The Cost Of Freedom

Chapter 1

“Number 49” rang a monotone voice through the wall mounted speaker system.

Up rose a man of no real stature. 10345 was his name here, although it had once been Timothy Fawn.  He stood still in penance while uproar pulsated around him; 10345 was genuinely unaware of the cost of his freedom. He moved hesitantly with the kind of outer body rigidness which encompasses someone who feels entirely out of their depth. The noise which escalated around him quickly became riddled with hurtful phrases and bitter words. 10345 winced as he listened in on some of the conversations going on; the words caused his ears to burn and sent a shudder down his already solid spine.

Free of emotion he stretched a frail arm out of the bars which surrounded him and out into the walkway. A guard named Jones with whom number 10345 had always maintained an amicable and conversational relationship, approached the outstretched arm and took the ticket numbered 49 out of his hand. Jones ran his fingertips across the palm of 10345 while taking the seemingly worthless piece of paper; they offered affection to a man who had only thirty seconds ago become the target of all those around him.

“Good luck” they whispered. “Be strong, and you’ll survive”.

The guard stepped away from the timid man who was very little more than a shadow, and the cage surrounding him. Raising his chin while pushing out his chest against the sticky air, the guard proceeded to speak;

“Ticket number 49 belongs to inmate ten three four five; Fawn Timothy.” In methodically breaking down his numerical name Jones aimed to distance himself from the inmate; although the emotion in his voice overrode his initial intentions.

A much harsher voice rang back through the speakers dotted around the five-tier walkway.

“There you have it gentlemen as the Cost of freedom initiative begins we have our first winner; inmate ten thousand three hundred and forty-five; Timothy Fawn.”

At this current moment, Timothy felt as if in winning he had lost it all. The life he had created here was no more, and the hecklers and their threats seemed a million miles away from the congratulatory handshake you would expect from friends. However in his case far more was at stake than a bottle of wine at a Christmas fair or even the millions which could be won on the outside lottery. The prize here was a chance at life; an opportunity that Timothy had to grasp with all the heart which remained in his shrunken chest and make the single promise to himself that he would succeed.

Timothy cautiously regurgitated information from a book he had recently acquired in an attempt to calm his whole being.

"A perfect planet, in an ideal universe; a place where the temperature of the sun remains constant for liquid water to be produced and of course with that liquid comes life."

“Mr Fawn please gather your belongings as soon as possible as we must lock the building in the ordinary fashion.”

Jones looked directly into Timothy’s’ eyes portraying upon him the kind of stare which it had been over a decade since he had felt. His stomach turned deep inside him as the realisation of the severity of what was about to happen dawned upon him. He would leave this building an average person; the type of person which haunted his sleep, the kind of person he despised.

The cost of freedom initiative or COFI as it was more commonly known had only recently come into the jurisdiction and offered a lifeline like none before. Controversial? Of course; but in releasing a prisoner who had been declared institutionalised enough to be presented with a clean slate was more of a statement than a second chance. The initiative offered anonymity and concealment of the past and moved an inmate with as little knowledge of his surroundings as a newborn lion cub, out into obscenity. In being the winner of the lottery of life, Timothy Fawn would be released into the wild and would have to learn to fend for himself. He would in exchange receive what little help the system could get away with, and this was to be dropped into his lap; like a fresh kill, a chance at extended life you may suppose.

Timothy was led with his belongings through the maze of cast iron. Each step reverberated through the grid floor; splitting the tension in the air of the overcrowded cells in every direction. A set of forceful hands some way above began a sequence of unhurried claps; As the fellow inmates had begun to understand what had finally occurred today their spirits had become brightened. The applause soon became cheers, and the noise became a song, just for those short paces towards the exit door, which led out towards the warden and guards’ offices, Timothy Fawn felt like no other man alive. He alone was recognised by the unrecognisable, thousands of faceless entities stockpiled all their hopes and aspirations on this one man; if he could make it work the opportunity would become much more readily available, and maybe one day it would work for each of them too.

After two or so hours in the warden's’ office, Timothy had been made accustomed to the social climate in the outside world and had been brought up to date with any significant happenings during his ten-year sentence. Timothy Fawn left the office as no one had before him, and no man may do again. His steps were youthful and joyous, to the naked eye he had lost at least fifteen years in those two hours. He wore an anthracite grey suit which held the creases where it had previously been folded in the packaging, hidden beneath was a pure white shirt buttoned up so tightly that the starch collar cut at his chin. His shoes had been shined beyond perfection; they were stickier than the treacle sky and more suitable to a man of the law. A handcuff free Timothy dressed in such an alien fashion was now expected to leave all he had known for a decade and attempt to find his freedom somewhere deep within the city of his choice.

As he reached the outer gates of the prison, Timothy stopped for a second to appreciate the melting sorbet sun which sat so neatly on the horizon. It seemed like an eternity since he had been able to both witness its beauty and enjoy the warming exposure it radiated. As if staring at into the soul of a loved one who had left this world and moved to the next, Timothy froze to appreciate her every fleeting movement fully. Slowly he removed his gaze from her body and turned to his left where the path unwound before him. A hand slipped off his narrow skeletal shoulder as if it was running its fingertips down the blade itself. Timothy turned suddenly to see Mr Jones, the guard whose company he had so intensely appreciated. Jones tipped his cap in the direction of Timothy Fawn and spoke sweetly as he did.

“The warm body of a woman against the cool winter sheets; that’s what makes me feel alive.”

It was August 5th, 2016 and Timothy Fawn found himself leaving Oxfordshire Penitentiary for the last time. He meandered aimlessly down the country lane which peeled away from the earth like the skin of an orange before him. The evening air kissed cooly against the whiskers on his top lip; which he pasted with saliva to avoid irritation. It would have been incredibly difficult to gauge what was running through his mind, as he struggled to comprehend whether was he an experiment or a free man?

Since the announcement of the COFI, Timothy had often worried about the public reception to the idea of freeing a man who had previously been deemed a threat to those around him. However, that said, the government had chosen the specifics of those eligible based on a whole number of reasons. He was a well-spoken man, incredibly educated and marvellously decorated as a scholar in his younger years. In good company, he could hold a conversation and remain pleasant and charming. Timothy where possible had stayed attentive as to the outside world, however, this particular decade had been subject to change more than any decade before it, causing the newspaper articles he had tried to read to become confusing. They were littered with abbreviations and jargon, which to him was no more understandable than Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Little did Timothy realise what he did or didn't know was of no interest to the government, the matter of fact was that once his record was wiped as an adult man, he was overwhelmingly employable.

The aesthetics of the situation seemed to hold Timothy Fawn’s entire entity. The pace at which he walked fluctuated continuously as is the case when you have no idea where you are heading. In Timothy’s’ case it was quite the opposite; when a man has every hour of every day to be consumed by his thoughts, there is no smaller cell than the mind itself. It mattered little as to the address written on the paper in his pocket but the poignant taste of the evening air freed his being and its previously ever-present worries. The shards of cloud provided a broad highway for his loneliness, and the stars in the sky were present to offer condolence to his suffering.

Timothy’s eyes were cavernous; his story seemed to illuminate through his them as they acted as a gateway to his inner being. There were dark smudges of nothingness hidden deep down; parts of his story which would soon cease to exist. Those moments were sparingly on show beneath the glimmer of a pleasant man, but somewhere inside him the regret would still burn, and the embers of his every mistake would continue to scorch the pit of his stomach.

As he watched the lofty sky unfold overhead, there was little existent in him other than optimism. Timothy Fawn truly believed he could stand up on his ageing and weary legs, but as for burying his ghosts and carrying the burden made by his hands alone had manufactured, he doubted his capability.

The winding country road eventually reached the apogee of the hills and poured over the other side and down towards the city. The moonlight flooded his surroundings less the closer he crept to the thriving life before him. The city was quite a sight from the heights of the narrow path; however concrete bricks and mortar no matter how precisely and decoratively they were each positioned were of very little interest to a man who had stared at the very same products for the last ten years. A stumble here and there and the occasional trip over the slightly bigger pebbles which littered the way had deterred Timothy none, he remained patiently fixated on all which was unravelling in front of him.

Plunging his hand into his inside chest pocket as he walked, he smoothly ran his clammy agitated fingers over the furiously screwed up paper which lay inside. Removing the paper not to look at it but to caress each edge as if it was his own personal star. In many ways it was; this paper offered a place to stay and opportunities to chase, it was indeed that little light of hope in an entirely darkened situation.

The silhouette of life crawled nearer as Timothy's mind grew further away. He struggled to hold back tears, and he longed to be back in his cell clapping another inmate as they received the chance of a lifetime. He was a spectator by nature and a listener in somebody else’s darkest of times. However, this strange twist of fate had tossed him centre stage and provided no direction as to when and where he would exit once his act had so desperately played out.

Timothy raised the piece of paper which had been circulating his hands and had occasionally been tossed into the air; towards the sky tightly grasped between finger and thumb in each hand.

'Thirty-eight Northwards Street. Ask for Mrs Howarth. Enjoy your sleep and be packed and ready to leave early in the morning.'

It was entirely coincidental that upon lowering his head. Which now sat on an increasingly stiff neck, he had arrived at his destination. Timothy had been led here by nothing but his beating heart, feeling out each step on the pavement. After twenty minutes of sitting around waiting in a foyer of a small bedsit, Timothy followed the receptionist up two flights of stairs before she turned and left him at a large crimson wooden door.

He entered the room cautiously, there was no level of expectancy in Timothy Fawn's new life, whatever he attained from here on would be a bonus and therefore he decided it would be best if he were to savour each moment. Timothy immediately set out on wholly rearranging the furniture in the room, completely unsure as to whether it was his compulsive nature or indeed if it was more of a novelty that for long had avoided him. Of all the contents of the room, it was the bed which stood out to him the most, it sprawled out beneath the window, and the curtains run from the ceiling down into the sheets below. Timothy couldn't resist trying out the comfort of his dwelling for the evening.

He laid his head deep into the feathered pillow provided and stayed frozen in complete silence.  

The street far below was free of the shuddering of nuts and bolts, and no words flowed from the open mouths of those lost in the evening escapades. The surrounding rooms were free of the love-stricken couples whose passion for each other often ran late into the night.

In the silence that evening; as the moonlight bled in through his window to share his bed Timothy felt at home again. At home in the quiet, at home in his freedom.