Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [38]
Thinking about this made Jack cry to himself. But then, another thought came to save him from it; his mind told him that he would not care if any of them died, either. People were out there dying, and he did not care. If they all died, he would not care. It did not matter to him. So why should they care for him? He did not care for them. Fuck them. Each and every one of them. He laughed to himself, a rusty, creaking sound. He felt almost hopeful.
There were six punishment cells, and communication of a sort could be made by yelling, but most of the time it required too much effort, or Jack’s senses were gone and he could not hear. But sometimes he did. He could hear other boys being brought in, yelling, cursing, some of them crying, and he himself suppressed all feelings of pity for the others; they did not pity him. They probably thought he was some kind of hero. Well, fuck them, too. Maybe in the cells they would learn the truth as he had, and know that nothing existed but a single spark of energy, and that spark could die for no reason, and existed for no reason. Then they would understand that it does no good to cry out, because a spark of energy has no ears; the ears are a lie, a joke, a dream, to keep the spark going, and there is no reason to keep the spark going. And more than there is a reason for letting it go out. Maybe they would learn not to hate the guards, either, because the guards and everybody else on earth were prisoners in dark cells like themselves and just did not know it, and in fact they were in a worse prison than Jack was, because they were imprisoned by their own limits, and he was only imprisoned by them. He had found their limits—they would not, could not, just take him out and shoot him, and they could not let him run around loose, because he would not take any of their shit, and so they had to lock him up and feed him and dump his piss and shit for him, all because they had these limits that he did not have. If he had an enemy, he would kill that enemy. He would stop at nothing. He would kill that enemy quickly, get him out of the way, and then he would not have that enemy any more. But they couldn’t do that. They were goddam lucky he did not have an enemy. Because if he did he would get out of there and find his enemy and kill him. As it was, there was nobody he hated, no single human life he needed to kill, and so, instead, he would just sit here and wait for them to let him out, and then he would kill the first living human he saw. That would teach them.
But even this thought, which could build itself to manic proportions, would fizzle away, and he would be left with nothing, not even madness.
Only once more, after the episode of self-pity, did he approach breakdown. He had just eaten, and for a change there was nothing in his food, and for a few moments he was experiencing a kind of contentment, hearing the sounds out in the passageway, thinking about nothing in particular. He heard the guards bring in a boy, and the boy was sobbing. Jack could tell from the sound of the sobbing that the boy was probably very young, maybe only twelve. Jack heard the cell door being opened, and then closed, and the sobbing muffled. He heard the guards go past and out. Then the new kid started screaming. It was a shock to Jack. He had never heard a sound like it. It was a sharp scream, as if the boy were in agony. Then Jack heard him calling for his mother, and then the boy screamed again, even louder than before, and Jack got frightened. He could feel a scream of