Tag: prison

All Stories, General Fiction

Orange Fish and Cigarettes 

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I sit in the silence of the well-lit room. The lights hum above me in a constant gentle artificial song. A small squeak escapes from the guard’s shoes. The shoes, generic in form and cheap in manufacturing, hug the woman’s size ten feet. The guard, tall and muscled, must have terrible foot aches when she gets home at night. I wonder about her as my eyes drift over her imposing form. The straight line of her lips and knitted eyebrows add to the already impressive stature. Does she have a husband waiting? Kids? Do they see the angry straight line of her lips as she walks through the door? Or does her face lose the sharp edges when she is home? A soft mother who nestles her children to her large, albeit, hard breasts. 

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Dauntless by Frederick K Foote

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Oh, yeah, here he come. A handsome young, broad-face, dark skin, Black boy with curly hair. He walks with a swagger and a smile. A smile that would strip girls and women, boys and men, out of their underwear at the glint of those sparkling teeth. And he got moves. Athletic, strong, and fast. And he come up here to the log with a smile and style, not knowing he’s still a child.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, Short Fiction

Confide/Confine by Paul Mclellan-Young

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If I think back to it, I can still feel that moment when I really thought you were going to burst my skull. Your whole weight pushing my head into the ground, your mouth right next to my ear, hissing at me that I couldn’t tell anyone. Like somehow if I did, people would mistake her illness for your weakness. Even after the first three times I’d promised I wouldn’t, you didn’t let go, and when you did, you left your knee buried in my chest. I carried that weight, your weight, every day until she died, all those years later. But I never told anyone, not even my parents. I even lied to them when it happened, and I pretended to share their shock and grief at the news.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Prison food by Dan Brotzel

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He had a long chunk of writing tattooed on his skin. It looked like Greek or Chinese or something. He said it was ‘so I never forget’.

‘But it’s over your shoulder,’ I blurted. His shoulder was massive, like a pig carcass.

He looked at me like he wanted to kill me. ‘It’s back to front so I can read it in a mirror,’ he said at last. I never found out what the words meant. But he taught me lots of other things.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

An Eye, For an Eye by Arthur Davis    

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They were on me at once, each with their own manner of eagerness and exerting their righteous belief in violence for violence’s sake.

They tore away at my shoulders and arms, beating, demanding I release my grip from Luky Roberts.

Some voices were familiar, most were strange and hostile, as I had come to expect in Compound RR4, one of the lightest secured cell units in the Saratoga Range District Penal System.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

Author by Frederick K. Foote

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typewriter

I meet my celebrity client, Edmond C. Mayhew, IV in the City Jail Interview Room Seven. Mr. Mayhew has the rugged, handsome look of an athlete/movie star even in his baggy prison orange. He appears confident, a little tense and a bit annoyed to find himself in his current predicament.

“Mr. Mayhew, I’m—”

“I know who you are, Tecumseh H. Douglass, the legal magician who swoops in and brings the bright glory of victory to the most dismal and darkest moments of despair. It’s truly my pleasure to meet you, especially under these circumstances.”

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