Descriptive piece - prison

Description of a prison

The walls closed in. I could not escape the endless, darkened wait to freedom. Sat in the corner of the chilled room, I can see the sharp corners at each edge of the room. The walls, painted red many years ago, connecting each corner forming a perfectly shaped square room. The dull paint on each of the four walls carries a burden memories where psychotic men drawing closer and closer to their death had been scratching at the walls. Looking up from the corner of the cell, my light flickers as many moths flutter around it finding the only hope and light that is left in the prison.

The square room held one bed and one toilet captive. The rusty bed was only fit for a very small child, had no mattress and only one thin sheet covered in unknown stains. The stone floor was covered in small, dead insects which were rotting and been eaten by smaller maggots and bugs. Around these bugs small speckles of dried blood could be seen where men had attempted to escape the prison in their own personal ways. Some would succeed. Some would live the rest of their life in pain. Some would return to nightmare in the small and claustrophobic prison cell.

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It was time for the guard to pass on his hourly walk. Before each prisoner could see the guard the sound of his steel toecap boots could see him with echo through the halls of the dull prison. Each man would shiver in the darkness of their cell knowing that this evil man would lead them to their death when the time would come in the near future. Every hour of every day, on perfect timing, the shadows of the evil guard would seep the rusty bars of each cell in the zoo of madness. Every twelve hours of every day the bell of the old clock tower would ring twelve times driving average men closer to madness. Every twelve hours of every day the bell ringing would drive those men closer to wanting to add the speckles of blood on their cold stone floor.

Looking around when darkness falls in the real world, a small crack in the wall shows life outside in freedom. Showing the happiness, the freedom which they feel each day out in the open. Every night boys, girls, men and women walk by, not a care in the world about the life we live trapped inside. They all just walk by. All free. The only taste of the

outside world and people walk by at take it away from me. Smiling and laughing at their friends.

In the mornings when the sun came up, in the real world, the prison would be woken by alarms and soon after the alarms men banging on the cell bars. Smells of cheap porridge and the luxury of stale bread fill the prison with excitement every morning. But soon when the guard comes at the wrong time. All the prisoners know it is time for another to walk the mile. And soon after the unlucky prisoner leaving the smell of burning flesh fills the halls and proves to everyone that there will be no escape. What little oxygen has managed to find it way into the cell and failed to escape is overtaken by the revolting smells.

And so it began again; the walls began to close, coming closer, much closer as the days passed by. The bells rang twelve times, the guard walked past, the chipped pain on the walls told their stories, the bed was too small to sleep in, the speckles of blood showed the end of past lives and the people in the crack in the wall enjoyed there lives in freedom. The smells began to feel the room again and it had to end. It was time to escape into endless freedom

Teacher Reviews

Here's what a teacher thought of this essay

Jeff Taylor

26th of Apr 2013

This essay is a very successful attempt to evoke the feelings of despair and hopelessness of a condemned man. The imagery, such as of the moth, and the graphic descriptions of sounds and smells repeating every day produce a powerful impression. The writer switches back and forth between present and past tenses, weakening the total effect somewhat, as do the patches of unhelpful punctuation. Overall, an imaginative and highly descriptive essay, a little spoiled by some clumsy punctuation and tense switching. 4 stars

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