My nap was alright at first. It felt nice to just drift off to sleep in the sunlight. It was a hot afternoon, August is always the worst month for that, so when I woke up when the loudspeaker went off to call us to skills training I was soaked in sweat. During skills training I could feel a sunburn coming on. The mix of constant fever and sunburn chills was so much that I tried to get Mrs. Waterhouse, our office skills trainer to let me out a little early so I could go get some water and aloe for my skin. I felt awful. She wouldn’t let me leave her lecture about proper filing technique in a temp office job. The room was swimming with all sorts of colors while she told me I was a trouble maker, that I wasn’t fitting in. I didn’t respond. Tereza shot me a sympathetic look.

After skills training I was walking with Tereza to the daily speaker. Tonight we were supposed to be hearing from a man from a collections agency about the dangers of personal debt, but an aide from the warden stopped me in the hallway and told me the warden wanted to talk. Tereza looked frightened at first, but then it was obvious the aide was speaking to me, not her. I told her I’d meet her later. She left down the hallway without looking back. I followed the aide to the warden’s office.

Except for the gates, the warden’s office is the only place that has a constant standing guard. The aide talked to the guard while I stood in the hallway, wavering back and forth in my hospital slippers. My skin was hot, but I felt chilly down deep. The guard checked the ID hanging around my neck and gestured me inside.

The warden was sitting with his back to me as I entered, so I couldn’t see his face. I’d only seen him once before, on the orientation video they showed me on the first day. I’d never met him in person.

His office was decorated in the old style, the walls were wood paneling and plaster, covered with degrees, awards, and pictures of him with important people. He spun in his chair when the door closed behind me with a soft click.

Warden Powers. Sacha, correct?

Me. Yes, sir.

I looked around for a chair to sit in, but there wasn’t one. The warden looked a little older than I’d seen him in the video, his dark black hair was now frosted with a light grey. The skin of his face didn’t look as tight. I’ve heard that people’s noses and ears keeping growing as they age, but try as I might, I couldn’t tell any difference.

Warden Powers. I’ve held this job for seven years, did you know that, Sacha? Before that, I was the junior warden of the Midwestern Regional Correctional facility. I worked under a hard man named Jacob Mortenson.

Me. Um.

Warden Powers. There was a model of a disciplinarian, if there ever was one. He taught me quite a few things about how to deal with troublemakers. Now, Sacha, I’m not Warden Mortenson. I like to think that I’m more lenient, different times, different measures, catching flies with honey, that sort of thing, but sometimes certain inmates still warrant the old ways to keep them in line. You understand me, Sacha?

I nodded.

Warden Powers. Good. Now, I’ve got some preliminary reports here about you. Your instructors say that you’re not fitting in, that you’re constantly trying to leave class and group, that you spend all your free time out in the yard writing on blank paper with a pen when you should be penciling through your workbook like a good little inmate. I don’t like troublemakers, Sacha.

Warden Powers. Right now I’m willing to overlook your contraband items, even let you keep up with your scribbling if it helps you get rehabilitated. But you have to do something for me, Sacha, do you know what that is?

Me. Um.

Warden Powers. You’re going to have to try harder to fit in here. Stop trying to skirt your responsibilities. Keep to yourself and focus on your studies. Keep your extracurricular writings to a minimum and do your best to learn how you can atone for your crime. You’ll be with us for, let’s see, two years. That’s a long time, and it can be easy or it can be tough. It’s up to you, Sacha. Do we understand each other?

Me. Yes, sir.

Warden Powers. Good, good. Now run along to your room. I don’t want you interrupting the daily speaker. At 5 PM you are to report to dinner strictly on time, as well as everything after that from now on. Dismissed.

I left his office and went back to my room, my head spinning with fever and his words. Both left me chilly. I didn’t want him to take my pen and paper. Since Jack brought them to me, they’re the only things that feel like they keep me sane in this place. Before I came here I always used to watch Jack writing in the evenings while I watched t.v. in the living room. Our apartment has a nook in the kitchen and he set up his work laptop there after dinner. Most times he was working, but sometimes when I wandered in there during a commercial to get a drink he would shut his computer really quick. He said he was working, but I always wondered what he was really doing, before the recorded laughs on the sitcom I was watching made me forget about it.

When Jack brought me the pen and paper I asked for, he told me that all those evenings in the kitchen he was working on a polemic against debtor prisons. He said that he wasn’t sure if he would ever try to get it published, it would get him fired from the firm and possibly even disbarred if he did publish it, but he told me he couldn’t just sit by and do nothing. I guess he knew I was headed here before I did, at least for sure.

I doubt it’ll help, even if he does get it published. If he lost his job he’d probably end up right here too, since he couldn’t pay his law school loans. If that happened, he’d deal with it, though. He’s stronger than me, he keeps doing everything he can. Even if it did something, that kind of change takes years. He probably won’t try to get it published. His attempts to convince the credit agencies to let him pay my loans will probably be all he can do.

Either way, I guess that I need to do better to deal in here. I need to talk to Tereza again and see if there’s anything I can do to make the sickness better, make it easier to cope.

Opps, it’s already 4.55, I’ve got to hurry or I’m going to be late for dinner.