Headcell: Part I

The journey of a man struggling to retain his sanity in a world dominated by an evil, inhuman society that demands nothing but absolute perfection from all of its citizens.

Deep in the heart of the complex, in a stuffy bare room, The Warden sat across from his Prisoner, looking directly into his eyes. A tall guard stood over him, watching him intently as they always did, even though he'd never done anything before. Another stood by the door, lest he attempted to escape, but all of them knew there was no fear of that. The Warden had come to regard these meetings as an annual event by now, for the Prisoner could not be, or would not be, reformed despite all their best efforts.

In a world filled with vice of all kinds and creeds, so many had already fallen victim to their evil grip. Vices varied from person to person, some more dangerous than others, though not always physically. The human mind became just as much a battleground as the body, as the Prisoner knew, or had known, for a long time. This was now his third time here, and after this he was out. A wallblock stood in his mind, forcing him back always. This was his third strike, afterwards he may be out. Out for good perhaps? Time would tell, indeed. As these thoughts swirled amongst all in the room like a surging ocean, the Warden leaned across the shining stainless steel desk, the Prisoner's file in one hand and his fountain pen in the other.

"Sir, you now stand accountant for three serious charges. The Vice Ministry decrees that each citizen must display total self-control or suffer the consequences. The consequences that their vices bring upon them will be furthered in our reality. The individual is important, but the individual's way of life is a matter of concern. Individualism leads to addictions. Addictions lead to poor performance of the citizenry. The State has never, could never and will never stand for this. You are here to be reformed."

The Prisoner did as he always had, merely looked straight ahead blankly. Nothing here was new to him, for life was one long unbroken chain of setback upon setback. Clearly, the Warden was not among the unlucky few to have fallen along the way, or so he wanted everybody who passed through here to believe. The Prisoner had been fighting all his life, but each war led to the exact same conclusion; sitting in this room listening to that bulging bureaucrat drone on and on about his beloved Ministry. The Prisoner, out of sheer obligation, decided to offer the same piece of mind as he always had done before. 

"I am nothing, Warden. Nothing at all. You're a man with something, a man who knows nothing of true suffering, a man charmed and seduced by restraint. I myself seem to find it unappealing."

The Warden nodded quietly, drumming his fingers on the desktop. Leaning back in his chair, he slid the pen back in his pocket and folded his arms. He began addressing the Prisoner like a strict teacher berating someone for lost homework. The bored obligation in his voice was entirely obvious.

"The State's citizens must be in perfect working order. Anything less than that and the whole thing comes tumbling down. Our State worked for years to perfect it. Whenever one of our citizens sneezes, the entire system catches a cold. You see what I'm saying?"

"Like the last time and the last time before that, Warden, yes."

The Prisoner shrank back in his seat. The guards on either side of him looked at the Warden knowingly. Secretly, all felt deeply sorry for him. Deeply sorry that he had yet to shed all the most basic of human instincts in order to achieve true citizenship. None of them had found it easy to comply either in the beginning, but some are simply born luckier than others. This prison was designed to help the less fortunate. It had been established decades ago, during the very formation of the State. Before that, like many other things in the new world, it had been merely a figment of the imagination. Much like this place.

The Reformatory.

Spanning over 300 acres, containing seventy offices, hundreds of cells and infirmaries, the Reform Prison was both one of the most dreaded and admired facilities in all of the State's provinces. Any ordinary citizen walking its halls would be comforted by the knowledge that each and every individual, male and female from the age of 14 onwards, had to spend their obligatory three days and nights here. There was no distinction of class, race, gender or sexual orientation. The average worker bee shared cell space with the most important of politicians, generals, scientists, capitalists and even monarchs (from time to time). Likewise, a head of state would share his time with the lowest of the low; psychopaths, perverts and paedophiles. Unlike the other "regular" prisons filled with society's waste, this was a more benign yet undeniably stricter form of institutionalization; one of the mind over matter.

The Warden was settling into the usual routine. Soon enough would come the point when he ordered the Prisoner out of his sight. He had better things to do, other unreformed more worth his time. The Prisoner looked more and more bedraggled each time he saw him; his hair had turned a greasy black, his face sported a thick coat of scraggly stubble and his clothes were filthier than ever. Despite his knowing the outcome, the questioning had to continue. He leaned over the Prisoner's profile, pointing towards things with his pen.

"It says here that your last reformation extended only to a matter of weeks. The State requests that this time be your last. You'll be receiving the usual guidance. Consider this an ultimatum."

The Prisoner took this all in for a moment. He fumbled in his head to remember the lines he had always spoken. They came back to him in a moment of clarity. He folded his arms and spoke quietly, with a look of pure defeat upon his face. When he spoke, his voice told of a man who was once something but had been taken down from a perch. A man who found himself here over and over again.

"Will they cure me, Warden? Their remedies are the same; your speech is the same. Life is the same, day after day. My condition began but has never bettered."

The Warden took off his spectacles and wiped them with a small cloth. He put it away and popped them back on. He looked at the Prisoner with considerable disinterest. He spoke out of obligation.

"Our help attempts to better it."

"Not well enough, however, for I am trapped in a world of repetition."

The Warden sat staring, not sure how to respond to this. He had never been able to really. Instead he often puzzled over its meaning. To those like him, who led self-controlled lives, they could never understand, nor should they want to.

The Prisoner, by reason of his condition, had been using the same answers to the interrogation for years. It made no difference; he and the Warden both knew exactly what was in store for the next three days and nights, if he was able to make it. He'd never before made it past even the very first. The Warden looked as though he had nothing left to say, like every other meeting before it, it was about to end on an anti-climactic note. Standing up and stretching, he spoke to the two guards in the room.

"Take him to the usual spot. It should be empty."

Nodding, both officers moved towards the Prisoner. As he was hauled up, he shared momentary eye contact with the Warden, who looked up again to bid him goodbye. The Prisoner extended a hand.

"I look forward to your latest attempt with me."

The Warden completely rejected this olive branch, taking it as unnecessary sarcasm. He pointed to the door.

"Get him out of here."

The Prisoner was escorted quickly from the office. The Warden felt no guilt; he was only focused now on his watch; counting down that final hour or so before the familiar old bell sounded and all could go to lunch. Routine was his bread and butter, and the very idea of it was what dominated his life, both business and personal. The State thrived on it. Every day became same upon same, and the Prisoner was the perfect walking, talking example of it. He took one last look up and watched as this living example of routine disappeared out the door, never to be seen again. 

At least not for another month or so.

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The two guards who showed the Prisoner to what would be his home for the next three days and nights were not the silent, surly types. In fact, the Prisoner knew them both by name (or at least the codewords that passed as names); Deywun and Deytoo. Deytree would be around sometime later, that was the usual routine. Their keys and equipment belts bounced around on their dark uniforms, and the click-clacking of their shiny black shoes on the polished floor echoed around the gigantic rooms.  The Prisoner felt like these men, along with every other guard here, had ceased to be human, not in a demonic sense, but moreso had been absorbed by their environment. They tried their best to live within the space; breathe in it, walk in it and treat it as their domain. They existed to remind all there that the perils of vice are both very real, and very hard to cure once and for all. The Prisoner knew that they stood for this and nothing else, their personal lives didn't matter; all was about reformation. Their assigned codenames were the only things distinguishing them.

Deywun was the hardest of the three main guards, but one who was also fair. What he lacked in mercy he more than made up for in justice. Deytoo was happier and a little more easygoing, but not one to be underestimated by any means. Deytree on the other hand was generally the most supportive and compassionate of the group, and most prisoners knew that once you saw him around your cell, it meant you were close to finishing your stint. The three men had been the Prisoner's reformers for years now, but that isn't to say they were anything special. Each prisoner in the extreme block had three guards assigned to him or her, whose job was to break them into abandoning their temptations and shed their damaging pleasures, to become decent members of State society. 

The Prisoner was being taken to the section of the prison that was reserved for the most extreme inmates; Block 13. Most who went in, never came out as the same person, for the reformation regimen was that tough. It was a huge thing, and rumour had it that the construction alone had took nearly a decade before it was fully ready. 

Before its completion, the State simply chose to hold its prisoners elsewhere; old hotels, football fields, even airplane hangars, all for a short time. Numbers of those needing reformation were rapidly multiplying. Society had been afflicted with the great diseases of the mind; namely those that drove some to insanity, some to murder or (most commonly) some to never fully realize themselves nor their potential. The State's doctrine was to dig out and exploit this very potential. Our world had been different. But the governmental creation the Prisoner was about to enter into now was a whole different story. 

He was led towards the offices that stood beside its huge entrance; a long unbroken counter, with offices behind, cut into the wall. It looked like a giant rectangular strip of light stretching into infinity. This was a place with no frills; grey concrete floors and white walls were the dull decor. Inside the offices were countless rows of desks, with buzzing TV monitors panelling the walls. A lone ceiling fan spun silently overhead. A heavily re-inforced door leading to the armory stood off to the back-right, with a huge armed gaurd blocking it with his bulk. Workers dashed to and fro. The Prisoner looked over at the tall doors before him. 

"My front door....back home again." he muttered without emotion.

They looked exactly the same as the last time he had seen them, not long ago. Stencilled in huge white letters across them was "Block 13". It made him realize how what was meant to intimidate him was now simply just another fact of life. To most those white doors spelt transformation, to the Prisoner they spelt another three wasted days. Meanwhile, Deywun had went to the guard sitting behind the desk, wholooked up as he approached. Leaning over the mounds of paperwork, he picked up a clipboard and pencil. He spoke roughly.

"Is this one a new arrival, or returning to his cell?"

"New arrival. Just booked him in today."

The guard looked over at the Prisoner. He sighed and shook his head. He pointed a finger at him, where he stood silently, having heard it all before. Deytoo was still right beside him, looking straight ahead.

"This one has been here before, not even a month ago. The unreformed are best allowed to be kept that way if they wish. Our prison cannot fix all, least of all him."

Deywun glared at him. He spoke coldly.

"He is kept here for a reason. That reason is what we are here to stamp out." said Deywun pointedly. 

The gaurd was stunned into silence for a few brief moments. He raised himself up in the seat as though he was going to continue the argument, but just sighed again and sat back down. Picking his paperwork back up, he waved Deywun away with a dismissive hand.

"Alright, alright. Clearance granted, go ahead."

Deywun nodded and stood away. The guard stood up and quickly made his way over to a small panelbox screwed into the wall. Unlocking it, he reached inside and pressed a button. A loud clicking sound broke the cavernous silence and the huge steel doors began to slowly swing open. Deywun rejoined the pair. He looked over at the Prisoner, who seemed to be bored out of his mind, his heavy feet tapping unsuredly on the concrete floor. Deywun grinned and turned to him, attempting to rile him up.

"Just like old times. The same routine again and again."

The Prisoner merely shook his shoulders, continuing to gaze at the floor.

"Sure. Why not," he spoke slowly, "But no time has ever been the last."

Deytoo looked at Deywun pointedly. He motioned for them to start walking through the doors. Nodding, Deywun grabbed the Prisoner's free arm and led him forward. The Prisoner moved the same dead way he always did, every time before; the slow stumble of accepted defeat. In a strange way, Deywun always sort of pitied him; he was one of the walking dead, a man alive on the outside but empty inside. Most of the people who passed into this section were the walking dead too; drained of life, ambition, emotion and dignity, obsessed only with feeding an insatiable desire.

Grabbing him firmly, by both arms, the guards led him down the dark passageway. This was indeed the same old routine they had gone through God knows how many times before. The Prisoner knew it as he stumbled along, and the guards all knew full well he wouldn't try to escape, no matter how tempting or easily done they may make it. This place was built on knowing what you know, and nothing more. Nobody here did anything different; the whole prison was one big same old, same old. 

Deywun switched on his torch to guide them down the tunnel. The bright beam cut through the darkness and swirls of dust drifted around its rays. The loud clang of the steel doors shutting behind them echoed ominously as the infamous, yet familiar to the Prisoner, Block 13 grew ever closer, and with it the constant screams and moans of its tortured inhabitants.

Author's Note

Does the overall story make sense so far? Is the reformation process outlined clearly enough? Is there a palpable mood or atmosphere?