Inside Out

I‘ve been inside for three years now. The world outside begins to fade a little. They closed me here when I decided, I let them catch me. Not that it feels bad, but space is very limited. A few square meters, many people of all colors, an always clogged bathroom and a leaky faucet that keeps me awake at night. The food is a bit poor, the coffee is a “ciofega”, but we eat three times a day, we have hot meals, television, infirmary, internet connection, a small cinema for Sunday. This prison is no worse than many others and was the most handy.

I’m in prison because I deserve it, I earned this cell. Even the other companions. We often talk about it when we meet in the corridor, in the library and in the common room, where the television is always on on news programs that report horrible news. Mothers who choke their children, husbands who stab their wives, doctors who kill patients, and then corruption, bribes, malfeasance, murders, rapes, armed robberies, fights. We don’t even watch anymore, we don’t want to know, we’re here to forget that life.

The psychologist we meet once a week helps us a lot to understand the extent of our situation and to live it to the fullest. He speaks of acceptance, of newfound serenity, of making the best of our new life. I deserve to be here, I repeat, because of how I have always behaved since the first day of my life, with work colleagues, with my parents, with friends, my wife and children. I’m sure this is where I have to be.

Life outside, when I think about it, scares me, even if it maintains a certain romantic charm: free, always on a tightrope, full of risks and dangers. Everything is a little too equal here, too flat from sunrise to sunset. But the awareness of deserving this place and this kind of existence helps to overcome the moments of nostalgia. As my cellmate, who was a lawyer outside, always says: “Everyone reaps what he sowed”.

And this I sowed and this I reap.

By 2069 the crime rate was at such high levels that a normal life was impossible. Corruption, malfeasance, mafia murders, rape, violence inside and outside the family, had grown to an intolerable level, making cities uninhabitable and causing prisons to explode. This forced governments into a Copernican revolution. The few honest citizens now left on earth were given the opportunity to enter prison instead of prisoners, who were released. Those who wanted it could apply to be imprisoned, so as to live protected by four closely guarded walls and not take any more risks. The queues to enter lengthened day by day, and, in the end, only the best, those with endless certificates could prove a life beyond reproach, deserved the coveted place inside.