Cold iron bars press against my dirt encrusted face. Every four hours I'm allowed to inhale fresh air while on top of someone else's shoulders. I did not submit. Therefore I'm here in this penitentiary.

"Offaniel, stop fidgeting," Kusheal signs.

As much as I attempt, I can't hold still. Kusheal's shoulders have become emaciated with the lack of nutrition. Right now, they're poking into the top of my hamstrings.

"Hold still. Only twenty more seconds," I sign back.

There, if I just crane my neck backward another half inch, I can see it, vegetation. So rarely seen, I struggle to identify the name. Round and tall with practically a flower on top. I imagine steaming the endangered thing and my mouth waters.

I feel Kusheal's muscles tense and look down. She's staring beyond the women that surround us. When I follow her gaze, I see a man in uniform pointing at us. I'm unable to read his lips. His caterwaul speak is indiscernible. As he marches toward us, the women part making way like the Red Sea. He holds out his hands and tilts his head. I try to sign in response, but his face reddens. Then, in one swift move, he bats the side of my head with his hand.

I fall off Kusheal, and she stumbles to the ground with me. The warden kicks me in the ribs, and I'm incapable of lifting my hands to speak. Kusheal attempts to tackle him, but she's so tiny that she ricochets onto the floor. He takes his rifle, readying the butt to slam down on Kusheal's head. I find strength from somewhere deeper than my bone marrow, microscopically small, from some speck of a nucleus I long thought extinct. On my knees, I intercedently block his angle and hold my hands up in surrender. When he lowers the rifle back down to his side, I breathe in solace. His facial expression relaxes but is still upset. I think I feel him sigh through his nose.

He turns around and motions to someone outside the bars. A small scrap of a boy carries a bucket over to us. It sloshes and threatens to topple. The warden folds his arms and says something to the boy who runs back and thereupon returns with a mop. The warden points to the mop, then the bucket and to me with rough, exaggeration to be sure I get the idea.

I nod my head 'yes' and grab the mop handle. To my relief, the warden leaves the cell. As soon as he's out of sight, I immediately crouch to check on Kusheal. She looks at me straight in the eyes and then looks down at her hand. She opens it revealing a key. In her tackle, bounce-off move against the warden, she retrieved a treasure. Her smile and mine make a warm feeling that's been absent for a long time. We look at the other women entrapped within the cell and hope surfaces.