish. Where’s my clothing, Nicky?”

“Your clothing is next to you,” the other person answered. “And my name is Private Epes.”

I looked next to me, and my vision was starting to clear up. The clothing in question was a pile of ratty, smelly grey-and-white striped garments with a pair of shoes that saw better days.

“Okay, I’ll play along with your fucking joke,” I muttered.

I tried to stand up but nearly fell over. I felt hands under my armpits pulling me up – obviously, the other guy in the room with me saved me from tumbling. I coughed out a thanks and pulled on the pants, which were a tad too tight – although they made my crotch stand out. The shirt was a size too loose. I didn’t see any socks, so I slipped on the shoes barefoot – the left shoe fit, but the right needed a very strong knot on my lace.

I started to stand up when my companion blurted out, “You forgot your cap.”

“I have a cap?” I said before noticing the headgear in question on the floor. I picked it up and saw it was the same grey and white striped design as the awful shirt and pants. I tried to fit it on my head but could only cover two-thirds of my skull.

By now, my vision had cleared up enough that I could look clearly at my surroundings. I was in a small office with two heavy desks and rickety-looking chairs. Each desk featured multiple stacks of papers. Small bottles of ink and feathered quill pens placed next to the papers.

I looked across the room and saw a calendar on the far wall that featured an artist’s portrait sad-looking man with an asymmetrical beard.

“Who’s the character in the calendar?” I said.

“That was Governor Giddings,” said the voice of the other person. “He died a few months ago.”

“Never heard of him,” I said as I stumbled closer to look at the calendar.

“He was a good man,” the other person said. “I met him at a Fourth of July picnic and got to shake hands with him. He thanked me for my work.”

“Bully for you,” I said to myself as I stumbled closer to the calendar for a better look at the portrait of the late governor. But my now clearly focused eyes noticed something odd about the date on the calendar.

“Your calendar says 1875,” I said. “Where did you get this, is some antique store or online?”

“Yes, that’s right,” the other person said. “Don’t you know what year it is?”

“Nicky, where did you find this thing?” I said, turning around to discover I was not speaking with Nicky, but rather with the punk-looking guy in the Union Army-type uniform who came into the jail cell after I passed out from Nicky’s weird machine.

“You are a friend of Nicky, yes?” I said, with more than a little agitation in my voice.

“I don’t know anyone named Nicky,” he said, gazing at me with a solemnity that would have proven fatal if looks could really kill.

The grogginess that burdened me was now completely gone. I looked at the clothing I was given and remembered from a TV documentary that this was how prisoners in the Old West were dressed.

“Where am I?” I said, betraying more than a little panic. “What am I doing here?”

The punk officer betrayed a lopsided smirk. “From what Corporal Donaldson told me, you’re doing 25 years.”

I repeated “Corporal Donaldon” and “25 years,” and the punk went full grin.

“Welcome to Jefferson Prison,” he proclaimed.

“And this is 1875?” I murmured.

My punk companion nodded and I abruptly sank to the floor, slapping at my face.

“I gotta wake up, I gotta wake up,” I said. “This dream is going on too long.”

“Get up, you’ve wasted enough of my time,” said the self-identified Private Epes. “I have to get you to the cellblock before I go on my break.”

Epes paced over to me and I lunged at him, knocking him over while giving him a swift kick to his chin. I rushed to the door of the office, threw it open and ran outside into a long, dim hallway crowded with large, lumpy, manacled men wearing my grey-and-white convict clothing and a corps of straight-backed, lean men dressed in Epes’ Union Army-style uniforms.

“I want to see who’s in charge here!” I screamed. “I don’t belong here!”

I felt myself being tackled from behind – Epes had regained his composure and was trying to restrain me. I managed to push him off and started running wildly down the hallway, to the astonishment of the uniformed officers and the jollity of their captives.

“I want to see who’s in charge!” I screamed again. “Who’s in charge of this madhouse?”

The prisoners began laughing loud, and their roars echoed through the stone walls of the hallway – some began to repeat my demands of seeing the person in charge but mimicking my cries with exaggerated effeminacy. Officers converged on me, but somehow I found a strength I never knew I possessed to thwart them with punches, kicks, scratches and bites. This mini-brawl grew more fierce and frenetic before I heard a loud metallic bell ringing. Within a few minutes my neck was secured in a chokehold while multiple hands restrained my arms and legs.

“What’s going on in here?” bellowed a voice from the far end of the hallway that sounded like the wrath of God being visited on His idiot subjects.

“Crazy inmate, sergeant,” yelled one of the officers holding me. “The man went nuts.”

I could see a very tall and slender uniformed officer pacing angrily down the hallway to the direction where I was restrained. As he drew closer, I could make out his angry jade-green eyes and a downturned mouth framed with addition vitriol by a reddish-brown handlebar mustache. He was the most villainous person I’ve ever encountered, and my heart sank as he drew closer.

“Who is this troublemaker?” the sergeant roared.

“We picked him up today at the sheriff’s office,” said the punk officer from behind.

The sergeant marched straight into my face and yelled, “Who the hell are you to come in here and…”

Suddenly, the sergeant stopped in his tirade and his eyes widened, as if a ghost popped into view. His pale skin became ashen, and he fell back two steps. After a few seconds of motionless pause, he slowly inched forward, gazing into my face as if trying to decipher an inscrutable puzzle.

“Oh no,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Not you. No, not you.”

“Do you know this man?” asked a voice from one of the officers restraining me.

“I never saw him before in my life,” I answered.

My response generated a smack against the back of the skull, with another of the officers growling, “We weren’t speaking to you. You’ll speak when you’re spoken to.”

“No, don’t hurt this man,” the sergeant said to his underlings. “I am familiar with him, at least I believe I am. No harm is to come to him.”

“What shall we do with him, Sir?” asked Epes.

“Lock him up in the courtyard,” the sergeant said, averting his eyes from having contact with me. “I’ll attend to him personally later today.”

The officers dragged me down a maze of hallways and through a massive wooden door that opened into a large courtyard caked in dirt and sand. In the middle of the courtyard was a large wooden platform capped by a massive pillory.

I was dragged up the steps of the platform and forced into place before the pillory. One of the officers raised the wooden top of the device, exposing half holes where the other officers shoved my neck and wrists, only letting go when the pillory’s top was slammed shut. I could hear metallic tingling, followed by the click of a lock.

The officers started laughing and I fielded a series of kicks to my backside. Epes came in front of me, holding up a key while spitting in my face. My captors went off, guffawing and slapping each other on the back.

I pulled and pushed myself back and forth but could not make the pillory move. I tried with all my might to force myself upward, but the pillory’s top did not budge.

I shut my eyes and tried to will myself out of this situation and into a comfy bed in my proper time, where I could awaken from this nightmare and enjoy a bitter laugh over the insanity of the nightmare. But it was not a dream and I quickly succumbed to emotional numbness while trying to locate a degree of physical comfort being locked in this device.

Mercifully, it was an overcast day and there was no hot sun to bake me. I thought I heard birds chirping in the distance, which gave me some distracting comfort.

I could not determine how much time had passed – it seemed like years dragged by – before there was an audience to my torture. I looked far across the courtyard and could see the tall sergeant who was agitated by my presence walking in my direction.

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