The Absent Future
The hardened eyes glared down on the children frolicking noisily in the street. A calloused hand seized a magazine and irately thrust it into the revenging jaws of the mail-box. The muffled yells of children at play followed his truck as he sped the five feet to the next mail-box.
He endured the agonizing screeches until he rounded the corner, when he saw he was out of the neighborhood he zipped away leaving the echoes behind him. The sound of a jet taking off resonated from his Grumman LLV. Suddenly, he saw flashing lights; He slowed. He stopped. The man in the car wore a star and a scowl.
Moments later, he was on the way to jail. The officer's beefy face showed extreme boredom.
"Next!"
"Yes sir?"
" Name, date and place of birth, and name of relatives."
"My name is Aiden Cunningham; I was born August, 21 1969, and I've got no relatives.
The officer slammed his big black book, and subsequently sneezed due to the large quantity of dust that was flung into the air.
"Listen, I didn't do it!" said Aiden
"What didn't ya do?"
"I didn't do anything wrong"
"Listen kid, I'm not the judge or nothing, My job is to check you in to our beautiful hotel; Oh and by the way: seeing as though we want you to be as comfortable as possible, there is a free continental breakfast served downstairs."
The warden threw his head back and howled like a whale with throat cancer.
"Man," thought Aiden " I wish somebody had told me that my warden was a comedian"
Later in his jail cell, Aiden brooded. What had his life come to?
The trial happened much sooner than he had expected.
The next thing he knew for certain he was handcuffed to his chair.
"the court may now come...
The rest was all a blur of sights and sounds
"how do you plea"
"Innocent... I mean... um... I didn't do it... I mean not-guilty.. Sire ... ahh...your...uh... majesty... or like...your honor."
The murmurings of the court swirled around him like the waves of destiny splashing above his head in the bath of an extremely hyper active kid.
Bit by bit the pieces came to him a story about a masked man, broad shoulders, gun, gas station hold-up and the quick get-away leading to a high-speed chase down the high-way of town. Aiden's entire case rested upon the fact that he had thin shoulders, but this appeared measly compared to the prosecutor's evidence, which included the weapon, and a surveillance camera video of the entire thing.
"I hereby sentence you to fifteen years of solitary confinement,"
"But your honor..."
"take him away."
"But your honor..."
The pounding of the gavel summoned the dark forces within his head and they surrounded him, encouraged by the dank bleak prison life.
"Hot peanuts"
"One bottle water one dollar"
"Soap"
These sounds floated in and out through his cell day in and day out.While he pretended to hate them, he secretly loved the sounds because they were his only connection to the outside world. As the weather grew colder, the voice grew hoarser; and as the air grew bitter, the calls grew fainter, until there came a time when the voice was silenced into a whisper that was created by his longing heart and his straining ears.
