Prisoner of Glass Read Online Free PDF Page A

all lined up in neat little rows: human latitude lines encircling the innards of a stone moon.   Circles going up, circles going down.   The guards, in their black armor, ran out of the Panopticon, eager and shouting, quivering with hoo-rah.  
    This time, Elspeth did as she was told.   She stepped out and stood quietly at attention.
    The air inside of the hollowed-out moon was suddenly filled with hundreds of squawking parrots and parakeets.   They swirled this way and that, disturbed from their slumber by the cacophony of the morning rituals.  
    Impossible that tropical birds could stay alive in the cold of this place!
    The prisoners all did their best to toe the line.   To count off loudly, to answer any question that a guard put to them clearly and quickly.   Nobody wanted to stand out.   But it didn’t matter: somebody got billy-clubbed every morning.
    Then, it was off to breakfast.
    On that first morning, no one would allow her to sit.   So she kept to herself while wolfing down her food, trying to make her oversized body scrunch up into a tinier fraction of itself.   An elephant hiding behind a teacup.
    Conversation seemed to be permitted: the guards did not stop it.   Elspeth was starved for information; she dearly wanted to speak with one of the other prisoners.   How long have you been here?   Do you know what this place is?   Did we commit a crime?
    But no one seemed interested in talking to her.
    Then it was off to work.  
    Elspeth’s first few days were spent in laundry.   Heaps and piles of foul-smelling canvas or burlap clothing were brought in giant rolling bins.   Elspeth was led to a sink.   “Here,” a large, fleshy woman with a pin cushion of a face said gruffly.   “You wash them — one at a time!   Get the soap in there real good.   Beat them out on this board here with the grooves in it.   Then rinse, rinse, rinse!   I don’t want to see any soap left after!   Then, wring them out real nice and hand them off to Duffy here, who’ll take it over to drying.  
    “You quota is two bins a day.   Don’t stare at me, stretch!   Get washing!”
    Elspeth went to work.   By lunch, she hadn’t cleared even half of one bin yet.   Exhausted, she returned to the canteen with the others.  
    This time, she was allowed to sit with several men.   They made small talk, exchanged names.   But when she tried to ask about the prison, they all clammed up and looked suddenly nervous.  
    “My cellmate told me a few things,” Elspeth whispered, “but I still have no idea why I’m here — or why anyone is here.”
    One of the men guffawed.   “What cellmate?   Nobody here has cellmates.”  
    And with that they all left.
    Nobody here has cellmates …
    Then who —?
    Titus.   Titus was an imposter.   Titus had lied to her.
    Somebody had been in her cell who didn’t belong there.

    THE REST OF THE DAY went much the same.   She hadn’t finished her quota by supper, which earned her a tongue-lashing, but surprisingly not much more than that.
    Then it was night — or what passed for night in this underground ( was it underground?) facility.
    And it seemed the men in the lunch canteen had been right: her supposed cellmate Titus was nowhere to be seen.   He’d vanished without a trace.  
    The lights cracked off with a bang.   Darkness suffocated her as her eyes adjusted.   Then, the films started up — those damn films, going all night at all hours, projected on the circular screens, their soundtracks blaring, blaring, blaring …  
    Sometimes their topic was nature: usually with a ‘red in tooth and claw’ angle, other times it was political re-education material on ‘the role of the citizen in society’.  
    But Elspeth was so exhausted that she fell asleep immediately.

    LATE THAT EVENING, Elspeth heard a voice call out from the cell next to hers.
    “Hey!   Pity puddle!   Keep it down!”
    It was the new guy next door.   Elspeth had seen the guards bring him up