PRISONER EXPRESS

Every one must have been glued to their radio headphones, listening to the news of hurricane Katrina as it roared onto land damaging or destroying parts of New Orleans, Louisiana, and cities miles away like Biloxi, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama, not to mention the Florida pan handle, the destruction was devastating, a national emergency. Those people need help immediately!

The tick-tocking of the old Timex was starting to get to me. I got up, wrapped it in a towel and threw it on the shelf. I went back to reading. "The sun will be darkened and the moon will not shed her light; the stars will be seen falling from the heaven"... As I finished reading that line, the lights in my cell blinked on and off a few times the hallway lights also blinked and went off.

Prison, is a dark mysterious place per se, but, right now, it was pitch black... I could not even see the plan of my hand in front of my face. The last sentence I read in my good book-flashed back in--to my mind... everywhere I turned to look was nothing but blackness.

I heard a few prisoners asking each other if the power had gone off. All the fans were off, and the heat could be felt. Sweat was trickling down my face dripping onto my stomach; I wiped my forehead; I felt thirsty, but I did not want to move. I realized what it felt to be blind. I listened to two of them and smiled.

The two blind men down the run kept on the conversation about the Hurricane... "It must have knocked out our power grid," one said... the other responded, "This is Texas, not Nu'Oleans! It was the warden, turned it off so we don't hear whats gone on main."

This was their world... they went about like any other day... radios were off, fans were off too. I felt around the floor, and I sat with my back leaning against the wall. The cement floor was cooler I kept thinking... the last lines flashed back into my mind. I wanted to read it... again, but, there was no way... I looked up... towards the sky... maybe I could see a star falling from heaven.

The power did not come back on... suddenly it dawned on me, could this be the start of the end times. Wow! No! It must just be a power outage.

I looked up towards the sky, the windows looked dark, not a light could be seen. My eyes were glued to the windows... where was the moon?... No moon! I could not even see any star! Just darkness.

Suddenly startled, I jumped up... I could hear several prisoners break out of the silent trance. My alarm clock was ringing. I could not find it in the darkness. I reached into the locker, felt around but it was out of my reach. The alarm kept on ringing.

I touched the tip of the towel, and pulled it. As the towel unraveled I saw a small light. It was a beautiful sight, the battery light from the face of the clock gave me enough light to finish this story. It was midnight.