Solitary
by Davor Mondom
They called him D2867. None of the guards or inmates knew his real name, because he was a mute and had been imprisoned for so long that no one who’d known him when he spoke was still alive, if he’d ever spoken at all. Some said he was as old as the prison itself, which would’ve made him very old despite his appearance, that he’d been born to one of the inmates and the warden, not knowing what to do with him and uneasy about breaking up a family, imprisoned the child alongside the mother. It would explain why he occupied an entire cell alone, while everyone else in the prison was jailed in pairs. It was all speculation, of course. Not only couldn’t D2867 speak, he refused to communicate with anyone by writing, despite the fact that he wrote all the time. The guards, feeling sorry for the man, made sure that he had ample supplies of pen and paper.
But even though D2867 didn’t show his age, the prison did. Overcrowding became an unavoidable problem. That, combined with growing maintenance costs, led to the decision to close the facility and move the prisoners to a bigger, more modern complex.
One day unfamiliar men in unfamiliar uniforms arrived to perform the transfer. The prisoners were shackled alongside their cellmates and led out. Everyone except D2867 — the strangers forgot all about him. Some alleged that the guards, again out of pity, made a deal to leave D2867 at the old facility, believing that the move would be too traumatic for him. Whether by neglect or design, the strangers left him behind. If he wanted to, D2867 could look through his window slit and watch his fellow inmates being taken away. Whether he felt any dread as he watched the number of prisoners dwindle, no one knows. The exact moment that he realized no one was coming to get him, no one knows that either. The guards stopped bringing him paper when the transfer began, leaving him without any means to communicate. Whether they did so out of absentmindedness, or to prevent him from protesting, again, no one knows.
Once all of the other prisoners were removed, the work of the strangers was done and they left. The guards and the warden then departed as well, at which point the facility was closed.
D2867 was now a prisoner without a prison.
BIO: Davor was born in Bosnia. He and his parents came to the United States as refugees following the civil war in the 1990s. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in history from Syracuse University. His writing has appeared in several outlets, including Blood+Honey, The Muleskinner Journal, and The Washington Post. He currently lives in Syracuse with his wife Meg and their Siberian husky, Izzie. He can be found on Bluesky @dmondom.bsky.social. To read more of Davor's writing, please visit: davormondom.com.