The doors slammed open at 0430. Jared was jarred out of a deep sleep and in his muddled, awakening he struggled to figure out what the hell was going on. He sat up on his cot and listened to the others cursing, stumbling around and, at the far end of the corridor; several guards working their way through the cell block demanding everyone to get up and out of their cells.
Jared always slept nude. His cellmate did, too. Neither was gay and they had never made a big deal out of it. They simply kept that part of their life after being locked up.
"What the ****?" Jared asked no one in particular. His cellmate, Raphael answered anyway.
"Don't know man. I been in this hell hole for 5 years and ain't never been rushed out of my cell this early before."
Jared grunted, "Most be something important, huh?" Jared has shared this cell with Raphael for 18 months and often depended upon Raphael for advice and guidance in this hell on earth.
"****. Who knows?"
Twenty minutes later the entire cell block had been emptied and all of the prisoners were standing in a rough formation, forty long and five deep. Fifteen guards, armed with shotguns surrounded the group.
Jared looked up and saw an additional twenty guards along the top of the walls. ****' christ, something here ain't right!
"Listen up!" shouted what appeared to be the head guard. "When I give you the word I want you all to turn right. Stay in the formation you are currently in. When I tell you to 'March', you will move, in this formation through the gate and out onto the highway. You will continue to march until I tell you otherwise. Is that clear?"
Some grumbling among the prisoners, but no one really spoke up to confirm the clarity of the guards' message or otherwise. As promised, the command was given and the group turned to their right. Not exactly a military manuever but, these guys weren't soldiers, either. The head guard yelled 'March' and off they went, through the main prison gate and out onto the highway.
Jared, walking next to Raphael, looked around and was amazed to see several guards on horseback. He looked up and down the column of prisoners and saw that all of the guards were riding horses, shotguns or rifles pointing into the air, butt's bouncing off thighs or hips.
"This is too ****' wierd, man. Something ain't right here, man."
"Yeah. Makes me thing of those movies about world war two. You know, marching the Jews off to be shot and dumped into big ****' mass graves."
"****, man, you don't think......"
"No. ****, man, this is America! ****. I mean, it just made me think of that kind of ****, you know?"
