This is Champagne Song from solitary confinement. I’m one of the Prairieland defendants. Please visit prairielanddefendants.com. This is a short story I wrote called ”The Runners,” part one.”
This bright and dusty city is divided by walls and chain-link fences. Down below, a small protest march approaches. The protesters are walking up through a series of narrow, chain-link covered paths, barely wide enough for three or four people to pass, connecting wider, chain-linked plazas that maybe a few hundred could fit into. I am standing in the corridor between the second and third plazas, wearing a backpack. I can see and hear the march of maybe a hundred or two hundred approaching, chanting. I can feel the eyes of many guards watching. There are also guards standing near me in the corridor, wearing their bluish-gray coveralls and black boots.
The protest energy peters out at the second plaza, with that sad sound, the chants growing quieter, and the voices dying away. I can see through the fence the colors and shapes of people ambling away in different directions. A short, brown woman, wearing a blue traffic vest and carrying a megaphone, trudges bravely on, chanting, pulling about seven marchers in tow. A trickle of ones and twos and threes, wearing street clothes, follow on more slowly behind, quiet. Suddenly, there’s a great commotion and lots of yelling. A tall, skinny, pale, feminine form, wearing short runner shorts and bright tank top, with a number placard, races along the outside of the fence.
That was part one. Please listen to Part two next time. This is Champagne Song, sentenced to 100 years for anti-fascism.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
