Spider and Glass

It's nauseating. Looking up through the endless floors and ceilings of glass above and below, the walls on either side. The exterior of the building has a dark tint on all of the glass surfaces, but they can see through it as if it weren't even there. Even with the tint, it's still warm. The central air not quite able to keep up with the beating sun.

Throngs of men fill the space. It's impossible to tell how many stories above and below. Pete is lucky enough to have a corner cell. Towering above the trees, the forest seems to stretch endlessly on all sides, beautiful in the rising sun.

The view is the only happiness he finds here.

A glass hallway with metal railings lines the interior of the square prison. A wide, circular staircase of cement, looking garish and out of place at its center, scales the building.

Four guards stand at each corner of the hall, facing inward, easily watching all of the inmates through the glass of their jail cells.

Modesty is impossible. Privacy a dream.

Curiosity always wins out as Pete scans above, below, and to either side of him to see what the other inmates are up to. Some are reading, some are lucky enough to have desks and a deck of cards in their cells. The desks are glass. Chairs are metal and mesh, easily seen through. The cots, toilets, and sinks are the only things that block his view.

Most pace back and forth endlessly. The movement of so many, like ants in an ant farm stretching out in all directions gives him a crowded sensation. He is alone, in his cell, and yet he feels as though he is trapped inside a writhing hoard.

Closing his eyes, and steadying his breathing, Pete slowly opens them. The guard's eyes bore into his own, startling him.

“What?” he wants to scream. “Stop looking at me!” but he remains quiet. He looks up one more time, that constant curiosity like an itch he cannot scratch. Someone looks back down at him, sitting on the floor, before turning his attention back to the book in his hands.

A scream echoes through the building, a guard yells to shut up, the banging of a nightstick on tempered glass.

Pete retreats to his corner, once more staring out over the forest, trying to tune everything out. To pretend he is a bird, high above. Free. The chilled wind ruffling through his feathers. Anywhere but here.

The never-ending movement in his periphery is inescapable. The feeling of eyes, watching always watching, enough to turn his insides. Bile burns in the back of his throat.

Hell, this is what hell must feel like. Nothing is yours, everything is for someone else. Becoming a show, a spectacle.

He turns once more to face the center of the building. The guard's eyes scan the other cells, resting once more on his. The guard smiles.

It's the fiendish grin of utter control. His shoulders back, the relaxed posturing of someone in charge.

Pete can't help it, he screams. It is met with a loud bash against his cell with a nightstick. It reverberates in his ears. He collapses onto his cot, pulling up his legs, back against the wall. Burying his face in his hands, he tries to hide. To block out the prying eyes, the continual noise of rustling clothes and screams, the perpetual movement of bodies.

As Pete's trembling form huddled in the corner of his glass cell, the cacophony of the prison continues unabated. He was about to scream again when a movement much closer to him caught his eye.

He jerked his head to the side and saw it. A spider, bristly, no bigger than a dime, crawled on the glass towards him.

How did it get in here? How had it traveled so high? He couldn't recall ever seeing any other living creature here except the inmates and guards that ambled around him day and night.

It was such a dark black, it seemed nearly blue. He'd never seen anything like it.

He felt sorry for the thing. It was now trapped, doomed as he was. It stilled on the glass wall as if contemplating this fact.

Pete placed his hand under the glass, and the spider crawled onto his fingers, not hesitating. A bite might win him a trip to the infirmary, a break, a way out if only for a moment.

“Please,” he whispered, heart thrumming against his rib cage in anticipation of the pain. The spider crawled slowly up towards his wrist. He shook his hand, trying to irritate it but not fling it away. He blew, watching the tiny tendrils of its fur twitch in irritation. The arachnid sunk its fangs deep into his flesh.

Jerking, he instinctively slapped the spider with his other hand, squashing it. A momentary pang of sorrow lanced through him at the death of the creature. It could have been his pet, his solace, a break in the monotony of prison life.

As he wiped the remnants away, he saw the bite was already becoming inflamed.

“I've been bit,” he quavered. Stumbling off the bed, he held his arm up, pressing it against the glass door.

The guard narrowed his eyes, hand moving to rest on the pistol at his hip. “So?”

“I should see a nurse, it was a black widow,” he lied easily.

The guard rolled his eyes, grabbed the walky-talky off of his belt, and turned away to mutter into the radio. After a hushed conversation that Pete strained to make out but still couldn't hear, the guard faced him once more.

“Come,” he said, sliding a key card into his door. It popped open with a sound like air being released.

He looked down as he walked behind the guard, holding his wrist to his chest. He wasn't surprised they didn't cuff him. With so many guards in his line of sight, he was an easy shot.

The floor suddenly came up to meet him. He had fallen. Stabbing pain raced up his arm emanating from his wrist. He began to convulse.

This had been a terrible mistake.

The muffled sound of voices penetrated his agony, and he cracked an eye open trying to see. He willed his body to still. Guards rushed to his side, barking his last name, asking him if he was okay. Commanding him to stand.

When the spasms faded, the burning sensation went with it just as quickly as it had come on. Standing shakily, the world around him became focused with a clarity he had never known.

“Parker?” barked a guard, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Can you walk?”

He nodded, blinking. He felt like he could do more than walk. Like he could break through the tempered glass. Like he could take on a hundred guards. He looked down at his hands. What looked like nearly invisible, tiny strands of hair lined his palms. It was identical to the fur on the spider. Tentatively, he placed his hand on the glass wall nearest him.

“Stop that,” said a guard, smacking his hand away. And for the briefest moment, it stuck.

A smile spread across his lips.

“Get moving!” barked the officer. Pete turned and ambled down the hall, turning on one of the many glass bridges towards the central staircase. Looking around, the ceaseless shifting and movement from the inmates seemed slower. The fog that had clouded his mind and senses had dissipated. Everything seemed systematic like he knew what each of the men was going to do before they did it.

It seemed easy now, the way out. Escaping had never even crossed his mind, and now, it was inevitable.