Freedom - Short Story from Tkam After Tom Robinson's Trial
Freedom
As I sat outside watching the other inmates, a gentle breeze caressed my face, providing relief from the sun’s hot rays. I was used to the heat, but maybe it was the circumstances that I was in that made it unbearable. I could see that my fellow inmates felt the same as they lazed about, their skin glistening with sweat, their shirts clinging to their backs. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ rang angrily in my mind when I saw the number of Negroes compared to white people incarcerated. The amount of court cases, as well as families, jobs and lives, lost due to our colour was innumerable. Half of us didn’t even commit a crime worth being sent to jail for, but here we are! I wiped my forehead with an already sticky hand and surveyed my surroundings in an effort to shake off the contemptuous thought. The dirt oval consisted of some simple worn out exercising equipment, their hinges squeaking in protest with very movement; a few withering trees dying in the midday heat, two lookouts sitting on the inside of the perimeter where the prison guards patrolled the prisoners and a barbed wire fence which enclosed the space in an ominous hug. I thought pensively about my situation as I kicked the dusty ground vehemently, scuffing my already torn prison boots in the process. The rising hopelessness that I had kept bottled up throughout the court case, believing that with Mr Finch on my side I would definitely be acquitted, quickly vanished, much like the specks of dirt that I had kicked up had disappeared, carried away with the breeze of reality.
I observed the bluejays on the nearby trees, warbling their little hearts out with not a care in the world, unaware of the injustice that had occurred. I was being punished for a crime that I had not committed, accused by a woman whom I have assisted for nigh a year! The court case didn’t just affect me - it affected my family as well and I don’t want them to suffer because of it. What will they do? How will Helen watch the
As I sat outside watching the other inmates, a gentle breeze caressed my face, providing relief from the sun’s hot rays. I was used to the heat, but maybe it was the circumstances that I was in that made it unbearable. I could see that my fellow inmates felt the same as they lazed about, their skin glistening with sweat, their shirts clinging to their backs. ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ rang angrily in my mind when I saw the number of Negroes compared to white people incarcerated. The amount of court cases, as well as families, jobs and lives, lost due to our colour was innumerable. Half of us didn’t even commit a crime worth being sent to jail for, but here we are! I wiped my forehead with an already sticky hand and surveyed my surroundings in an effort to shake off the contemptuous thought. The dirt oval consisted of some simple worn out exercising equipment, their hinges squeaking in protest with very movement; a few withering trees dying in the midday heat, two lookouts sitting on the inside of the perimeter where the prison guards patrolled the prisoners and a barbed wire fence which enclosed the space in an ominous hug. I thought pensively about my situation as I kicked the dusty ground vehemently, scuffing my already torn prison boots in the process. The rising hopelessness that I had kept bottled up throughout the court case, believing that with Mr Finch on my side I would definitely be acquitted, quickly vanished, much like the specks of dirt that I had kicked up had disappeared, carried away with the breeze of reality.
I observed the bluejays on the nearby trees, warbling their little hearts out with not a care in the world, unaware of the injustice that had occurred. I was being punished for a crime that I had not committed, accused by a woman whom I have assisted for nigh a year! The court case didn’t just affect me - it affected my family as well and I don’t want them to suffer because of it. What will they do? How will Helen watch the