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Working in prison gives you time to think about time. The experience of time, the quantity of time we may or may not have, how humans are probably the only species that think about time at all, and maybe the only ones who carry an illusion that we’ll live forever. In prison, aside from the occasional fight or cell search, there’s not a lot to break things up other than the usual markers: meal times, rec times, sunrise, lights out. In these manmade surroundings, even the seasons don’t orient.
The hours take on a different flow. Some inmates fill them with reading or exercise or personal dramas, but eventually, everything settles back into a dull drone. When little happens in the current time, time becomes memory. In memories and dreams time has a different logic, but it still passes.
Many inmates can’t recall the moments of their crime. They may have taken someone’s life, literally robbed them of their time, but often say they were too intoxicated and don’t remember clearly. The drugs maybe robbed the inmate-to-be of their time, of a most important moment, in which they may have been able to take a different path. Now they’re being punished by having their time squandered. It’s a place that tries to dehumanize, conspires with control and time by dulling the senses—the mute paint colors, the smooth concrete surfaces, the absence of trees, the ever present smoky chemical smell.
I think about people on the outside, the things that may fill their time, and if they’re as hyperaware of the passing time as I am and the inmates seem to be. I hope out there people are valuing their time, using their time, enjoying their time: making great use of living beings’ most valuable resource, which is free.
Carter Thornton