Perspective

Chapter One

She pushed her way to a table in the corner, which was empty, and sat. Two other women attempted to sit down with her, but Sage glared at them, reminding them that she didn't mind being in solitary. They soon decided to find another table with room.

After lunch, the prisoners had an hour of "recreational time" in the small yard of concrete and patchy grass.

Sage watched from a shaded area as most people crowded around what she could only assume was a bunny or squirrel which wandered in.

Prisoners loved small animals, or anything they could really look after. Sage assumed that it was because they felt so powerless. Having control over something was preferable to nothing. She wondered who was going to shove it in their pocket and try to smuggle it into their cell.

Officers were probably going to kill it in front of whoever attempted it.

Soon, people were herded to their cells by correctional officers. Sage shared one with a woman named Charlotte, who was in on drugs charges. Charlotte wasn't on death row, but they were running out of space in this particular prison so  had to be bunked with her.

She was far older than Sage, and thankfully often ignored her, so long as they got equal time choosing what was to go on the small television.

Sage climbed onto her bed and sat with her legs crossed, hands in her lap. She carefully made sure not to wrinkle the sheets, as the guards were very strict on having made beds with hospital-tight corners, so it was advised to just never unmake it.The women slept on their beds, not in.

Charlotte briefly muttered something to Sage which she couldn't care enough to listen to before she flicked on the TV and switched it to a gardening channel.

Sage couldn't understand why she watched this. It was boring, and there certainly was nothing here to garden. The best you could do if you wanted to garden was sneak an orange seed into your pocket to plant in the yard and hope something grows out of it.

It was Sage's shift in the laundromat at around the halfway mark of Charlotte's show. She walked to the door where a correctional officer was waiting to unlock it for her. Sage waited impatiently as he fumbled with the keys a little before finding the right one and opening the door. Had he not been an officer who had power over her, she would have yelled at him. Though she did want to get a little work in today, and you couldn't do that in solitary.

Most women worked grueling shifts, sometimes up to twelve hours a day, just to get a few dollars for extra commissary. But Sage was happier hungry and unclean, without personal items.

Well, not necessarily happier, but she found it preferable.

Sage only earned around two dollars per hour for her four hour shift, but she didn't really want anything. She only took on the job because you had to, and to fill up some of the mundane time spent in this miserable place.

She stalked to the washroom and fiddled with the washing machine until it was on the right temperature and packed as many prison uniforms as she could into it. People didn't get their own uniforms, they just got to wear what size they were.

Sage poured what she assumed was the right amount of detergent into the machine, not bothering to measure, and pressed start.

The clothes swirled around in the large container, almost as turbulent as her thoughts.

For days now she was waiting on the edge of her seat for today's visiting hours. She was going to meet the only visitor she had ever had in all her two years of prison.