Although Covid has restricted my planned progress, as spring has sprung I have discovered another benefit to open conditions. Night.
In closed conditions, no matter what unit or regime you live under, there are periods of cellular confinement and there are longer periods when you are inside. This becomes particularly frustrating during the summer months and might go some way to explaining why many riots and unrest occur during the long hot summer months. Also, the idea of a rooftop protest is far less appealing when it’s cold outside. When I was in closed conditions we were invariably locked inside (whether on the landing or in our cells) before 6pm Monday – Thursday and before 5pm Friday – Sunday. In some prisons, each wing can be limited to one period of outside exercise per day – as little as 30 minutes.
While it is frustrating to look out of a window and see the sun beaming down, what made things worse was being contained in a box that had been baked by the sun’s rays all day long with no ventilation. I pity the Kangas that had to do cell checks, God alone knows what they saw when they opened observation panels. In my own case, during the summer of 2018, my pad mate and I were stripped to our boxer shorts all day. We had succeeded in scrounging an old detergent bottle that we had recycled and we took turns spraying each other with water while standing in front of 9” desk fans. It was moderately effective, but far from pretty.
In my local prison, a decade ago, the prison management took action when the temperature on the 5th level of our Victorian built prison registered temperatures of 104°F – they gave everybody on the 5’s landings an ice lolly and printed leaflets on coping with extreme heat. Although well intentioned, whoever had copied and pasted the information from the interweb should have removed the tips on having cold showers, drinking cold beverages and checking in on an elderly neighbour!
Anyway, back to the here and now. We have just had a sunny spell, which generally gladdens the soul, but as with closed conditions, the cell gets heated throughout the day. On the unit, by prisoner consensus (yep, there is such a thing) the doors either end of the landing were propped open which created a nice through draft. That in itself was a huge relief, but get on this – at around 7pm I was able to leave my cell and my unit and take a cold drink outside. I sat on the grass outside my unit enjoying the night air as the world cooled down.
After roll check at 8pm I went back outside, this time and enjoyed the night air and the star filled sky. I felt a mix of emotions, but the thing I felt most was a profound sense of gratitude. My prison journey so far has made me appreciate all of the things that I do have – all of the little victories that make life a bit more bearable. I am far more relaxed, more circumspect and less concerned about the things that I don’t have. As I sat there, soaking up the night air I spotted a rabbit on the green opposite me. It was locked stock still, sniffing the air, then when satisfied it started to rummage around the grass. This seemed to be a signal, for low and behold two wee baby rabbits emerged from the bushes and started to bounce around like furry bundles of energy.
I sighed and looked back to the night sky and allowed my eyes to fall shut as I drew deep breaths. Then my arse fell out as I heard a God-awful scream. I snapped my eyes open just in time to see a cat tearing off with one of the baby rabbits gripped in its jaws.
I guess prison is still prison and bad shit still happens at night, but I was still grateful for being in open prison. I was still grateful that I was outside. I was grateful for quiet, for stars and for cooling breezes. But mostly I was grateful that I wasn’t a rabbit!
Great piece mate!