BACK INTIME FOR CHRISTMAS
The final rays of sun glimmered, almost lost in the darkening sky above. Barren of leaves or any such cover, the trees surrounding the prison huddled together against the stinging cold of the night. Tomorrow morning he was to be released. Each day had seemed a sardonic imitation of the last, and all he had to show for it was seven years of suppression and solitude. He still remembered the petulance with which he had entered these surroundings, but he convinced himself that he was different now. In a month’s time, it would be just a distant memory, and he looked forward to spending Christmas free, with his family, away from the jail and all of its demoralising encumbrances. Acquitted of the crimes of which he had been accused, he had been told that a simple medical check would confirm his release, and this was the reason he found himself in the bare surroundings of a waiting room. A single worn-out chair, tall-backed and erect, stood in the corner, presiding over the emptiness. The clock on the wall had stopped, and a single light struggled to overcome the encroaching darkness of the night which entered through the small window. He began to tap his foot, its rhythmic sound merging into his steady yet quickening pulse. His excitement grew as his assumption of time’s progression brought him closer to freedom, and he finally began to understand that he would be leaving this place forever. All of it - the meals, the bed, the restless inmates at night; the whole slow, dry agony of this place - would be cut away from his life like a tumour from his brain, and good riddance. A barely perceptible smile crossed his face, causing it to wrinkle in a different way, not from stress or fatigue but, for the first time in years, from happiness. He allowed himself
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