Kent Brower stared at the wall above his coworker's head. Although sharpened shivs (or shanks or shibs) for surreptitious stickings were the most common items, a pair of nunchucks fabricated from bed sheets and metal bed posts, several incendiaries of various makes, a slingshot made of an elastic waistband and toothbrushes reinforced by layers of cardboard underneath dental floss wrapping that was covered with medical tape, a similar slingshot made using braided latex gloves instead of elastic, and even a zip gun that fired a shot had been confiscated within these prison walls. There was also a whip made of razors, a toothbrush handle, and shoestring reinforced with dental floss and tape. Things such as guitar string, electric cord, and braided sheets/clothing had been used to make effective garrotes. A simple blowpipe made from an ink pen had been used to shoot tiny pieces of sharpened metal soaked in a variety of infectious body fluids. A seemingly innocuous drinking cup stapled to the exhibit was another reminder of dangerous body fluids and how easily they could be transferred. So often, the murderous will had found a way.
"Say, Kent, you're not sleeping with your eyes open over there, are you?"
"Oh, no. Just thinking about how incredibly gifted some of these prisoners are, Bob."
"Gifted?"
"Look above your head."
"Thanks for reminding me on my break."
"Some of these guys are probably among the sanest people in the world, too."
"Are you running a fever? These guys are animals, worse than animals."
"Sure, a number of them are. I don't dare blink around some of them. But think about McConnell down there in Block A. You know how he made that guitar, don't you?"
"Stephen Smith claims he used cardboard and dental floss, but Smith's about two hundred pounds of crap in a buck-fifty package—and that's on a good day."
"I know, but Smith has his moments. Cardboard, dental floss, and lots of perseverance were basically all McConnell used. I inspected the thing thoroughly myself—dental floss strings and a cardboard body he treated somehow and some kind of paste he made through trail and error. I don't remember exactly what all went into that paste, just some canteen items, but not much of it was really needed because of how he formed the thing—sort of like papier-mâché. It plays actual notes, like not a steel guitar or anything, but like a ukulele or something. It's a legitimate instrument, regardless. He insisted I pick it up even though I told him I'm instrumentally challenged. It's really sturdy. A guy can really strum it pretty hard."
"But can McConnell sing and dance?"
"You think this is a big joke, but it's a legitimate instrument. I tell you, that's perseverance. McConnell, by the way, can play songs on it and carry a tune a little bit as well. Of course it still might not compare to the sword made out of Jolly Ranchers."
"That Jorgensen was a loon."
"He was a talented loon. You have to give him credit for all the time he spent melting and shaping and eventually sharpening. He hid the thing pretty well, too. Of course he was locked up twenty-three hours a day with not much else to do but go nuts."
"He was nuts when he got here."
"Maybe so, but how many people do you know who can even get through a meal without reaching for their cell phone? It drives me nuts. Nobody talks anymore. My own son, Derek the youngest one, has the attention span of a fruit fly. He and his buddies hang out by sitting around a room with their noses a half-foot from a video screen, not saying two words to each other the whole time."
"At least they're staying out of trouble."
"Until they need new thumbs and eyes."
"You're just getting old, Kent."
"Slaves to their tools, Bob. Slaves to their tools."
Kent stared back at the various weapons and other reminders of unseen dangers lurking behind dark corners. They irrefutably embodied peril, but to Kent they represented other things as well— sedulity, determination, manifestation of possibility. There were men in here earning college degrees and learning job skills. Others were plotting indefeasible destruction.
One of the more refined shanks reminded Kent of a dagger used in the Dark Ages, stirring up facts from a documentary he'd recently watched. How such a thing could come about so insidiously and obliterate so much progress was difficult to reconcile with grand accomplishments like the Egyptian pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and Stonehenge. Although the Dark Ages were not necessarily dark, depending on the person defining the era, they are widely known for an abject dearth of written material. Kent had run permutations through his analytical mind but saw no scenario suggesting the era was anything other than one marked by acute regression. He wondered if unsuspecting Roman subjects had clamored for radical change in the same manner as passionate activists who put so much faith in the relatively inert power of their good intentions. Unintended consequences, too inconspicuous to raise any alarms, could be the most brutal consequences of all.
Under the spell of self-appointed agents representing a purportedly peaceful religion nonetheless determined to ostracize any nonconforming perspectives and eradicate what they deemed the devil's thumbprints, zealous maniacs and other barbaric raiders plundered their way through the empire. Classical antiquity had been marked by religious conflicts, but during the Dark Ages (or Middle Ages) Holy War raged like a conflagration sparked by embers from the bonfires of Hell. Religion was an conveniently immutable validation for subsequent conflicts, sometimes between peoples whose shared beliefs far outweighed their disagreements. Today, horrific brainwashing presented as respectable religion inspires terror. Kent understood it was little wonder faith can still be considered unenlightened by many even though the atrocities committed in the name of corrupt religion had nothing in common with the supposed basis of the dogma. Faith was something much different, but man's nature was to twist things—especially those things he didn't fully comprehend yet so forcefully assailed, manipulated, or perverted. He had seen men twist the most benign and even the most divine things into implements of death. Men had twisted the truth and the twisted men filling the cells within the cold prison walls would twist much more than that. Through various paths, many prisoners were in their own self-imposed dark ages—segregated even from other inmates, with no stimulation, with nothing to do but go insane.
Kent had spent much of his life serving his country's government as an infantryman, as a member of special forces, and as a classified employee working with confidential materials. His friends thought he had gone crazy to seek work as a prison guard, but he thought it would be an interesting way to accrue some more years of government service and additional insight before retiring and perhaps writing a book about the experiences that weren't still restricted. He certainly knew how to take care of himself and he hadn't failed to meet some interesting, albeit often disturbing, characters.
He'd watched unremarkable men distinguish themselves in battle and rise through the ranks. He'd seen firsthand the horrors of war and the brutality of crimes committed by common civilians. He'd studied serial killers, the Nazi atrocities, the Rape of Nanking, the Trail of Tears, Idi Amin, and Pol Pot. Men who had so little had accomplished so much and others with seemingly everything had thrown it all away for the possibility of a few more tokens or another hour of fame. Some had sold their souls for nothing more than a title. Prison guards had an exhibit to remind them. Humanity had history. Progress for all of them remained a tenuous endeavor—like peace between prisoners when some of them had nothing to lose but a life that had already been forfeited in a game of chance, like peace between peoples who in some instances measured creativity by the most clever methods of killing each other.