Author. Duty. Protagonist
Confinement, a cudgel, a cappuccino, and a Christmas market.
When the lice finished falling from his shorn head, he knew his first month had passed. He still didn’t know why he was there. Had he harmed someone? Stolen? Guilty? He would never answer those questions. His heart reassured him that there had been a mistake. He was not supposed to be there at all, but someone had levied a heavy price.
The warden visited with hate perched on his shoulder. His refrain never changed.
“Beat him,” he instructed.
Looper, the huge dopey guard, bellowed and complied.
“Get up, maggot. You stand when the warden is here.”
Then he clubbed him back down.
Looper enjoyed a rarity that neither the prisoner nor the warden possessed – a name. You will find out why.
The warden spoke. “Who are you, inmate? How did you get into my prison? Ain’t in any files. But Looper here, he can find out, can’t you Looper? You might say Looper is enthusiastic about enforcing the state of nature – solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
“Hobbes’ Leviathan,” the inmate made the mistake of saying.
“Well. well, Looper, what have we here? An educated sort. How about a little Hobbes in solitary? What do you say, Looper? You can work him over real good there.”
Lumpy Looper didn’t answer.
The inmate spent two weeks in solitary confinement. Looper beat him daily – he was among those men who felt warm when hurting another. Yet this mysterious inmate of unknown origin never cracked. That crushed any opportunity to answer the question of why.
Back in his cell, the inmate slept for days. He awoke only to eat cold porridge and drink diluted coffee that came right back up. The warden and Looper let him be for months. This scared him more than any beating.
There was a window just under his ceiling, too high to glimpse much of anything. Clouds. An occasional bird provided joy too far to touch. The pane froze during Winter, stifled his cell during Summer, and leaked when it rained. Yet the window was also redemptive. He could see heaven.
The warden resumed his visits for no reason. He stood in the door as Looper mashed the inmate. The warden was never satisfied with inflicting pain. He needed to scalp a man’s dignity. He and his cudgel were peas in a pod.
The inmate heard other prisoners scream, but he never saw or spoke to one. Instead, he tried to speak with God, who was elsewhere.
Lars Mueller enjoyed his cappuccino. He was exhausted after a grueling semester, his second to last. For a moment, he felt old. Snow began to fall. On the other side of the window, he spotted two friends who had prodded him to join them in the town square. He packed his student briefcase and donned his wool coat.
They headed to the university center to enjoy warm red wine seasoned with fruit, cloves, and cinnamon. Every town in Germany would be celebrating with its own Christmas market or Weinachtsmarkt.
Lars’ mind wandered. What was happening to the inmate he so wantonly had allowed to be punished? How could he, as the author of such a short story, deprive the inmate of even a name, the most basic gift? Did Looper need to be so brutish? The warden such a terror? The inmate existed only on paper, but on Lars’ paper, as his creation, and his responsibility. He stopped in his tracks. Snow collected on his hair.
“I can’t come tonight,” he said. “I’m so far from finished.”
“Not finished with what?” one friend asked. “The semester is over.”
“With him,” Lars replied, “and he needs me.”
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“...The pane froze during Winter, stifled his cell during Summer, and leaked when it rained. Yet the window was also redemptive. He could see heaven.” This is awesome!
Love this Ben...