One Grain of Sand: Shards of a Shattered Sky, #1

The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain

1

September 3, 2063

Ashen rain fell from the burning sky and pelted her frilled and laced school dress. Parlisse Hardamon, then only five, stood in the back of the proud family estate, looking upward into the roiling heavens as flocks of birds departed the two-acre garden.

The piercing alarms shattering solace across neighboring estates rang painfully through her head. When her mother wrapped her arms around the small girl and began whisking her away, the small girl had no further doubt that America was experiencing its first Category Six hurricane.

Even as a child she feared the outcome of the storm and silently prayed, with eyes shut tightly, it could somehow be society’s last. She clenched her teeth; her body rising and falling repeatedly as her mother raced to grab her twin sister. She only peeked through one eye when she could hear her father yell Come on, my love, this is what we discussed!

The sound of heavy footsteps was drowned out by the throbbing in her head. Then the entire 3,500 square foot home itself began to vibrate as the family descended into its cavernous basement.

August 2044

Time sat on Noah Harpster’s chest, its dreadfully massive weight choking down his breath into staccato, shuddering gasps, causing the pulse in his head to pound like a snare drum.

He was a slim and fresh-faced twenty-five sitting in a sparsely occupied Virginia courtroom, scheduled to appear before a magistrate to face sentencing for another alleged theft; one who would no doubt review his record for prior offenses, however minor.

Walking from his rusted, dented and cramped car to the courthouse, Harpster noted how bright the sun was and how clear the sky had been that day despite the recent acid rains.

Sitting there listening to clerks shuffle papers, exchange empty pleasantries out of anticipated necessity than actual compassion, he was struck by how cold and devoid of humanity the courtroom felt.

After a few moments, the public defender appeared, breezily chattering with the court stenographer, offering a cup of steaming coffee to the bailiff, and then moving over to sit in the front row, as she had told him she would do.

NOW, HE LOOKED OUT through the gaps in the yard fence and observed a meager skeletal frame of a dying tree whose branches looked like bony outstretched arms.

The memory of his court appearance took shape vividly, appearing to him in sharp black and white this time.

He was told to stand before the magistrate, a tall thin frail woman wearing antique horn-rimmed tortoise-shell glasses, her drooping jowls revealing a permanent scowl.

The courtroom was sparse; filled with only the seated public defender, and three other individuals. The room smelled of age and cleaning fluids intermingled.

A roboclerk rolled out across the smooth marble floor on creaky wheels and read Harpster’s name, date of birth, and case number.

The magistrate then read the charges: multiple shoplifting and one pickpocketing offense. Then she read the verdict: fifty years.

The magistrate’s gavel struck the heavy circular oak sound block resoundingly. Harpster could see the gavel in the most minute detail, down to the grain of wood, even the patterns and contours of the colors.

It was at that hour, on that day, that the door opening outwardly into what he’d previously called a life slammed shut. It would reopen; but not soon.

Although hearing the sentence felt like a wall of lead falling upon him, choking his throat and filling his eyes with a dusty sorrow he could neither see through or around; the sentence itself felt more like a continuance than a shock.

IT WAS MORNING AT HOOD State Penitentiary in Norfolk, Virginia. The sun was rising over the sprawling empty expanse of dying corn, withering wheat fields, and untillable plots of land surrounding the facility for miles upon arid miles.

The sun burned a searing crimson wound against the steel grey sky.

WELLER LIMPED ACROSS the prison yard that spanned forty-five yards in length and twenty feet in width, toward a quiet corner.

He hid a small pinch of breadcrumbs in the crook of his one good elbow tightly against his chest, dragging his dead leg behind him as it drew a long twisting line in the dirt.

From across the opposite side of the prison yard, Harpster watched the older man with the contorted face and crooked stance working his way toward him, toward the isolated corner of the yard. When Weller finally came within a foot of him, Harpster asked seen our little friend yet?

Weller lifted his chin, looking out at the warming earth beyond the tall, barbed wire-laced fences, directing their attention to a tiny red spot in the distance.

The two men turned their backs to the other inmates and watchtower, pushing their shoulders together tightly to block the view. Harpster took a palm of the crumbs Weller had in the crook of his elbow and flicked them between squared gaps in the fence toward the red dot darting around the field and slowly coming into view. The tiny cardinal quickly pecked at random crumbs, causing the two men to involuntarily laugh at the sight.

So how many years you looking at? Harpster asked Weller.

Fifteen with good behavior, twenty if I piss off anybody. They got me in on embezzling, but they were the ones cooking the books and I was the fall guy, he said looking out at the fields, squinting as the crimson light brightened momentarily in-between floating masses of soot and then darkened again.

How about you?

Harpster turned to notice several inmates eyeing them.

Tall time, he replied. "Too many thefts over too long and not enough luck, so I’m looking at life if I’m a good boy. If I’m a bad boy, I suppose they could make it rougher than it ought to be."

Weller winced.

It’s alright. I’m cool with it now, I guess. I never needed anybody anyway, and I’m used to one type of prison or another. First it was my old man controlling what we could or couldn’t do, then it was jobs calling the shots, and now this. You do what you can with whatever you can get in life, how’s I see it.

Weller reflected on this for a moment.

You know that little cardinal....it might have a broken wing or foot. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it without looking it over, but it can still get around, still get into here if it wanted to. And once it’s healed it can fly anywhere. Even beat up... it’s still got freedom....

Look, said Harpster, after a few moments of shared silence, I can appreciate what you’re trying to say, but I’m used to being dealt a short hand. I’ve eaten more than my share of shit pies and this is just one more you swallow so you can keep going. It is what it is, you know?

Weller began backing away as he noticed another inmate approaching the two of them.

A tall, heavyset thickly muscled man with a shaved head and burns on his forearms approached. You guys wouldn’t be packin’ any ecigs, would you? he snickered.

Harpster shook his head slowly.

Me and some friends heard you’re not paying protection yet, he smiled at them through cracked teeth, coming closer.

And they asked me to collect. Got my dues, boys?

Harpster hardened his stance. We don’t pay protection.

Weller walked away quickly, but calmly, knowing when it was best to leave the situation.

Have a nice day Harpster replied to the man, also walking off, taking an old, tattered paperback from a rear pocket, and loping toward a different corner of the yard to read upon.

THREE GUARDS ACHINGLY, begrudgingly shuffled into the front main staff entrance of the prison for shift change, their heads hanging as if dangling from sore necks, each of them carrying a plain black messenger bag.

Above them, gradually twisting metal spires rose from the roof of the building upward into the perpetually dark sky. Membranes of smog drifted past the building and over miles of barren acreage as clouds of mottled ashen soot exhaled through vast exhaust chimneys.

Each of the guards tapped their forearms against a metal stud built into the wall of a secondary vestibule, clocking in for their shift as a hornet’s buzz sharply called from a pin-prick microphone above them, signifying acceptance.

A massive iron gate calmly hissed open. Three other guards wearily departed past, not acknowledging those entering, and then the gate slid shut.

The first of the three guards entered a dank, cramped office; inhaling the dry-throated scent of archaic dust and metal, followed by the other two.

Porter promptly sank into a seat with torn upholstery behind a large computer desk, opening the monitor and checking the previous shift’s logs. Closed circuit video camera feeds refreshed on the monitor positioned above the log file. He calmly removed his telewatch, folded it outwardly into a small oblong box, fixed the appropriate channel, and turned off the alert ribbon feature at the bottom of the screen, as the other two guards pushed into the small office.

Within seconds a television debate began playing on the screen of the device. Porter quickly turned down the volume so that it was audible but just barely.

My money’s on Browning, chimed in one of the other guards, looking over Porter’s shoulder, he’s tough but funny. Porter snorted to himself in response.

What-ever, said the third guard entering the office, standing behind the other two at the desk. They’re important issues, he said in awkward defense, but I’m going with whoever wins this round.

The two guards Jepson and Ramierz jockeyed behind Porter, watching the debate unfold as they acclimated themselves to the stale confines of the prison watch room.

Each of them took turns every few seconds to glance over at a bank of cameras, check the filing cabinet for their batons, handcuffs, microwave guns, ammunition batteries; then their refrigerator for inevitable meal breaks.

The three watched the debate audience laugh riotously one moment and then roil the next.

Two Presidential candidates stood proudly on a brightly lit stage behind large polished oak lecterns, each dressed in immaculate padded dark suits, wearing blue or red ties to signify party affiliation, puffing their chests out. Both men were Caucasian, pink-cheeked, and doughy faced.

The American people want equal opportunity, bellowed the candidate named Caudle wearing a blue tie, a fair shot at our great way of life and freedoms! Offering livable wages, healthcare, education, gainful employment, and the pursuit of happiness to only a select few is not what we want and it’s not what I stand for!

The studio audience roared as the opposing candidate and current President, named Browning, wearing a red tie, squirmed. He waited for the cameras to zoom closer before opening his mouth revealing flawless sparkling white teeth.

You know that wasn’t the tune you were singing last year, when you had your chance at passing the Fair Work Act in the Senate, laughed Browning, turning his neck toward the crowd and winking to them broadly.

You sided with us when you had your chance to pass the Act, and then let it slide. You can’t stand up here and say you’re for weak Americans who aren’t willing to earn healthcare or education and pay for it themselves! Come on!

This time other members of the studio audience yelled approval for Browning’s statement, waving red and white flags bearing his cross within a circle campaign logo and chanting Earn it! Earn it!

Ramirez, one of the other guards, hearing this shook his head, removed a tiny black seed from a shirt pocket, put it into his ear canal, and silently tapped his own telewatch, choosing to watch something different as he leaned over the filing cabinet.

Ramirez glanced through the caked dust over the office window at the inmates outside in the sandy, treeless prison yard.

Most inmates lifted weights while others smoked and talked amongst themselves, with some playing cards.

He switched channels on his telewatch while occasionally squinting up to scan the yard slowly, examining the high barbed-wire fence around it.

First he watched Food Fight for a few minutes, a new reality program in which contestants competed in mental and physical challenges for a year’s worth of free groceries for their families.

A few minutes later he switched over to Chicken Out in which homeless and economically struggling participants were tasked with endurance tests; the winner being awarded the right to move freely to any State of their choosing, with airfare paid in full.

After a few minutes Ramirez settled on Those People! a popular practical joke program in which humiliating pranks were played upon hapless minority shoppers or professionals going about their daily lives.

Then he flipped channels to White Flight, a game show in which contestants compete for a multimillion dollar home within a private all-white gated community; and Your Own Kind, a precision shooting competition wherein winners were awarded membership into an elite border patrol police force tasked with executing anyone attempting to cross the Southern US border without proper credentials. When the weekend pass segment came on, where select winners hunt minorities with criminal records during the next upcoming weekend, he could feel himself begin to salivate slightly.

Jepson steadied himself from leaning behind the desk console, checking the keys in the filing cabinet.

I’ll be glad when they finally switch this place over to all electronic, he mumbled under his breath, as commercials for new experimental surgical procedures flitted across his telewatch screen followed by news of his neighbors’ activities and opinions slid across the ribbon on the bottom of the screen.

He glanced over at the other two men. Ramirez was watching citizens in wheelchairs, some with crutches, some with arms in slings, others with pronounced tumors on their faces or heads, competing for healthcare as audience members jeered at them shouting get over it, or get a job in raucous laughter.

Porter pushed away from the desk, stood, swaying transfixed behind him, still staring absentmindedly at the images dancing like flames before them, eyes glassy and mouth agape. Inmates moving, he mouthed as if in a stupor.

Jepson noticed a group of five heavily scarred and tattooed inmates skulking toward a seated inmate comfortably nestled in a corner of the yard by himself reading one of the few remaining paper books. Each one of the five large men bore dark, hollowed skulls etched across their corded forearms or wide shoulders.

Hey, hey, piped up Jepson bluntly to Ramirez and Porter. Looks like our boy Harpster has another visit from the Skels.

Ramirez turned excitedly from the screen. Fifty on Harpster, he offered.

Two hundred on the Skels, countered Porter, suddenly coming around, they got him outnumbered, easy.

Jepson nodded agreement with Porter, a hundred on Skels, he barked.

The three guards started out of their office, down the prison hall, past hundreds of occupied cells toward the yard, one of them tapping his forearm against a metal stud near the exit door, sounding an alarm that shrieked across the compound.

A team of twenty armed guards wearing thick plastic body armor marched from a nearby barracks, charging toward the yard.

As the small squad of guards raced toward the fight, Jepson, Ramirez, and Porter halted at the perimeter surrounding the yard from their corner.

On one end of the yard stood the twenty guards each taking out rubber reinforced metal batons in unison, microwave pistols at their hips, eyeing the other three guards on the opposing side.

Together, they knew they were more than sufficient force to outnumber the inmates occupying the yard. They stood motionless, waiting for the inmate known as Harpster to get to his feet or for the Skel biker gang to attack. The other inmates in the yard watched from afar as the gang sidled closer, some of the Skel members laughing to each other.

Noah Harpster was of medium build, average height, with a thin jagged scar over one eye, bald, with gray highlights in a long square beard.

He sat full lotus, motionless reading, almost childlike in repose, carefully reviewing ... wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

He stopped at the word solitude, unintentionally frowning and gently laid the book down on its open face as carefully as he would a blanket over a sleeping child, his forehead furrowed in thought. Looking up at the sky mottled with dark grey clouds, he got to his feet.

RIPPING A HOT FRESH gash across his memory, Harpster was suddenly an adolescent again. He could feel shivers racing along his spine as each nerve-ending screamed to life. As vivid as if it were happening right there and then he stood in the center of a tattered old dojo, eyeing his mirrored reflection wearing the ceremonial gi, tightening the dark striped belt about his hip. He’d served as live-in servant, or Otomo, to the aikido master for years in exchange for room, boarding, and food.

At first he thought it would be an easy escape from the beatings and poverty at home, but soon he realized he was only substituting one type of physicality for another. But the food, the opportunity to learn and grow, to defend oneself...that hadn’t been there before.

IN THE DIN OF THE PRISON courtyard, Harpster felt a rush of wind against the nape of his neck. He straightened his spine and put his arms out, bending his elbows. 

Five members of the Skels gang attacked, wielding knives made from kitchen utensils, belt buckles, and shards of glass. The closest Skel gang member struck first, stabbing at Harpster with what resembled a long pick held downward.

Harpster parried the thrusting strike and redirected its momentum forward, flipping the Skel over and into two other men, as the man carrying the knife cried out.

Harpster then kicked one man’s chest with a fluid savate thrust, then pivoted to strike another’s windpipe. Half a centimeter to the right and Harpster thrust a palm ridge to the temple of a risen Skel member before the man could attempt a puncyh, then the flat of his palm entered another gang member’s nose, crushing it with a mushy wet cracking sound.

The Skels crumpled to the hard compacted earth, sending up plumes of hot dry sand and dirt, writhing in pain. It was over as abruptly as it had begun.

The last Skel gang member stumbled to his feet facing Harpster, knife drawn, hands shaking like leaves hanging from tree branches in autumn winds. Noah Harpster said nothing, staring hollowly through the man.

After a long moment Harpster sucked his tongue, turned, picked up his book, folded the page where he’d left off, put it in his back pocket again, and slowly walked away; through the sweltering prison yard, past the crowd of silent inmates. He stopped at the heavy metal barred prison door leading back to their endless halls of dank cells smelling of despair and lost hope.

The huge door shrieked a sharp insect sound, slowly opened its yawning maw, and Harpster entered silently through to his open cell, where he reclined as he had before. He closed the cell door, retrieved the book and thumbed through to the page he had folded the corner of.

By the time the din of violence settled, the squadron of armored guards had already retreated to their barracks. Ramirez, Jepson, and Porter still stood outside the doorway from their end of the yard leading back to their tiny office.

Ramirez’s hand stuck out from his torso. Pay up! he laughed, as the other men shrugged and looking down in disgust, each paid their losing bets.

Harpster sat once again cross-legged on the hard cot in his cell, reading beneath the single barred window above him. After another hour passed he began losing focus, became tired, and noticed the distant call of what he thought was the cardinal he and Weller were watching earlier, loosening his hips and opening his seated position.

The curved tips of his ears pricked and slightly reddened at the melodious brisk tune. He hadn’t heard a bird song in so long he couldn’t recall the last time it’d happened.

He struggled to remember if the cardinal’s beak was scarlet as its plumage, its head pointed, or were they different from what he could draw in his mind? From his seated position he observed a huge nebulous blot of soot with small black chunks in it floating nearer, and a burning red orange glow bleeding through permanently gray clouds above.

He leaned back slowly onto the tattered cot, positioning his back and legs to avoid places where rusted springs pointed out through holes in the fabric.

Time thickened like cold evening ocean tides turning through subterranean recesses of his mind, a soft subtle pressure pouring through the back of his head. He touched the edge of the cot with the back of his head, the bristles of his scalp tingling against the worn fabric, his eyes narrowing upward at what he thought was the small, delicate silhouette of the same cardinal. Far off he could smell roasting trash mixed with smoke.

Cold, numbing memories slowly rolled in looking like doughy bulbous clouds drifting through and over each other, turning into and through others, expanding behind some, bright as coruscating distant moons of reverie occasionally sprinkling the thick ether as Harpster gave in to slumber.

And like all seasons of the sea, this upwelling of relaxed and warm surface waters returned toward the coast. What was vague and blurred now became manifest. He could make out the tiniest grains of sand to the frothy tip of a wave crashing; unaware that on the prison cot, his head was violently jerking from side to side atop the small, hot pillow.

PART OF HIM WAS REFRESHED and alive again to be a child; small, pink and round, running along a bright, airy, hot beach with blue cloudless sky and yellow shores.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled relief and joy, arms outstretched to hold the salty breezes.

It was Sunday, Beach Day, and little Noah Harpster let the moist air carry his chubby five-year-old arms like broad wings along the beach as he finally flew to the foamy edge of the sea. And he dove into the bottle green sea until the waters grew too dense and its currents too strong to continue through any longer.

Looking around the open sky, seemingly endless waves crashing down rhythmically, he beat his fists into the waves. He would fight each wave, punching and kicking each as hard as his small clenched fists and legs could, and it felt so freeing he couldn’t form the words.

Back ashore, his mother, brother, and father all sat on one long blanket in their bathing suits.

Father drew in a long deep breath through his pipe that hung from the corner of his mouth, tiny bits of gray ash burning orange above the pipe’s end. Harpster’s brother sat on the opposing side of the blanket playing with trucks in the sand as his mother lay flat, motionless, eyes shut behind huge black sunglasses, oblivious.

When he tired of fighting the ocean, exhausted yet exhilarated, Noah returned near the rest of his family, where a plastic sandcastle mold and sand sifter waited.

He played wordlessly in the sand, first building a careful foundation for his sandcastle, then using the plastic mold he’d gotten for his birthday to create a block of moist sand to carve out. Next, he picked up a seashell to carefully etch door and window outlines into the castle, then pushed sand through a plastic sifter looking for twigs and other shells he could use to make antenna for the castle’s internet and television connections, use for small trees, and use to draw diagrams in the sand to represent courtyards.

Harpster’s brother, Tommy, watching the castle being built, abandoned his trucks, strode over and began defiantly stomping gleefully into the castle his brother had been building.

Ha, ha! Tommy laughed, I’m a giant and I just stomped your villagers!

Harpster’s father stared off into the vastness of the ocean beyond. His mother seemed barely conscious behind her large round dark sunglasses.

Tommy kicked Noah in the side, just ten feet or so from their father. Build a new one, why don’t you? he roared.

Finally, their father had seen enough and seemed to awaken from a deep, faraway slumber.

Alright he finally bellowed, putting down his pipe on the blanket in a small space between himself and their mother.

He grabbed Tommy’s arm and dragged him over back to the opposite side of the blanket, pushing him down back beside his plastic trucks embedded in moist sand. Tommy began to whine uncontrollably.

The whining, in turn, elicited a response from their mother, who glanced over at the two children, blankly. She put an arm out and rose as their father moved to start gathering up their belongings and toys.

I think we’ve all enjoyed the beach enough for today. Noah, Tommy, let’s get ready to go home now. You both have school tomorrow.

As they all began to leave, Tommy flashed a mocking grin at Noah to let him know that he’d won once again. Mother packed the blanket and pillows, shaking her head slowly.

Father took each child with a separate hand, seizing them at their elbows and pulled them along toward the car. Noah looked over at the beach, trying to jerk away from their father’s firm grasp. He’d left his plastic sieve and castle mold behind there on the beach. He was really having fun and would have made a fine detailed castle with a beautiful intricate courtyard. If only....

Now maybe some other kid would find the castle mold and sieve and get a chance at having a grand time with them. In the burning bright afternoon beach sun, he could still see a few yellow grains of sand still trapped in the sieve, reflecting tiny glints of light. Each grain, he thought, was a day he could have spent alone, there, enjoying himself, free.

THEN LITTLE NOAH HAD grown inexplicably to a taller, skinnier boy of ten. He was wearing a heavy, thickly padded bulky winter coat with long over-sized pants and a boxy winter hat on his head along with oversized winter boots.

Four seasons had changed to two, years ago, with the predominant weather pattern being either scorching summer or numbing winter. Yet here he was skulking through a local grocery store as discreetly as such garb would allow, stuffing packs of hot dogs into a torn-open slit in his coat lining, frozen blocks of lasagna down his pants to fall along his legs to where they’d stop and be caught by rolled up cuffs, light leafy vegetables down his shirt to tickle his chest. If he moved quickly enough, once he made it outside, several meals, if he could hide it all once home, were assured.

He hurried frantically to finish, pulling the brim of his hat down, making sure to only select areas where he couldn’t see any cameras; because he knew if he couldn’t see any cameras, surely no one in the store could see him, either.

Completing his mission, he passed the self-checkout machines, proud and hungry, practically running now. There, in front of the entranceway, like a sprawling wall, stood two well-fed security guards staring down at him, grinning. One of the two men slapped his palm with a steel and rubber reinforced baton while the other gripped a sonic pistol from his hip holster. My, my said one of the guards, eyes wide, looks like we have ourselves another shoplifter.

Each guard took a separate elbow and carried young Noah to the nearby detainment office to await police arrival and arrest.

He blew it big time, and all he could think about was how the hot dogs would have tasted hot and steaming coming out of the microwave. Now he’d be lucky to taste dry, papery bread or wet his lips with clean water this evening. The guards lifted him off the ground; his heavy shoes dragging on the concrete, as the rolled cuffs of his pants gave loose, and frozen slabs of lasagna fell through onto the floor.

ON THE SAND-BLASTED dried dirt road leading to a main exterior visitor parking lot to the prison's entrance, a clattering, smoking old car with a license plate barely hanging on with a single tightly-twisted screw, pulled slowly into a parking space as exhaust coughed from rusted tailpipes.

Out stepped a twisted old woman with bent legs and feet turning inward, helped awkwardly by a hired driver. Her face was a long, sagging sadness marked with deep pits; her head, cratered and carrying sparse, uneven, dyed jet-black hair. She stooped forward, working a wooden cane, poking the hard dry ground with the uneven and torn rubber stopper at the bottom of the cane. As she methodically shambled to the gate in fits and starts, a guard behind the barbed wire at the first concrete and steel vestibule approached her from a tiny single-person closet-shaped plastic house beside the main gate door.

Can I help you, ma'am, the guard asked, emotionless through his face plate.

Uumm, she muttered shakily, exhaling heavily, I’d like to visit my boy, Harpster.

The guard put his head back, as if to laugh, but stopped himself short. Harpster, he mumbled. Yeah, he's here. Do you have the visitation form and IDs and are you okay to go through a search?

The old woman paused, beginning to shake from her fingers, through her arms, to her elbows, then to the base of her neck, twitching her head nervously.

Through her narrow, wizened eyes, soft crystal tears slowly, invisible to all but felt by the woman nonetheless, crept forth from the ducts of her eyes. My boy.... she whimpered.

She took two steps backward as if to fall, arms flailing outward in a wide reach preparing to catch herself, followed by a few more half-steps backward, before she crouched and stopped for a long moment. Then, gasping the dry air, shaking, she staggered back to the car.

A few moments later they left.

As the rusted car smelling of urine and wear drove away, the old woman looked out the car window at withered leafless trees that began to appear sporadically along the suburban landscape, choking back regret, sucking her dentures.

Overhead digital billboards advertised free medical care for cranial implant volunteers and new bulletcars retrofitted to access the subterranean interstate system to Unjam the Jam.

Her driver watched True Blue on the windshield, which was a soap opera in which Chuck Blue, an elderly cancer-stricken cowboy ranch owner and his three widowed daughters struggled to eke out a meager subsistence while battling opportunistic foreigners and feelies destroying society from the inside. He’d told her before that the show was corny at times but quite engrossing.

Once back home the driver helped her out of the car. She hobbled along the narrow cracked eggshell white concrete sidewalk leading to the house front door. She grasped the door knob in arthritic fingers to open it. Inside she saw her husband, distended belly bulging outward onto a small dining table in the living room, cheese popcorn stuck in chest hair.

So how’s Noah? he said, remote control in one hand and bag of popcorn in the other, his head arcing only slightly enough to barely catch a glimmer of her in one corner of an eye.

Fine, she mumbled.

That’s good, he said, turning back to the television, shoveling a hand of popcorn into his open drooling mouth, turning up the volume again.

Onscreen the episode of True Blue showed the wizened squinting cowboy shooting down several sweaty dark-complected men with forked eyebrows and pointed chins lurking behind boulders in a vast open plain lined with scrub brush, as patriotic music swelled to a rousing crescendo.

Watching the red ribbon of text at the bottom of the screen, he could see which bills were still unpaid, what neighbors were doing and what their opinions were of world politics, read Tommy’s wife complaining about yet another recent time he’d grabbed her by the throat for not preparing dinner on time, and what others thought of the series he watched. This gave him a sense of community that at times felt comforting; especially as he shoveled the strangely addictive cheese popcorn into his mouth.

The old lady entered the kitchen and achingly fell into a folding stool beside a window.

She took out her dentures with a shaking hand, dropped them into a cup of bubbling liquid, and stared at passing birds for a very, very long time.

A SMALL, SQUAT GUARD wrapped her baton against the bars of Harpster’s cell.

Wakey, wakey, she said. Counseling time. Get yourself together and let’s go.

Another female guard stood from a distance, observing silently.

Harpster pulled himself off his cot, washed his face in the cold rusty water trickling out of the sink, wiped his face in his shirt and plodded over to the open cell door.

The guard clamped a single manacle over Harpster’s wrists, then another over his ankles, then a belly chain around his waist to which his wrist manacle was then attached.

The second guard then snapped a chain whip to Harpster’s belt and led him along white-walled dimly lit corridors of cells until they arrived at a single office unit. The room was eggshell white with a single LED bulb glowing along the ceiling. A humanoid robot sat at a worn white desk.

Harpster was led into the small office space, with the chain whip released and pulled aside. The two female guards exited the cubicle once he sat in a heavily-cushioned chair directly facing the robot.

Its eyes consisted of a single optical panel spanning broadly across its forehead. Its nose consisted of two drilled holes through which it could ascertain bodily aromas signifying varying emotional states. Its ears were similarly two drilled holes through which its auditory sensors recorded every sound once the inmate had entered the office space including heart beats per minute. It bore no arms as whatever was spoken was immediately recorded, stored, backed-up to federal record databases and then relayed to court databases throughout the United States.

Good afternoon, inmate Harpster, Noah, 8764103. Thank you for attending your court mandated weekly counseling session. We will begin this session as previous sessions with a series of questions. You are to answer each question honestly and to the best of your ability. Whatever you say can and will be held against you in courts of law and filed for future judicial reference. Do you understand and agree?

Harpster shrugged knowing he had no choice but to comply.

Let the record indicate inmate Harpster, Noah, 8764103 shrugging.

Harpster sat straighter in the cushioned chair.

Yes, I agree. 

How long have you served of your sentence so far, inmate?

Three years, four months, twenty-six days.

Assess your time with fellow inmates.

It’s been a blast. Great conversation. I feel very positive about the experience so far and look forward to more bonding.

INVOLUNTARILY HARPSTER silently visualized the time he and Weller were in the showers. Sometimes there’d be guards in the showers, but most of the time there weren’t, and it was a total free for all. Whoever could take care of themselves did so, those with gang affiliations had what they called back, meaning support from other members. Harpster felt that most of the time he could take care of himself now as long as he had freedom of movement and could get his bearing, but Weller took twice as long as anyone else to get in or out of the showers and often came out of the rooms disheveled, sometimes with black eyes or contusions.

This time when Harpster was coming around a corner from the showers to a hallway with towels hanging from hard rubber hangers, several Skel members had Weller against a wall bent sideways with half his body on the grimy floor. Harpster was able to force the three gang members from Weller and get him out and into the general yard where they all knew guards would be stationed. In the process Harpster couldn’t get much footing on the slick floor and ended up taking several knees to the groin and stomach for his troubles but he also knew he could recuperate faster and easier than Weller....

And with one working arm and leg, Harpster didn’t think anyone could really say how Weller might have ended up without help.

Yeah, Harpster said. A blast.

Noted, inmate. Good job.

What do you feel led to your criminal record?

IN HIS MIND HARPSTER was a teenager again working at a generic chain cafeteria during one of his summers off from school.

Stacking dishes and trays, emptying the enormous industrial dishwashers, emptying out bussing trays filled with half-eaten slop, trash, and food-encrusted steel utensils, and repeating the cycle for at least eight hours per shift was the norm. He’d go back and forth between the kitchen, then the serving area that the endless lines of elderly retirees would waddle along through, and back again.

Every few hours he was permitted either a brief bathroom or meal break, which usually lasted fifteen minutes. Any deviation from that schedule would result in a written notice. After three such notices it was back to unemployment; which meant no food other than what he could scavenge between his parents and much older Tommy who could eat like a horse (and enjoyed doing so even if he wasn’t hungry).

At the end of each shift staff were permitted to take home whatever bland food remnants were about to be tossed into the gigantic plastic and rubber trash bins. Usually, he would have to eat whatever he could bring home then and there so it wasn’t taken, since everyone else at home was just as hungry.

This night young Noah thought he’d be a little more daring: he had stuffed his heavy winter coat arms with rolls of needed toilet paper and filled several interior pockets with utensils they needed at home.

As he clocked out and went to pick up a few boxes of repugnant unknown mystery meat, his coat fell from his arms. Oh, shit, he could remember himself saying despite himself.

Rolls of toilet paper descended out of the arm slots with some bouncing on the hard tiled floor, with metal utensils falling out of interior pockets; some even clanging loudly for good measure. Noah felt as if he was sinking a good five feet into the densest quicksand on earth, his face reddening with shame and embarrassment.

Cafeteria management wasted no time calling security, who in turn, called the police.

All he could remember from that point on was appearing in court, seeing himself standing before the magistrate as if from above.

He sighed deeply.

THE RECORD INDICATES multiple thefts and pickpocketing arrests. However, I would like to add that the thefts were for food and health supplies that my family and I simply didn’t have.

Noted. What do you feel led you to take the actions you did?

My father was a gambler. Whatever he didn’t lose at the tables he lost drinking gin and chasing other women. We did what we had to survive. My mother was sick from the minute I was born so had to take care of herself.

THIS TIME NOAH WAS a teenager returned from college and now getting ready to leave again after a very brief visit. He couldn’t take more than fifteen to twenty minutes at a time because it was at that point at which there would usually be some type of threat, browbeating, or insult. If