Dei Dreamer by Bethlehem Steele (reading an ebook .TXT) 📖

Dei Dreamer

By Bethlehem Steele


When you love someone sometimes you have to let them go.
Well, what emotion brings them back again?


-Chapter 1-

Nine year old Dei Dreamer rubbed his wrist where two metal links once grasped at his skin. The handcuffs embrace had been so tight even after the guard had removed them he could still feel their cold bite. The guard gestured daintily for the child’s hands and with a full twist of the key the cuffs sprang open. The prisoner felt his wrist expanding as blood raced to the blood starved phalanges of his hand. “Finally!” The child winced. Grasping at his wrist one at a time. His hands tingled like thousands of tiny carbonation bubbles where being released from a shaken bottle of soda pop.
“Got a little pinch to them huh?” The guard grinned. His mucky teeth made Dei’s eyebrows arch and caused great concern in his face. The boys eyes rolled to one side and his tongue released from his teeth making a harsh noise like that of Velcro when it’s pulled apart quickly. ‘Little!’ The boy taught, balling up than relaxing his hands repeatedly. “I still can’t feel them!”
“Well they’re there so hush it up,” the guard snapped. “What you do to get in here anyway boy?” The guard smiled curiously at the boy as his mouth steadily worked over a brownish glob of chew. “I’m really wandering cuz nobody in here knows squat about you.”
The jailers country accent made the boy think of the movie “Life” with Eddy Murphy and Martin Lawrence for some reason, but he couldn’t answer. Because for some reason the chew the guard was so frantically working on had captured his attention.
“What the hell is you starring at boy?” The guard replied spitting the smelly goo into the boys face.
“There yeah go youngin!” He smiled whipping his hand across his chin to gather the excess.
“Dayum youngins”, the guard replied placing the key ring back on his belt loop. And with that he left whistling his way back down the cell block.
Left by himself the child prisoner wiped the brown sauce like goop from his face. The catchy tune he had been listening to faded as the guard made his way down the tier. The youngest inmate in Peel Castles glorious history flopped down on his cot and began dry spitting the horrible taste from his mouth.
In his hands he held some folded up blankets for his bed and a change of clothing. Threadbare sheets and faded prison stripes. The boy thumbed through the linen as if the guard who had handed it out put a surprise in-between the neatly folded squares for him. Like the prizes found in so many boxes of Cracker Jacks. Perhaps something with a splash of color or maybe even a file…perhaps.
Nothing!
The cell the boy occupied was small. But what did he expect? He was a prisoner. He had a right to nothing nor was he a law abiding respectful citizen of the United States any longer. “This would be great if I was a rapper,’’ he mumbled to himself as he lay back on the unforgiving springs. They nudged at them like a bully in a schoolyard. Placing his hands behind his head he looked upward; the way of forgiveness, the way of piece, at least for a religious person, which he was not.
With nothing better to do the prisoner decided to figure out the dimensions of his cell. He wasn’t particularly good with math so he usually guessed or choose ‘C’ if given the opportunity. Without that option, and no ruler or tape measure, he had to improvise. ‘If I were to lay flat on my back long ways,’ he eyed the room, ‘The cell is two of me. And than halfway up my calf I suppose.”
“Okay, and I’m like five feet no four…,” he jumped up. “And this place is two of me wide cutting off half my body maybe.”
Mrs. Concubine always said of him, “If math was video games on a PS3 you would be in abundance Dei Dreamer did you know that?” He excelled in division, multiplication, subtraction, and addition. It was everything else after that he had a problem with. “Get it a problem with math?” He busted out saying at a parent teacher conference one day. The joke fell short on his parents too, well one of them at least.
“Mrs. Concubine,” he stated humbly. “I don’t have a problem with math. Math, has a problem with me! Why can’t I just use a calculator?”
“Well what if you can’t find one?”
“Well I’ll just wait til’ I do.”
“Well what if it’s urgent and your diagnoses of the problem is urgently needed than what? Are you still going to wait till you can find a calculator? Somebody’s life could be at stake.”
“Over math?” The question sounded just as hosh posh coming from his parents’ lips just as it did coming out of his teachers.
“Yes over math!”
“Well,” the boy took some time in serious though. “I don’t think I would be in a field such as that honestly Mrs. Concubine.” He could sound incredibly articulate if need be.
“Well all that smooth talkin’ isn’t going to save you all the time Dei.” Her scrawny index finger was aimed straight at the class room door. “You know the routine.”
If he knew that finger would have pointed here one day. He would have had serious reservations about that entire conversation after the phrase, ‘Why can’t I just use a calculator?’
The prisoner found himself starring absently at a huge poster of a woman whose entire look was dated. The bright, cheerful, education rich, class room was no more. He was back inside his prison box. Back inhaling the earthy smell of dust and rock with hints of piss and body order thrown in accordingly. The woman in the picture was sitting with her legs crossed on top of a tool chest. Her due was pulled away from her face and looked a lot like Wolverines except the edges were rolled over into a bun, not spiky, and was shiny and healthy and jet black all the way around. She wore bright red lipstick and a one piece baiting suite and had a country mile of leg showing easily. The most important part of the picture, to him at least, was the fact that she was smiling down upon him. “Won’t be seeing a lot of those in here.” Hers would be the only one for quite sometime.

-Chapter 2-

Before the child could speak an alarm rang out off in the distance from another part of the prison. The boy pressed his face to the cell bars and grabbed a hold tightly. It was like witnessing a school fight, but with death being more of an option.
The prisoner heard one of the guards yell out C Ward as he raced by clutching his night stick with one hand and holding onto his cap with the other. All of the guards were heading towards C Ward.
C Ward was Peel Castles most secured and notorious building. Vile, low down, rotten, filthy, scum’s of the earth where all sentenced to their faiths there. It sat like an island in the middle of the yard surrounded on all sides by vast stretches of manicured lawn. Twelve foot high fences topped with concertina wire and two watch towers on either side. C Ward, also known as the Gatehouse to guests, held most of the world’s most notorious, most diabolical, most cut throat, murderous, hooligans locked away from the rest of the world. They were under thumb twenty-four seven. There was no wiggle room like there was where the boy stayed. Most of these carnivorous individuals he had never even heard of before. But he was eager to get a glimpse. He imagined the criminals looked like their names like in the cartoons. Like in Daffy Ducks Quack Busters or something.
“Got dammit!” An officer yelled out as he took off down the tier shouting, “Its them damn mobsters again ain’t it?”
“Mobsters?” The boy mouthed. His eyes grew bigger.
Dreamer followed the guard as far as the cell bars would allow. When the guard was out of site of the boy he could listen to the sounds of his polished dress shoes smacking off the metal rafters.
Out in the world, beyond the brick walls and steel bars of A Ward, Dreamer could hear the many whistles going off as officers closed in on the alarm. They were like the old policeman of London. Who carried batons and wore whistles around their neck to alert other officers nearby of law breakers. The guards here carried no guns too.

Guard Teasdale Side grabbed at the night-stick clinging to his side as he rushed down the metal stairway leading to the pit. His breaths were heavy and deep and drowned out the siren bellowing just ahead. The boy had noticed the prison took a liking to the highly egregious alarm from the movie Silent Hill which sounded like an air raid siren. The child prisoner nodded his head in appreciation. A World War II staple, that siren saved many a life with its fluctuating serenade. Plus it sounded hell-uh-cool!
Officer Teasdale gulped down hard, tightened his grip around his stick, and nodded at the orders given by the captain of the guards. Five officers stood in a line, leaned with their backs against the chilled brick of C Ward and waited. The guards hand trembled as he pulled the scuffed night stick from its holder and rested it at the side of his leg. The nicks scratched in it, eerie reminders of the inmates it came in contact with over the years. Teasdale’s face became gelid. His focus was on the door. Like a star athlete during the big game, everything around him faded into oblivion. Heated breaths escaped into the salt filled air as the searchlight shinned brightly at the officer’s side. Pupils widened by the night and consumed with fear looked on as the captain reached out for the door knob and twisted.
The landscaping around Peel Castle was refined, and typical of English yards. Roses, Stone Fruit Trees, Crepe Myrtles, and shrubs were just a few of the plants that grew in and outside of Peel Castles walls. On any other day prisoners, during their yard time, would be sitting out in the yard chatting amongst the colorful array of flowers. But as of right now they were vegetation crushed beneath the soles of the guards’ boots. There would be no plucking from the lavender garden for the misses today. If these flowers were to end up anywhere tonight it would be atop a wooden casket.

Teasdale’s eyes lit up like saucers! Small flashes of light popped from inside the heavily secured building followed by sporadic gunfire and laughter. He turned and saw his fellow guards crouched down against the wall. They had their arms protecting their head as pieces of brick and dust tumbled down on top of them. He was sweating profusely and looked pale as a ghost as heavy breaths left his lungs. They were as unarmed group of men, and stood no chance against projectile fired weapons of any kind. Most couldn’t even remember the last time they had saw one on the grounds. Like an eloquently designed masquerade mask the guards’ faces were equally lavished with worry and fear. Teasdale turned back to his front, “Sir we