The irony of democracy lies not in its principles but in how quickly they crumble within these walls. For twenty-seven years, I was more than just a citizen—I was a true believer. I wore my country's uniform with pride, cast every vote with purpose, and attended every town hall with conviction. My fingerprints were on countless community projects, my voice heard in council meetings, my sweat mixed with the soil of community gardens. I was the model citizen America claimed to need.Now, I sat on a steel bunk in Unit 8D, watching my reflection fragment in the scratched metal of the wall. In the distorted surface, I saw not the face of a civic leader, but just another number—an inmate.

They say the measure of a democracy lies in how it treats its accused, not just its innocent. But in Hexll County Jail, that measure had been scraped away like the paint on these institutional walls, revealing the rot beneath. The Constitution—that sacred document many had once sworn to protect and defend—became nothing more than toilet paper in the hands of those who wielded power behind these walls.

The revelation hit harder than any drill sergeant's command: Lady Justice wasn't blind; she was corrupt. Her scales weren't imbalanced; they were broken, replaced by the arbitrary whims of those who punched time clocks and collected government paychecks.

The worst part isn't the physical discomfort or the isolation—it’s knowing that even after these walls release their hold, their shadow remains. Like a virus, the trauma of systematic dehumanization burrows deep into your psyche, transforming not just who you are, but how you see the world you once swore to serve.

Welcome to democracy's shadow, where service is meaningless, rights are privileges, and every accused soul learns the true cost of "justice" in America.

The walk to the transport van was a study in institutional control. Every footstep measured, every movement monitored. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, reducing us to numbers and procedures. Each step echoed with uncertainty, our lives put on pause while the system ground forward.

I asked the guard escorting us where they were taking me. His reply was cold and indifferent, his responses coming like automated messages: no information about the destination, family contact, or release date. Standard procedure reduced human rights to a series of denials. When I asked about his Constitutional oath, his blank stare revealed more about the system than any answer could.

The absurdity struck me. "When you became a deputy, did you swear an oath to uphold the Constitution?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied with the casual indifference of someone punching a time clock.

"What's in it?" I countered.

His silence spoke volumes. Here was a man authorized to strip away my freedom, who'd sworn to defend rights he couldn't even name. The irony might have been funny if it weren't so terrifying.

When I casually mentioned this, his response was even more unsettling. "That's why you shouldn't have broken the law," he intoned, his words like a judge's gavel. Innocent until proven guilty? Those words rang hollow where the presumption of innocence seemed a distant dream.

The transition to "housing" required being shackled once again. When the guard clasped the cold metal around my wrists, linking me to another inmate, my stomach twisted. The physical connection to a stranger felt violating.

They herded us into the transport van three at a time, packing us in until I could feel the heat from the bodies pressed against me. Someone's ragged breathing tickled my neck. The stale air grew thicker with each passing moment, heavy with the scent of fear and sweat.

The van's interior closed around us like a metal tomb. Each bump in the road sent shockwaves through our chained bodies. I tried counting seconds to maintain some grip on time, but the darkness inside the van seemed to swallow even that small comfort. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours, marked only by the occasional flash of streetlights through the tiny, mesh-covered windows.

With each turn, each stop, my mind wandered to darker places. Where were they taking us? The guard's earlier silence about our destination now felt less like procedure and more like deliberate cruelty. The uncertainty gnawed at me. In this rolling cage, we weren't people anymore—just cargo being shipped to our next holding cell.

The doors to Unit 8D scraped open with a metallic shriek that set my teeth on edge. What hit me first wasn't the horror I'd imagined—it was worse. It was the jarring normality of it all, twisted just enough to feel wrong. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, an eternal false day that stripped away the natural rhythm of time. The industrial ventilation system provided a constant underlying drone, like the breathing of some massive, mechanical beast that had swallowed us all.

Inside, life played out like a surreal television show. Inmates moved through their routines with practiced indifference—some locked in an intense basketball game, their shouts echoing off concrete walls; others hunched over chess pieces, contemplating moves as if they had all the time in the world. In the absurdly named "living room," blank faces stared at a mounted television, its glow adding another layer of artificial light to the already harsh environment. The scene felt like a carefully constructed illusion, a mockery of freedom within these confined walls.

A guard's clipboard appeared in my line of sight, directing me to bed number 2. I was no longer Alex Midas, but 'bed number 2' in a grid of sixty-four identical bunks. They stretched out before me in perfect rows, their steel frames gleaming under the perpetual light. Each bunk was a mirror of the next, a testament to the system's power to reduce individuals to interchangeable parts. Looking down the rows, the perspective seemed to shift and warp, the far end receding into shadow despite the aggressive lighting.

Walking the corridor to my assigned space felt like moving through molasses. The familiar shapes of chairs, tables, and doors took on menacing aspects under the harsh lighting, casting shadows that seemed to move independently of their sources. The silence between the occasional shouts and mechanical hums pressed against my eardrums like a physical force, making my own heartbeat sound thunderous.

My assigned bunk waited, stripped bare of comfort or personality. As I stood there, the reality of my situation crashed over me in waves. Just days ago, I had stood at the window of my lakeside townhouse, watching wildlife drift across the water. Now my world had contracted to a three-by-seven-foot space, marked by steel and concrete. The air here had a thickness to it, heavy with industrial disinfectant that barely masked the underlying notes of sweat and desperation.

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My mind struggled to process the contrast, creating discordant echoes of my former life that clashed violently with my current reality. When I closed my eyes, I could still see my home. But opening them to this institutional purgatory felt like waking into a nightmare. The walls of Unit 8D seemed to pulse with each breath I took, though I knew that was impossible. Wasn't it?

I had barely stepped into Unit 8D when a voice cut through the institutional silence.

"Yo, wanna sell your free phone call?"

The question came from a lanky twenty-year-old with sharp eyes and a gray sock wrapped around his forehead like a bandana. His jail pants sagged below his waist, giving him the appearance of a fictional movie character many of us know as "Little Puppet."

"My free what?"

"Your phone call. The one they're supposed to give you when you get here." His emphasis on "supposed to" carried years of experience with the gap between policy and practice.

"I haven't been able to make any phone calls, let alone a free one," I responded, my voice caught between bewilderment and resignation.

Among these stark reminders of institutional power, he introduced himself as Xavier. His quick assessment of me revealed someone who'd learned to read people as a survival skill—a necessity born from a life harder than most. His story was one of years lived beyond his age—parents lost to drug addiction. His mother, even when pregnant with him, never ceased using. He had been processing through the system before he'd drawn his first breath.

Xavier stepped back and asked, "Is this your first time here?" I responded with a simple nod. He then proceeded to lay out the rules, both the mandated and the unspoken.

"Breakfast is at 3:02 in the morning, lunch is at eleven in the morning, and dinner is at five-thirty in the evening. If you hear the word 'freeze,' retreat to your bunk, and don't leave unless you need to use the bathroom. Don't stare at other inmates, don't take their belongings, don't even look at their stuff. When you shower, do it in your boxers. Some people choose not to; I'm not sure why. Just don't," he concluded.

There he was—a kid, barely grown, already an expert at navigating this twisted system. And there I was, with all my years of civic engagement, feeling like a child lost in the dark. Maybe that's what they wanted—to remind us that our lives before meant nothing.

"Thank you," I replied politely. In the four days since my incarceration, I felt a sense of camaraderie, like someone genuinely had my back. Yet, there was an undercurrent of anxiety, an ever-present tension that gnawed at the edges of my mind.

Lunch brought another institutional ritual: a brown paper sack. Inside were apple juice, potato chips, two cookies, and "The Johnnie." Four days in, these bologna sandwiches had become a dreaded constant, marking time like the fluorescent lights overhead.

"Are you going to eat your 'Johnnie'?" another inmate inquired. Without so much as a glance, I handed it over. His sinister laugh echoed through the institutional chill. It was strange how something so simple—a bologna sandwich—could become currency. Back home, I wouldn't have fed it to my dogs. But here, I watched grown men trade their dignity for it.

"Some of us have been dining on 'Johnnies' for months. You'll learn to trade them—worth more than gold here if you find the right hungry man." The way he said "hungry man" made my skin crawl. At that moment, I realized hunger here wasn't just about empty stomachs. It was a weapon, a tool, a currency of desperation. The paper bags rustled as inmates grabbed them, the sound uncomfortably similar to rats scurrying in walls. I watched as hands that once might have signed business deals or cradled children now clutched at jail food with barely contained urgency.

'Johnnies'—I soon learned—were the crown jewels of Hexll County Jail’s twisted economy. Distributed just once a week, these packages held power far beyond their humble appearance. "Two'fers," they called them, because one 'Johnnie' could buy you two trays of food. The math of survival was reduced to simple transactions: hunger versus necessity, need versus want.

As dusk settled over the unit, the oppressive shadows seemed to grow thicker. I found myself at a table in the communal area, processing the day's revelations. Footsteps approached, and Xavier took the seat across from me. He said nothing at first, just studied me with an intensity that defied the unspoken rules about eye contact. There was something about him—maybe his youth, maybe the way he carried himself—that made me want to understand his story.

"Tell me about yourself," I ventured.

His response came with a bitter smile. "What's to tell? I'm a career petty criminal at twenty. Been bouncing between the streets and relatives my whole life." He paused, a flash of pain crossing his features. "Had a girlfriend who tried to keep me straight. But instead of letting her pull me up, I dragged her down. Now her sacrifices were for nothing."

"They weren't for nothing," I countered quickly, struck by how readily he'd written off not just himself but anyone who'd tried to help him.

"This is my life now," he sighed, gesturing at our surroundings. "The streets or these bars, that's my future. Can't shake the drugs, can't figure out how to be different."

Something in his resignation hit me hard. Here was a kid barely starting life, already convinced it was over. "You're twenty," I reminded him. "Your story's just beginning. You've got time to figure it out, to find people who'll lift you up instead of pulling you down."

When I asked what brought him here, his casual response carried a weight he tried to hide. "Don't know yet. I haven't seen the inside of a courtroom. Let's leave it up to the judge. If he says I'm innocent, then you can say I was in here for nothing." He shrugged, then turned the question back on me.

"I'm a licensed real estate agent," I told him. "I also host a radio show called 'Invincible Insights with Alex Midas,' which helps people navigate the real estate market."

His eyes lit up. "A radio show? Man, you should do one about this place—the other stuff that happens here, not what they show on TV." There was an edge to his voice when he added, "The other stuff," leaving unspoken stories hanging in the air between us.

I found myself sharing my thoughts of writing about my time here, but Xavier's skepticism was immediate. "Everyone says that. Then they get out, and this place becomes just a bad dream they want to forget."

As a radio host, my first instinct had been to bring these stories to my show. I'd even started asking other inmates if they'd share their experiences on air. But Xavier's next words stopped me cold. "People will listen for a day, maybe two," he said. "Then it's sports scores, weather, whatever's next in the news cycle.”

I'd watched it happen throughout my broadcasting career—even the most powerful stories eventually faded into background noise. The guard who'd sworn to defend a Constitution he couldn't explain, Xavier's story of systemic failure, all of it would blur into yesterday's news.

That's when it hit me—these stories needed more than three minutes between traffic and weather, more than a moment of public outrage before the next news cycle. They needed to be written down, documented, preserved as evidence of what happens when we look away. Every dismissed right, every ignored plea, every kid like Xavier who never had a chance—all of it committed to paper where it couldn't be ignored or forgotten.

Not just what I experienced, but all of it: the casual disregard for rights, the lives shaped by institutional failures, the small indignities and large injustices that seemed to surprise no one inside these walls.

"Let me tell your story," I said to Xavier. "Not for radio—for a book."

His laugh was a hollow echo, filled with more pain than humor. "Who wants to read about another screwup kid?"

"Maybe someone who needs to understand how the system fails people before they ever get here," I answered. "Maybe someone who can help change things."

The silence between us was thick, almost tangible, pressing down with a weight of inevitability until finally, he nodded. "Yeah, write it down. All of it—the kid who never had a chance, the Constitution nobody reads, everything. Maybe someday somebody will care."

I watched him walk away, his words lingering in my mind like a distant echo. In this place where justice seemed more an elusive specter than a reality, maybe documenting was the most important thing I could do. Perhaps somewhere, sometime, these stories would find the readers who needed them most.

I hoped he was right. For now, I can only observe and remember. I had to prepare to bear witness to what I was seeing in this place, where rights seemed optional and justice felt like a distant dream.