By Socalbd
When the lights came on, I woke up. The bright glaring light was impossible on this morning to ignore. There was talking from the hallway I couldn’t make out. At least two people were having a conversation. I heard steel doors open and close. And then it went quiet. Being in solitary means being ignored. Whoever they were they had to know someone was on the other side of the door. But they didn’t care. I was just an inmate in solitary. No need to worry about me. No need to check on me.
The pod door opened and a guard entered. He sat a bag of food on the flat steel food slot of the cell door and then left the pod closing the hallway door. No conversation. No exchange of the bag from the dinner meal the night before. Just a delivery to be made. A banana, protein bars, and a box of dry cereal were in the bag. The first meal that didn’t include a peanut butter sandwich.
Try as I might, all I could possibly see outside was mown grass. One by one, the doors to the cells opened. The guys in green pushed a gentleman’s head down. They kept us from hitting our heads as we shuffled, hunched, out of the cage. Thank you. The familiar face left. I wouldn’t see it again for hours. But my sense of time was gone. I had no watch. I had no phone. They were in my luggage, which was labeled “Lukas” on blue painters tape, in a clear plastic bag labeled “Lukas” on blue painters tape. Every rule I had seen, every request thus far, I had followed to the letter. I didn’t want to be a target. I needed to be good.
