Colorful Calenders

    Colorful Calenders

    By: Rebecca McCoy                                                One hundred and twenty days. Four months. Sixteen weeks. Doesn't seem long does it? Well I guess that all depends on what your doing during your time.

  From the day I stepped foot into the Missouri State Penitentiary I began my dreadful countdown. Spending my time working in the kitchen, twelve hours a day, just to come back to my cell and take my fifteen minute max shower, cold water of course. I would then lay in my steel frame bed, on my penny thin mat, and read. I read so many books I lost count. It wasn't until a few weeks in that I decided to start making calenders for my cellmates, myself, and my children. Luckily I had access to colored pencils, so they were very colorful and bright. I wanted to bring some color to the black and white and brick life we were all stuck in together for awhile. I had so many fans of my creative calenders that people started actually paying for them. I would recieve soda pops as payment, phone minuets, snacks, freeze dried coffee was a big one, stamps too, and of course cigarettes, or if I needed a greeting card made for one of my kids, or my folks. I'd trade a calender for my eye brows to be plucked sometimes when needed! I had made an awesome business for myself and it helped my time go by faster. I looked forward to coming to my home away from home after work everyday and live my locked up life and then I would finish each and everyday with a Proverb from my prison issued life recovery bible and then I would tally off that day and write a brief summary of the day.

 The nights were never silent, however, you learned to ignore it enough to get to sleep with one eye always open. Just to get woken up at 4am, to be counted. A tally. A number. I had to sleep in a room with five other criminals, although I do not consider a drug addicion a crime, and will never understand the justice in punishing the sick who need real help, not thrown in a cage to become so depressed that there is no going back. So they get out, depressed, jobless, homeless, and worst of all hopeless, given no help or guidance and are expected to succeed or they just lock you back up and collect their two hundred dollars for passing go. And you just to go directly back to jail, if your lucky enough to not have committed suicide or overdosed yet because of the way society treats the convicted. Remind you of something?

 So, as the days went by, the tallys on my colorful calender were more and more closer to my out date. The day every prisoner looks forward to, (unless that's not an option for them) and thanks to me, every prisoner doing time with me had a calender to tally. Each day had the number of days remaining for each individual at the bottom of the square for that day. I personalized them for each and every individual in the housing unit I lived in. It was something to pass the time, and show everyone a little hope and unleashed a little creativity.

 Then late one night, during one of the unnecessary 2am fire drills, while all four hundred inmates in my housing unit were scrambling out of the buildings, all the while the strobe lights of the alarms were causing numerous ladies to seize out and fall to the floor, to be trampled on by the other inmates, who were being yelled at to not stop and help, to get out of the builing before the fake fire burned us all. No one cared enough to stop the strobbing alarms and maybe prevent any other seizures from happening. The outcome of the situation was by far worse than any fire would be. There were ladies laid out all over the floor, still seizing, while the others that didn't seize out were standing outside, in the middle of January, most without jackets or hats, in the prison made moo moos we were all forced to wear. After what seemed like hours of standing outside while correctional officers yanked the ill inmates off the floor and made them join the rest of the ladies outside in the cold. I could see it in their faces that something had happened that no one would ever understand. Once everyone was out of the building, and the guards had done their rounds and checked each and every cell, bathroom and shower stall. Everyone was out, everyone was cold, some were still seizing out on the concrete with no one to help them, other inmates couldn't even help, even the incarcerated nurses and doctors, (yes, they get locked up too). Instead we all had to sit and watch as our prison friends and cell mates flopped around on the pavement like a fish out of water. I was so saddened seeing what I was forced to watch, so I decided to try to forget what was going on arouned me, and I turned my focus upward, to the beautiful winter sky. Twinkling stars and and a vibrant full moon. I stared up for what seemed like hours, lost in thoughts of my beautiful children who hopefully were looking up at the stars as well, thinking of me too. Then suddenly I noticed a  flash of light to my left and didn't really think much of it, due to lack of sleep, the fire alarm strobe show, and just the anxiety of being in that situation. I assumed it was all in my head. I went back to day dreaming of simplier times.

 Finally, after what seems like years, but was only about an hour and a handful of minuets. We were able to go back inside, single file line, and of course, no talking. I was ready to get back to sleep, since I had to be up and at work in the kitchen in just forty-five minuets. As I walked down the cold, off white brick hallway, I found myself somewhat excited to go look at the home made calender I had hanging on my wall, right next to where I lay my head. Climbing up on my top bunk, seeing the calender which displays the days I have served and the days I have left, which is only ten! I got into my bunk, covered up with my ugly grey wool blanket and looked over at the calender, suddenly shocked, all I saw hanging up on my wall was the calender I had made on my first day in. With only three tallys. I was confused at first, thinking I just wasn't seeing things clearly due to the events of the night already. I put on my glasses, took another look, still confused because before the fire drill it was May, now my May calender is non existent. On my wall, beside where I lay my head, my December calender hung there, with only three tallys. In a panic, I look at my cell mates calenders all over the walls in my cell, all say the same month, all say December. No tallys on anyones calender. Why does mine have three tallys and everyone else has none, And where is everyone, we walked in together, single file, I lead the pack to my wing, the other inmates were following, I was forbidden to even look behind me but I could hear the foot steps from the prison issue boots that everyone had to wear at all times. But as I look around my cell, no one is there, so I decided to check out the rest room, most likely that is where everyone is after being stuck outside for what seemed like days. No one there either, so I walked friskily down to my cell, and as I did, I peeked into every other cell on the way and noticed that everyone was gone. Not a single body in sight, so I immediately go to the window and look to see if maybe my fellow inmates are still outside. Once again, not a soul in sight. Scared out of my witts, I start to beleive that I am dreaming, so I just climb up into my bunk, cover my head with my pretend a pillow, and start to drift off to sleep, with one eye open of course.

 I was having difficulty falling into a deep sleep, I had no idea what was going on, where anyone was, if it was real or just a dream in a dream. I wasn't sure, but I was scared. All I knew to do was to just keep doing what I knew I was supposed to do, which was be in my bunk until count time. Finally falling into a deeper sleep than expected, I found myself replaying the events in my head over the course of time that I had been making the calenders, each and every dreadful day that I had excitedly tallied off as the days passed. I thought about the fire drill and how so many helpless inmates got hurt and was scurrying around like roaches when the lights are turned on. I thought about what I had done to end up there. Then I was startled awake, by another flash of light and this time it did not stop, it was like the fire alarm, constant strobes. I stared at it, knowing I shouldn't but glad that I did, because within seconds I saw a purple shadow in the bright light, the shadow was holding my calender with the three remaining tallys still in tack, when suddenly the tallys disappeared, the shadow held my calender by the top corners, and then slowly ripping it in half, I heard a voice say, "This is not where you belong, and when I leave you, it will be as if none of this ever happened, and you will be right where you belong." and just as quickly as it appeared, with a quick flash of light it was gone, and so was I, suddenly standing in the middle of my front yard, holding a paper home made calender, tally less.