A series of drabbles, from the POV of various characters on the course of several moments
Random thoughts: Michael
The Link
(Set during End of the Tunnel)
I look at the watch again.
Time is slowly crawling forward and, even though I know that I should be thinking about the plan, I find my mind rebelling against me. I see nothing but my brother's face, wriggling in pain.
I focus my eyes on a shadow on the far wall, concentrating, trying to regain control of my wandering thoughts. I count the number of imperfections on that wall, pushing my mind away from my brother's memory. I fail miserably.
The plan that I spend months going over and over inside my head is near perfect.
I call the plan perfect without any pretence of false modesty or narcissism. I say it in all honesty and truth, because, when every contingency has been accounted for, every turn of the screw has been taken in to consideration, every alternative has been given proper thought and every one of those variables has been given a calculated space in the bigger plan, you can't have any thing but the perfect plan.
Perfect means survival. Survival means success.
Every single aspect of the how, when, how much, who and which has been thought, analysed, evaluated and revaluated to no end. Everything that I could take in, I did. Everything that I could plan in advance, I did.
The rest, the things that I had no way of knowing on the outside, the things that I couldn't control, like who would be my cellmate or who my presence might piss off inside the prison, those variables were the only ones that I could allow myself to leave open. Those alone.
And those variables were the ones that could make the whole plan crumble. Other than that, everything else had to be perfect.
A flash of the time I spent with an electrical needle buzzing around my skin, like a bee high on ecstasy, ventures across my eyes. Hours and hours, I sat on that chair, allowing my fear to give me the strength to go on. Fear of forgetting some part of the plan, fear of seeing Linc strapped to an electric chair.
Linc.
Linc, the sink.
The name brought a smile to my face when I heard it first. My brother had been called many things over the years; the sink was a new one.
A week in to my stay in Fox River I found out how my brother had gained his lastest alias. Sucre had his hands in his pockets, looking like a small boy talking about his hero, as he told me what others had told him.
In those first days when Linc was first brought here, back when he was still allowed to mingle with the general population, one of the inside gangs had tried to mess with him. When Linc had told them off, they had tried to beat him up.
Every one of the gang members that had ventured near Linc had gone down like a ship. Hence The Sink.
He' seating right next to me now. Sucre, not my brother.
I look at the watch again and bang my head against the wall.
Now that I think about it, the situation is not without its fair share of humour. Linc the Sink did not go down when faced with an entire gang and me, with a single pill, managed to bring him to his knees.
That is, assuming that the priest delivered my 'package', assuming that Linc found the hidden pill inside Sucre's crucifix, assuming that my brother was insane enough to swallow a black pill with no idea whatsoever of what it would do to him.
Then again, what the worst that could happen to him? Die?
The dark thought is so outrageous that the snort almost leaves my mouth before I swallow it in. Instead I bang my head against the wall again. The solid concrete behind me feels good, grounding, real.
The variables that I could not control.
Like my brother's fist. Hitting that guard. To stall him. For me.
I often hear about the link that connects twin brothers. How they can sense each other's presence, how one knows what the other's feeling, how they can feel each others pain. Linc and me, we're hardly twins, we don't even share the same last name. There were times in our lives when we were barely speaking with each other.
That never stopped the link between us.
It's not like I can tell what he's thinking or what he's doing right now, but the connection is there. It's like a support beam in a construction; its part of the very foundations, but you can't see it when it's finished. After that, if it's taken, everything collapses. I feel like I'll collapse if Linc is taken.
I can feel his pain.
I researched thoroughly for a drug that would serve my propose. When I finally found it, I couldn't bring myself to read the secondary effects, knowing that I would be inflicting them on my own brother. I read them nonetheless, because every contingency needed to be accounted for. And, if everything else failed, the secondary effects would be the ones to get Linc in to the infirmary and closer to freedom.
Now, I can feel the acid burn inside my stomach as if I was the one who had swallowed that black pill. If it's a brotherly connection or simply my consciousness taking its revenge on my body, I can't tell.
I just bang my head against the wall, riding the waves of pain and despair, knowing that, when the time comes, the link between us will have to be silenced, or there will be no more Linc.
The end