30 mins

Thoughts on a walk

A man is sitting on a thin silver bollard outside of the prison. Relaxed, knees wide apart, feet flat on the ground, resting his hands on his thighs. He seems to be waiting for something. He is wearing a loose fitting camouflage t shirt, the short sleeves rolled up, a mixture of mossy and forest greens, tan and dark brown. He is of average build, not large or small, and his clothes give nothing away of whether he is toned and muscular or soft and curved. On his legs are indistinct baggy black cotton sweatpants with a bright white stripe running down each side. They look much too thick to be wearing in the bright sun and I wonder if he is warm. His thick, tightly curled hair sticks out from all around his head, like the spines of a hedgehog and it is slightly bleached a corn yellow at the tips, contrasting the rest of his natural dark brown. His dark eyes watch me pass over the edge of a tall silver can, and then he tips his head back to down the end of his energy drink. He does not seem to watch me with interest, his uncreased forehead, thick eyebrows and straight thin lips perhaps betray a mild boredom but nothing more. Between the black trainers on his feet is a plain black drawstring bag, the thin shiny plastic kind that people use to carry exercise or swimming clothes. It seems to be packed tightly with something soft and rolled up, clothes, a jumper maybe. I wonder if he has come from the prison, and if so, how long he had been there. How strange it must be to go from one confinement to a different one. the first full of structured time slots, surrounded by the same people everyday with little time alone but with a definite end to look towards. The second, stretching on indefinitely, expected to police himself while spending just as much, if not more time inside. Maybe he will be living alone and not speak to another person for days. I wonder if that will be a relief or a shock. Maybe he had been daydreaming of being able to go to the pub for a pint, but now, the pubs are all closed. Maybe he is glad of the time to adjust to being around different people again. Who is he waiting for? Will it be friend, family or a strangers car that picks him up from here? Are they late? Or did he sit down moments before I turned the corner? Of course he may not have been a prisoner at all. It seems a rather odd spot to sit down at randomly, but maybe he works here and has just finished a night shift. Maybe he is waiting to meet someone from the prison. Maybe his sitting here is entirely a coincidence, but now I am thinking about what the experience of coming to the end of a sentence in these strange times might be like