On the theme of Enough Rope
THE FREED PRISONER VERSUS HIS HOROSCOPE
The prisoner back in society, just like that. One day he’s in, and the next day, he’s reading the newspaper like none of it ever happened, only it did.
He’s never not still surprised by the light. He gets swallowed up a lot now, in his new life. Just like when he reads the newspaper and has to contemplate certain things like freedom. And what it means.
Most of the time, it doesn’t mean that much to him.
The first time he went for a walk, he wasn’t sure where exactly he was going. Just headed off in a direction, and that was hard to stomach because he found himself looking for how he was confined. What walls were out there waiting for him? What was this thing they told him about being free? He kept walking.
And then he found them. It hadn’t taken more than a few hours, when he came upon a bank of chain-link fences, stretching in both directions to either side, into the darkness somewhere small. To places that he could now see were equally hopeless, places he wouldn’t ever bother traveling to. What would be the point?
A dog saunters up from somewhere behind him, smells his hand as if he’s looking for a pat on the head. The prisoner kicks him instead, has to take this out on someone or something. As soon as it’s done he feels guilty, figures it’s just the institution still in him somewhere. He always assumed the guilt would just be his to carry, but it surprised him every time just the same. Now was another one of those times.
So he kneels down to call the dog over from wherever he went, maybe just a few feet away. It takes a minute but eventually he does. No collar. What would be the point? They’re both in a cage. In fact, once his eyes adjusted to the oncoming darkness around them, he realized it was several rows of cages, hedging them in like some kind of concentric maze – more than enough of them to convince anyone in their right mind that trying to escape was futile. What had he been looking for when he went on this walk anyway? The prison psych doctor would have told him he was looking for exactly what he had found.
But that was a bunch of bullshit, and he knew it. Who the hell would be looking for captivity again after what he’d just been in?
Maybe everything of consequence had been washed down the single drain in the center of that cell back there in his past. Maybe it had all disappeared, and him with it.
Right down the drain.
And then everything around him was quiet again, back in the present. This was one of those moments his prison counselor had told him about. More like a warning, actually, now that he was in it, alone.
The dog had trotted off in the direction he came, and the prisoner looked around him for something, for a light or a house or someone who could tell him where the hell he’d been put once they let him out of prison.
About a mile east of where he ended up finding the fence, and another quarter-mile inside of it, he comes upon a house with a soft blue light on, the kind that a television would make. At least he had found some kind of civilization. He wondered if someone else in his position would be scared of what he was about to do. He wondered where his fear had gone to, because he couldn’t feel any of it anymore, and maybe this made him less than human. Maybe this is why they had put him right back in a cage.
A man answers the door. “Watchin’ t.v., what the fuck you want, mister? Me an’ my buddy here are watchin’ some t.v. and then there’s a knock at the fuckin’ door, and guess who it is?” he says, hardly realizing what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s another one without any fear.
None of this registers on the prisoner’s face. He can see something familiar off behind the man on top of a table in what looks like a kitchen. “Gimme’ the newspaper,” he says to the man. “I want it,” he says, not blinking at all.
“Get this, Earl. This fuckin’ guy here wants the newspaper,” he says, leaning over to grab the papers with his left hand while keeping his right one on the door knob the whole time. “Can you believe it?”
“Thanks. I need to read my horoscope. That’s all. G’nite,” the prisoner says to him, turning to walk farther down the street. He hears the door close somewhere behind him, and opens the paper underneath a street lamp about a block away. Flipping to the back, he finds it. The horoscope. His horoscope
Author Biography
Matty Byloos’s first collection of short stories, Don’t Smell the Floss, was published in 2009 by Write Bloody Books. His work has appeared in Everyday Genius, Matchbook, Bomb, Dark Sky Magazine, among others. With Carrie Seitzinger, he runs Smalldoggies Magazine & Press. He is currently working on his first novel.
Learn more about him at his personal blog: www.mattybyloos.com
Or at the Smalldoggies Magazine site: www.smalldoggiesmagazine.com