In the hot night, in that dark place, with the bad walls, and no good footing.
The five o'clock shadow knows, and chews his cud, and makes the cigarette bob, and makes the smoke bounce, across the chard leather face, of the old time In-mate, serving the term.
His terrored eyes, with the flames inside, they're screaming. And the fire down below, it saturates the being, because there is no fire like it on earth, he's right down there next to Hell.
And a thousand years is a day, and a day is a thousand years, and he don't know when it'll stop, but unlike the Damned, he knows it will.
He knows he has it better now, then the happiest day he ever had with us. He's just waiting for the consequences to burn off.
He knows, because the judge told him so.
So he rolls another cigarette, screaming, and hopes again today, that someone on the outside will put some money on his books, for a glass of water, or a cool breeze, or a firm ground, or, if God wills it, an early release.
And if you put your head in the clouds, and listen real close, you can hear him screaming, up from the bottom of the ground, wailing for candles, wailing for prayers, wailing for mercy.
Wailing.
Wailing, to not be forgotten.