Jack Rodger Creative Writing

Softly sloshing, Jack trudged through the sodden pine needles of the evergreen forest. A fine mist was coming down from the ominous blanket of clouds which had swiftly moved in catching him off guard and Jack could hear the sound of a few solitary birds chirping in the trees. He had walked this path so many times that he didn’t even pay attention to where he was stepping, he just allowed his sore knees and swollen ankles to carry him across the entanglement of tree roots and eroded rocks as he scanned the forest for any sign of life. Eyeing ahead, he saw nothing of interest and decided to go off of his well packed trail. He placed his hands, covered in calice on the cold rocks and pulled himself up and out of the embankment in which the path

Opening his eyes Rodger glared up at the cement roof, which, after years of holding the weight of the snow, had begun to crack. Lifting himself into a sitting position he was awoken with the same sight which he saw everyday, a wall of cold steel bars which, loosely cemented into the ground and slightly bent, sometimes rattled as someone walked past. Every night he had hoped that he would wake up in the morning and realize that it was all a dream, but it never occurred and he instead faced the dark reality that he would continue waking up to those bars and those beads of water for years to come. However, today was different, today he would finally be released. Walking to the back of his cell he glanced out the window and looked across the field of mud at the thick evergreen forest in the distance, knowing that in a few weeks everything would have blanket with a fine layer of dazzling white snow, but he would not be around to see it. In the distance he heard the light jingling of keys which progressively became louder until the officer whom he was now accustomed to seeing slammed against the bars, getting Roger to turn around and slowly unlocked the bars. Fully aware of the routine, Rodger held out his filthy hands, allowing them to be locked handcuffed, knowing that resisting was never worth it. He guard, who Rodger realized, accompanied by a few others, would escort him down the drab hallways toward the room at the end. They walked in and Rodger took a seat awaiting his release. The guards who wore grim expressions as they strapped him into the chair. Then with the flick of a switch the years of suffering and guilt were finally