The alarm wailed like a banshee in the night, the prisoners were locked in their cells, the gates were thrown open and the dogs were let lose on the world surrounding the labyrinth of despair he had called home for the better part of a decade. It had been nearly an hour since his escape and there was no turning back, he was not apprehensive, the dogs would not find him, how could they? He had never left. He could hear the dogs barking in the distance chasing after a man they would never find, he laughed to himself, tonight he would be free. He walked past the few remaining guards untroubled by the thought of them stopping him, why would they? He was one of them, or rather he seemed to be. The other prisoner's stares pierced him to the very darkest reaches of his soul like so many bullets he would feel, were any of them to give away his secret. None of them ever would. This was a zoo of wise men, their only crime was being born to the wrong race in a country that was scared of anyone who deviated from the norm, the basic instinctual fear of all men, the fear of what it does not understand. He continued down the hall past the last cell, the last piercing gaze and the last guard, he walked out into the court yard, it was mostly for show, he hadn't been allowed outside since he had arrived, the fresh air was alien to him, the moon a long lost luxury he thought he'd never see again. He walked to the gate and calmly pushed it ajar, near the gate stood a solitary figure with a look of defeat carved in to his languid face, but he paid this man no mind, he walked past the man swiftly and then he ran, he ran faster and harder than any man had ever run before and he did not stop until he had left the prison far behind him. It was now four hours since his escape and he could hear the dogs singing their unsympathetic war song in the distance, they had picked up his scent, and were vigorously working to make up for lost time, he started to run again, he ran past the bodies of those who had escaped before him. He had finally out run the guards and their dogs and found himself at the gates of a new city where his kind roamed freely, this city was his ticket to freedom, the reward for all of his years of suffering. Just as he was about to step over the threshold to his emancipation he heard an alarm that wailed like a banshee in the night, time stopped and a look of defeat began to creep over his now languid face, he saw dogs run off into the distance and he knew they were chasing after a man they would never find. He walked into the city and to the prison gates, there he waited until he saw a man run past, this man ran faster and harder than any man had ever run before and did not stop until the city was far behind him.
Life's Pleasures
