The day was drawing nearer and nearer, so close he could almost smell the luscious lilies In the endless fields as he watches his children bound, playfully, around in the tall grass. The type of grass that would certainly force anyone to have the worst of hay fever. The magpie’s tail bouncing with every slight twitch and the chaffinch’s sweet song, softly carried by the breeze…
And yet that day. That day that he longed for so dearly, was still so far.
One more line added to the tally, summing up to reach that final goal – that blessed date. The pain felt, as he scraped the chalk against the wall, lingered in his cell. It was as if the man was slowly losing every part of himself. With each memory he recalled, another appeared and sent him on a mental tangent, diving deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of what seemed to be helplessness. But yet the rabbit’s absence brought a sense of determination to the man, a resilience that burned inside him like a newly seasoned log, being thrown onto a blazing furnace. A sudden switch in the man’s mentality lead to him climbing back out of the hole and attempting to search for the rabbit above ground. The strength gained from this experience, was unlike anything he had experienced before, the times he had spent wallowing in anguish were over – he had been baptised in tenacity and was ready to escape. Nothing was going to stop him now.
It would be difficult, and he couldn’t do it alone, but he had no excuses now.
He would need to gather a team, whom he trusted and yet also brought a specialised skill to the group. The only issue was, that he hadn’t had time to make friends after the first incident he had in the canteen. He would be seen as an outcast, but maybe he could use that to his advantage.
Over the next few weeks, he carried out his usual schedule, which mainly consisted of mopping up a profuse amount of blood and sick from the chambers, but now, he was much more aware of his surroundings. Whereas before he looked down to the ground in ‘shame’, now he watched as guards left their regular guard posts to go for break. He analysed their routines and the patterns between the 42 second window left as one left and another came onto their shift. He dealt with the other inmates and managed to get some contraband including; a map of the prison from above (which showed the locations of weaknesses in the pumps and sewage), and a shiv made from the plastic knife from lunch. After all this, he was ready…
A classic, prison break movie, digging plan, covered up by a poster on the cell wall was not going cut it, although the dummy to replace the body would be used. Some sort of confusion needed to be made, and from it he could thrive…