Bottled up

The walls of my cell are literally filled with countless notches and twenty-four scratches. A notch is one day and a scratch one year
Sadly, I could not even hope for a Guinness world record. Compared to some guys, my wallpaper of notches and scratches was peanuts! If they could, they would have also filled the iron bars, the toilet bowl, and even on the remnants of cockroach wings that the prison’s irregular vacuum-cleaning couldn’t suck out to freedom.
Yet, a day was a day. A week was a week of days that weighed. A month was a month of days that mattered. And a year?
“Tomorrow will be my 25th scratch!” I congratulated myself. “I would rather count the days and leave the years to count themselves.”
[BREEEEE!] The main gate alarm gave out a deafening shriek.
“New inmates!”
They were not cuffed as they shuffled into the grey and cold patio with their meager belongings. They anxiously clung to the newly recycled prison uniforms assigned to them. Some tried familiarizing themselves with their new home.
The older inmates were screaming at them. Others rattled the bars trying to scare the newcomers.
“Welcome to Motel Prisoneria!” one jailbird greeted them from the floors above.
Of course, this prison wasn’t for hardened and dangerous criminals. Some may have killed or robbed, most of the crimes were rather petty but with hefty penalties.
“My crime?” I asked myself. Twenty-five years have almost made me forget.
The last newcomer in line caught my attention. He didn’t look in the least upset. In fact, he was like a canary that was eagerly looking up to the higher parts of the prison where he could freely perch.
His name was Ferdie.
I got to know him pretty well because he shared my cell at the ground level.
“It’s the first time I’m going to have a roommate,” I extended my hand to shake his.
His hand was so tender like that of a child’s. I guessed he could never have been your local plumber or carpenter. He would more likely have been a teacher, an accountant, or…
“I’m Ferdie,” his soft monotone voice replied. “An artist.”
“An artist? Man, how in the world could you end up in a place like this?”
“You wouldn’t want to know,” he gave me a mysterious smile as he headed for his bunk bed.
He was a quiet type, but managed to get along with most if not all the inmates. Once in a while, you could hear a chuckle in one corner of the mess hall. It was Ferdie sharing one of his jokes with another prisoner.
One day, he surprised me when he brought in Class-A items into our cell.
“Hey, Ferdie. How did you manage to get that stuff inside? You have some pretty good connections being a newcomer.”
“I showed the warden my artwork that’s posted in the Internet. He agreed I could continue here. He said it might even help give the prison a new image.”
“Artwork…?”
He took out a photo.
“Hey, I know that place. That’s Central Park, right?”
“Yes, but inside a bottle,” he made me look closer at the picture.
It was Central Park all right, but inside a bottle. With miniature people, trees and birds.
“Thi… This is amazing,” I gasped. “Did you really make this?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask, how did you end up here?”
“Not paying my dues,” he shrugged his shoulders.
“Taxes?”
“Something like that,” he gave that mysterious smile again.
“So how long did they give you, Ferdie?”
“Perpetua…,” he started fixing his stuff.
Forever could not wait, because Ferdie wouldn’t even reach three scratches (to be precise, two scratches and one-hundred fifty notches) before he escaped or better yet, disappeared.
* * *
“So what are you going to make this time?” I asked him as he settled down to prepare another bottled miniature.
“A replica of the prison,” he said.
“That’s crazy, who would want a prison in a bottle, Ferdie?”
“I guess, the warden?” He gave me an empty stare.
“It’s like bottling a bottle, one way in and no way out!”
“But there is always a way out,” he suddenly replied.
“Hey, are you planning to escape?”
“I didn’t say escape, I said, there is always a way out when you are the one who makes the way in.”
“Scrap the riddles, I’m fed up,” I rudely said.
For days we didn’t exchange words. I felt sorry for losing my cool.
Twenty-five years and with five more scratches left, what would that leave me with life? And here was a guy who was just chilling himself as if he were in his own nest. I had reasons to be really irritated.
“Ferdie, I’m sorry I raised my voice the other day.”
“It’s perfectly all right. I understand. You’ve been here longer.”
Even though I felt better after apologizing, I couldn’t help sensing how he had emphasized the word ‘longer’. It sounded like he wasn’t going to be around for long.
“How’s the prison coming along?” I changed the topic.
“Oh, pretty well. I’m going to do our cell last, and then….,” he paused.
“And then what?”
“Guess…we can show it to the warden.”
“We? Why get me into this, Ferdie, it’s your work, right?”
“Okay, the warden will see it anyway!”
I laughed at the way he said it, he sounded like a kid preparing a big surprise.
* * *
It has been almost two scratches since Ferdie left us. I can still remember that day.
“Wake up! Get up! Where is Ferdie?”
It was 4 o’clock in the morning and one of the guards making the rounds noticed that he wasn’t sleeping in his bunk.
“Geez, I guess he went out for a pee,” I angrily said.
“You had better start talking or you’ll start peeing!” A guard threatened me with his fist.
“Hey, take it easy! I went to sleep ahead of Ferdie. He was putting his ‘finishing touches’ on the miniature!”
“Let him be,” it was the warden’s voice.
“Hey, I’m telling you the truth.”
“Sir, no alarms have been set off in the grounds,” a guard reported.
“Tell me, Mr. Connor, what were Ferdie’s last words?” the warden asked.
“He only said he was going to finish his cell, and he was so excited for you to see it.”
“What work?” he asked.
I went over to Ferdie’s bunk. The guards who had hastily searched his bunk for clues, pushed the bottle off the bed and broke it.
“This one, sir,” I showed him the still intact replica of the prison.
Everyone became silent as the warden and the other guards were awestruck with Ferdie’s work. It was a masterpiece! Brick by brick, pipe by pipe, guard by guard and many more things were copied in detail.
“This is amazing!” the warden seemed to have forgotten about Ferdie’s disappearance.
“Sir! Look at that,” a guard pointed to one of the windows of the prison.
“The bars are missing!”
“What cell would that be?”
“Given its location, that cell would be….”
“This one!” the warden concluded.
Investigations continued from one day to another. A week into another and then into years. But Ferdie was never found!
* * *
I’ve been out of prison for ten years now. I had only one request when I left: to take the prison replica with me. In my small joint, I found a decent place for that memento.
One day, I decided to dust it a bit. It’s been some time since I last peered into my own cell of thirty years and one day. I got a flashlight to illumine the room behind the sawn-off bars.
There I saw the small figure of a man sleeping on the bunk bed. Even the detail of my loud snoring was skillfully done.
Ferdie was not in sight. For the first time I saw something I never paid attention to. On the prison floor was the broken bottled miniature.
“How could he have managed to present something that happened after he had finished the replica? After he had disappeared?”
I got a magnifying glass to get a closer look. As I steadied my hand, I saw that I was looking at an even smaller replica of the prison!
“This is amazing!!!” I gasped.
The magnifying glass dropped from my hand and I knew exactly where Ferdie was.

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