No More Orange Suits

"Lights out!" the prison guard shouted. I guessed it was 8 o'clock at night. It was that or he fell asleep for sometime. After all, he did look like he just took a nap. Anyway, it was time to go to sleep, but I wasn't tired just yet. And I knew why. I'd been here in prison long enough to realize. You see, I was framed.

It was January of 2019 when it all happened. I was in the bank, getting some money to pay for my daughter's soccer camp. Next thing I knew, a person with a blue backpack, just like mine, was running out of a hallway holding a gun. A robber! Police followed him. However, it took one turn of a corner to throw them off. While all of this chaos was happening, I also tried to run out of the building, but I was slower than the robber. The police saw me and arrested me right on the spot.

I had one chance to explain myself after that. But I was already forced to put on the grimy orange prison suit generations of prisoners probably already wore. The police and witnesses made their points. It was time to share my side of the story. "Well...you see...," I nervously argued, "I might be the spitting image of the robber, but I'm not. Just because...well...we wore the same backpack doesn't mean we are the same person."

"Oh, so you know what the robber was wearing? Suspicious, suspicious indeed," the judge said. He started to write something down.

"No! Not in that way! I was running out of the bank because I was nervous. The man who I saw had a gun, after all. But the robber was faster than me and hid in the bushes before the police saw him," I tried to explain. This was true. I did see him do this. I later knew that my explanation was not enough, though. Within two days, I was in an orange suit again, behind bars. I would stay in prison for the next ten years.

I knew there was no hope of getting out before my sentence was over. I grew up watching those shows where prisoners escaped their cells and stuff like that. I knew I lived in reality, though. I wasn’t stupid enough to actually believe people got out of prison that way. Most of them waited and served their sentence, like I thought I would. There was a possibility that I would be pardoned by the president, but people only get that out of shear dumb luck. Seven more years to go, I thought miserably.

So, in the morning, I woke up to the piercing yell of a guard. Not very pleasant, but, then again, I’d been here for a long time, and I’m not even halfway through my sentence. One way or another, I would eventually get used to it. A guard unlocked my cell along with several others, and I headed down to breakfast. Today was my lucky day, as there was some sloppy french toast that was more toast than french. Some might call it a meager meal, but prisoners call it a miracle. Unfortunately, I was a quick eater. Instead of savoring the meal like I should have, I gorged it, finishing in a maximum of five minutes. Pleased, I unfortunately remembered I was still in prison.

“Courtyard, now! Everyone! That’s right, everyone!” the guard shouted, nearly giving me a heart attack. While recovering, I made my lazy self get my butt off the bench, throw out my plate, and slowly walk to the courtyard. This was where I was confused. You know that I had been here for three years, and this is true, but I never got the purpose of the courtyard. What were you supposed to do? Workout? Play tag like kindergarteners? Maybe hide-and-seek? All of these options seemed useless. We had a gym for working-out, and I had a feeling games weren’t fit for strong-armed, six-packed, buffed prisoners. Thankfully, there were bleachers. Most of the time, I sat on them and thought. About what? Several things, mostly about my family.

Back home, I had a family of five;my wife, Sandra;my two sons, Stephen and Jordan; my daughter, Melony; and I, Dan Whailord. We lived at forty-two Cherry Lane. We were all happy, the five of us together. That quickly changed when I went to prison. Of course, they knew I was innocent. They visited me every day possible. However, that wasn’t enough. I longed to go home like I used to do everyday to see a warm smile on my kids’ faces and get a group hug from all of them at once. At this, I rubbed a tear from my eye. For some reason, thinking that it would make me feel better, I kicked the fence.

I didn’t get a good pain in the shins, though. Instead, I fell off-balance and hit the ground. My foot was through the fence! I wiggled my foot. It was touching free land, land not guarded 24-7 with guards carrying threatening guns. Quickly, I got back on my feet and looked around. No one saw. Acting as if nothing happened, I sat back on the bleachers.

Now, I had something else besides my family to think about. I had something revolutionary to think about. I mean, could those cartoons I saw on TV when I was a kid happen to me in real life? The thought of it gave me a tremor of excitement. Happiness flooded me. This could be my ticket to freedom. I could escape and then-

“Lunchtime!” one guard announced. I had no more time to think. I got up and went to the lunchroom. I saw the food options and said, “Grilled cheese, please,” with a tone of happiness that wasn’t usually there. I gobbled down my grilled cheese just like I did with my french toast.

The rest of the day went smoothly. As it went by, I had more and more time to think about my fantastic escape plan. I called it the “No More Orange Suits Plan.” I figured that I would go at the last free time, where no one decided to go to the courtyard. No one would see me.

To start off my plan, I somehow managed to grab a set of clothes that weren’t orange whatsoever. Instead, I grabbed a red shirt and blue jeans. Next, I headed off to the corner of the courtyard. I looked around. No one was looking at me. I slipped through the crack and ran for it.

I only stopped running when I was sure I was at least ten miles away from the site. I laid down the clothes and took off my orange suit. I replaced them with the red shirt and blue jeans. I started a fire. To fuel it, I burned the orange suit. Fire was usually a bad sign to me, but right about now, I loved it.