Third chapter of the story.
Audio at the bottom.
First Chapter
https://steemit.com/writing/@ralph.clayton/child-from-siberia-first-chapter-monday-fiction
Second Chapter
https://steemit.com/writing/@ralph.clayton/child-from-siberia-second-chapter-thursday-fiction
Chapter {3}
{Siberian Alcatraz}
An icy drop of water, slowly drips from a broken pipe in the dark corner of a dirty old room. Cold stone walls made out of flimsy bricks, portray the deep solitude and loneliness within this concrete box. Dima quietly sits in the middle of the room, he’s sitting in a lotus position.
Rats the size of a small dog, awkwardly circle around jumping up and down as they move. The dim sounds they make, it’s like an epic orchestra of wild hungry rodents that are ready to take a bite out of Dima, if he falls asleep.
“I’ll kill you all.” Dima unexpectedly shouts.
Isolation can play cunning tricks on the mind, incurable insanity is just one step closer. Day by day, hatred and sadness corrode Dima from the inside. There is no space for feelings in his fragile and corroded heart. Yet there is still a brutish light in the darkness of his soul, an incomplete fragment of a spark. The majestic fate that awaits him, is barely unfolding right before his eyes. This incarceration, is just a misstep in his great and marvelous journey.
“I will see you one day, mother.” He says to himself, while sitting in the cold darkness. Naive and wishful thoughts of a delusional mind.
So far, this is the grandiose existence that Dima has created for himself. Out of thin air, the life in his piss-poor village, out of the abandonment by his parents, and out of his crude, harsh existence in the streets of Irkutsk. This is the path that ruthlessly and unexpectedly has been placed in front of him by treacherous destiny. For better or for worse. This is the only life that he knows. One betrayal at a time.
“I made a promise mother, I’ll see you again”. Dima mumbles.
It’s been three weeks since Dima was put in solitary confinement. He had to be forcibly subjugated by a group of six guards, because he just wouldn’t stop beating another inmate. Presumably the other guy was just looking at Dima in the wrong way. This is unacceptable in prison, respect is the only thing worth anything to these men. If you lose your respect, you’re dead-meat walking. These savages and their barbaric rules and codes of etiquette. Even these dogs have rules.
Correctional camp number 17 near Krasnoyarsk, is a high security prison in Siberia. Some of the worst offenders in the whole country are sent here. Dima was recently caught and sentenced for the unintentional murder of Mother Sveta. Because he is still 16, a minor to the eyes of the law, he was sentenced not like an adult. He has to serve two years in this hell, and if he’s lucky enough he’ll get out alive in one piece.
Camp number 17 in itself is like a suffocating cage, full of wild and dangerous creatures. The vast remoteness and isolation of the Siberian Taiga make this prison the perfect place for complete segregation from society and reality itself. A macabre place for injustice to go unchecked and unpunished. The law of the jungle rules here, among the inmates and among the guards. Survival of the strongest is the only choice for these brutal criminals. Big hungry bear eats small helpless salmon.
Dima has been thrown into glamorous Siberian Alcatraz, he’s locked behind bars in an animal cage. The question is, who is trapped with who? The more brutal and menacing you look, the higher the chances of survival that you have. Ultimately being a narcissistic savage, has never been so delightfully rewarding.
The thin line between sanity and insanity, Dima is about to unwillingly cross this thin line. Hallucinations torture his mind while in confinement. Four weeks in the SHU can make any man to lose his mind. This is no rehabilitation, this is absolute unjustified insanity. By spending time in prison, Dima will only climb more steps in the ladder of professional criminality.
It’s seven in the morning, time to have breakfast. A guard walks by the cells with a little food trolley. The main items on the menu are oats porridge that looks like liquefied vomit and warm milk that tastes like fermented spit. The guard passes by and slides the tray under the door.
“Eat your food, dog.” The guard says with vicious contempt.
Dima is lying on the floor staring at the black ceiling. He’s absolutely lost, he doesn’t know who is he and where he is going. Prison is not better that the dirty streets.
At least in the city, you’re somewhat free… to jump from any tall bridge and splatter your entrails all over the pavement. That is, if you wish to do so. In comparison, in jail the choices are greatly limited. Being shoot by a guard or being beaten to death by an inmate are the only two reasonable options to die.
Thoughts of suicide cross Dima’s mind every day. Deep within himself, he is still a boy that misses his mother. An abandoned child that yearns for his parents. Reality is something else, something much crueler. He is almost a man, a tough and heartless criminal in the making. All those years wastefully spent in his piss-poor village, were for nothing. Because he is nothing. The unforgiving absolute truth that he must accept.
The daily recreational hour arrives. It’s time for the inmates to go into the freezing yard and walk in a circle for a couple minutes. The guards sit inside their warm and comfortable watchtowers holding their riffles over their shoulders. They are sipping black coffee while eating delicious sugary Siberian pastries. They are absolutely indifferent to what happens in the yard or to the inmates. As long they have their riffles in their hands, they are safe, and that’s all they care about.
There is a fight in the yard. Two tall and muscular men, with blonde hair are holding down a small Asian guy. It’s an ethnically inspired brawl. Petrov the thief, brutally punches the Asian on the face, a couple teeth fly high in the air. His fists are full of blood. A devious smile, is on Petrov’s face, “How did you like that.” He mockingly says while laughing.
The freezing Siberian wind howls and shrieks like a wounded animal in the Taiga. These sounds are exactly the same as in the village near Lake Baikal where Dima was born. Small pieces of ice and snow, chaotically scatter around in the yard, this is the prelude to a snowstorm. An unstoppable storm of change that has been waiting several years to happen. The wheel of fate once again turns with unstoppable consequences. This is capricious destiny unfolding precarious choices, once again.
Dima slowly and calmly walks towards these men. He has something hidden under his sleeve. It’s a shiv, meticulously carved out of a plastic tooth brush. All those weeks in solitary confinement were very well spent. Petrov and his helper with pure brute strength, throw the Asian unto the floor and slam his helpless face on the concrete. More blood spills out and splatters on to the floor, like a gruesome masterpiece of modern art. There’s even a tooth on the floor.
Small puddles of blood make random chaotic designs on the floor. Petrov could easily be a Siberian Pollock. Except that his canvas is the dirty stone floor of the prison yard, and his paint is the bright red blood gushing out of the poor and helpless victim. A macabre and artful spectacle.
“What do you want boy?” Petrov says while cleaning his blood soaked hands. “Do you also want your brains smashed on the floor?” He ask Dima with an evil smirk full of contempt. Petrov doesn’t understand what he’s doing, he’s poking the devil with a stick. Charmingly tempting death’s scythe to joyfully decapitate him for fun.
In the blink of an eye, Dima firmly grabs the shiv and stabs Petrov in the neck. He firmly pushes it in as deeply as he can, then unhesitatingly he slices his throat wide-open with a steady stride. Petrov’s jugular instantly bursts open, into a violent stream of red soaked wrath. The vicious monster of Siberia is back, with a vengeance.
Dima’s playful green eyes sparkle with amusement in the sea of red splattered all over his face and clothes. His red dyed face looks exactly like that of a savage in the wilderness, he’s part of a tribe. Dima’s ready for war, he’s ready to kill.
It’s all so ironic and perhaps funny.
Petrov finally meets his brutal end at the hands of a small Buryat boy from Siberia, he’s the judge and executioner. Pretrov’s brutally sliced throat marks his inevitable and grotesque end. He abruptly falls dead cold on his pathetic two feet. All the prisoners in the yard are staring at what’s unfolding. They can’t believe what their eyes are seeing.
Petrov’s helper is shaking, unable to react he’s petrified on the spot. Dima suddenly turns his face, and stares at him, with those menacing green eyes. Snowflakes gracefully fall on Dima’s face, he stares up in to the magnificent gray sky.
“It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?” Dima says.
The thin line between sanity and insanity has been precariously crossed. The harsh life in the motherland, finally destroyed Dima’s fragile mind. A ravenous monster is being created in Siberia, brought forward by capricious destiny.
The alarm in the yard starts loudly buzzing, “Everybody on the ground, now!” The speaker voice says. The guards in the watchtowers are all pointing their rifles at Dima. There is nothing to be done, Dima’s world is inside his head. He stares blank in to the gray sky, as the snow slowly falls all around.
“It’s all beautiful.” He says.
The guards rush down the stairs and surround Dima in a circle. Two of them approach him, and suddenly knock him down by strongly hitting him on the back of the head with an iron bar. He falls to the floor unconscious, the last thing he sees is the beautiful gray sky and wild snowflakes falling on his face.
“Mother, can you see me?” He mumbles. “It’s all so beautiful” He starts laughing.
Six months have passed since that day and Dima is still in solitary confinement. They say that it’s for the safety of the other prisoners, not for his. He sit’s day and night in the middle of the room without moving.
The concrete box is now his home. His only friend is a fat old rat that likes to eat the disgusting slurry oatmeal the guards call breakfast. Dima named his pet rat “Bratan.”
“Are you my friend Bratan? How are you doing today? Would you like to eat some porridge?” Dima says while sitting in the darkness.
The freezing days and nights uneventfully pass by until Dima is free once again. It’s his 18th birthday today, and he’s a free man. Dima has no possessions, he walks to the prison bus with nothing in his hands. The bus will take him to the frozen city of Krasnoyarsk where once again he will live on the streets.
The boy is not a boy anymore. Dima is no longer his name, because he is now a man. His new name is Dmitry. He’s on a path to find himself, and to get what’s been taken from him. All his innocence was brutally taken by life, the boy who was never a boy. A precarious miscalculation by fate.
His unscrupulous mother, abandoned him. Ever since, he’s been brutally traumatized by this heartbreaking fact. His heart and soul are badly wounded, possibly he may never heal again. A sorrowful knot of sadness in his throat is what he feels every single day of his miserable existence.
Remembrance is what he needs.
Remembrance is what he might get.