Broken Old Man

“My broken body throbs, but nothing will stop me from destroying you. You bastard. The pure evil within these walls that has haunted me for 30 years.”

“CHK-CNK.“ “CHK-CNK.“

A rack of stacked white cards, donning the names of its prisoners, crashes to the floor as cracks appear in the concrete around the box. “Fred.” “Harold.” “Travis.”

“They’re all dead! Every day for 30 years you fractured our bodies and cracked our souls into shards. Get out of my head! You killed them! And you’re trying to kill me!”

“IN. OUT. IN. OUT.”

“So many hopes of finally leaving this town, this awful place. This prison. You stole my dreams!”

”CHK-CNK.” “CHK-CNK.“

“But you held me here. A constant symbol of my servitude. My pitiful purpose in this world. You stole my life! “

“IN. OUT. IN. OUT.”

The box starts to detach from the wall.

“I’m an old man now. Broken. Beaten. But you don’t feel anything do you? Unchanging all this time. You stare and you demand and you conquer.”

The box crashes to the floor.

“I’m ruined. And now, so are you.”

“Perhaps, but it is you who surrendered 10 hours a day to me. I may be just a box, but I know this: you wielded the white card. You listened for the CHK-CNK. You accepted your fate. You and your friends. Prisoners of nothing, but your own cowardice!”