Stockholm Prison.
"Quiet reflection time is over. We'll count heads again in a moment, then it's time for yard exercise."
The jailer's shout rang in Primo's ears. He uncrossed his legs and slowly began to stand. He could not get up too quickly; after sitting cross-legged in quiet reflection for forty-five minutes, his legs were terribly numb.
Besides, standing too quickly would make him dizzy.
After standing up, Primo instinctively moved on to the next items on the schedule:
14:30-15:30-Head count, second session of quiet reflection.
15:30-16:00-Second yard exercise period.
To be honest, prison life reminded him of his school days, except the teachers had become jailers and his classmates had become fellow inmates.
Oh, right, there were no lively, pretty young women here, either. But that hardly made a difference. Most of the sweet, innocent romance of his school days had had nothing to do with him. Well, it would be more accurate to say it had had nothing to do with the vast majority of people.
Apart from those things, his days and his life remained just as regimented and "fulfilling."
During yard time, Primo neither played ball on the grounds with the muscular inmates nor joined the troublemakers who hid in corners to smoke behind the jailers' backs. Those smokers were generally people you did not want to cross in prison. The fact that they could get cigarettes proved they had figured out the rules of the game here.
Everything was so familiar, just like the public school he had attended as a student. Everyone formed their own little clique.
Every prisoner claimed to be innocent-they were only here because they had fallen victim to a heartless judge, an incompetent lawyer, or false accusations by the police. Otherwise, they had simply been terribly unlucky.
In the examination