Hiram and His Visions

It's hard to find braille in prison. Hiram, a lifer without sight, is forced to run his fingers over the cinderblock walls every night to feel some sort of stimulation, allowing the cracks and divets, bumps and grooves to become misspelled words, jumbled poetry, drunken rants. It wasn't that hard to do anymore; he no longer had to close his eyes and concentrate--he could just stand there and absorb it. Each jumbled word was stoically written in capital letters on the black canvas of his mind's sight, except for the once in a while discovery of a risque patch of wall. Then it was cursive. Then it was stimulation. Then it was romance in the abyss.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Venetian Hostel Tiles" Venice, Italy 7/04

Such a Thing as an Enemy

I awoke on a black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, my left cheek numb, my right eye shut, my left arm missing. In the brief moment I was seesawing between conciousness and void, I saw the dress of my enemy; shirtless in jeans, brown prison boots and a ski mask with a blue bob. He stood in the doorway and breathed deep, white eyes as light as bone, a hairless cousin of a werewolf. The last time we met, he attacked me through the back door of my parents' house. He has stalked me through urban alleyways on a motorcycle and choked me in a four-star Venetian hotel. The demon in a dream is a recurring character, lying in wait for the changing of the seasons, plotting, training, scanning the blueprints of my mind.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Rong Rong's Glossies" Athens, Ga. 12/04