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Remand centre or jail, it was all the same to Mark. As the gates shut with a loud clang behind him, he was locked away and that was it.
A prison guard led him back to his cell through the quiet corridor. It was late in the afternoon and most of the prisoners were outside taking advantage of what little sun they could get. As soon as Mark got to his cell, he lay down. His anger always left him tired, and today had been a bad day. He hadn’t been prepared for how emotionally draining all this court stuff was. He couldn’t get his head around the fact that he might be locked away for … he couldn’t guess how long. He knew he shouldn’t have shot that guy once, never mind twice. But he had, and he couldn’t control himself. But just the one incident shouldn’t mean he’d go around killing for the rest of his life? It had just … happened.
Bloody hell.
He was just closing his eyes when he heard a tap on his bars. He knew without looking who it was, and he didn’t need this of all things right now.
“Back again are we? Told ya you wouldn’t get bail with that crappy legal aid lawyer of yours. He’s not making much, so why should he help a loser like you?” boomed a voice from the corridor.
“Leave me alone, screw.”
“Looks like you’d better get used to me, boy. From what it sounds like, you’ll be locked up for a long time yet.”
Mark opened his eyes and looked at the man outside his cell. Vernon Callan leered back at him. Vernon stood tall and puffed out his chest so that he looked even taller than six foot three. There was no doubt he was tough, even if the grey flecks in his moustache belied his age. He glared down at Mark with a smirk on his face. Vernon had taken to picking on him the second Mark had been brought here, for no reason whatsoever. The other inmates told Mark that it was like that with the screws sometimes – they would take an instant dislike to you for no reason, than make your life worse than you thought it already was.
“Why can’t you leave me alone for ten minutes?”
“Oh don’t worry, kid, I’ll be off shift in an hour. Just missed you today, is all,” Vernon replied sarcastically. “So,” he leaned on the bars and raised his eyebrows, “what kind of
defense have you decided to go for? Temporary insanity?” His laugh echoed all down the corridor and back again.
“None of your bloody business, screw.”
“Oh, it’s plenty of my business, so long as you’re around here. See you later, tiger.” And with that he was off down the corridor, bashing his nightstick against any available surface, of which there were many, just to annoy Mark even further. He succeeded. He succeeded every time Mark saw his ugly face.
As he sometimes did when no-one else was around, Mark rolled over, buried his face in his pillow and cried. Life couldn’t get any worse than this.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli 2003
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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