The Department of Corrections, Book One
Chapter 3: Level NegThree - Processing

A uniformednarmed processing officer ordered E30541 to remove his holey shoes and threadbare socks, select a pair of disgusting, mismatched PVC sandals from a sizable, blood-stained cardboard box, and to slip them on. Malyj obeyed the impatient male PO immediately: unknowingly exposing his bare feet to a multitude of infectious disease. Searched/frisked/patted down roughly; he was forcibly taken over to a strange device that resembled a large copy machine, where they roughly scanned all ten of his digits’ fingerprints—one by one, both of his open hands—palms down including the fingers, and the bottom edges of both hands. Then, he was forcibly taken for his impound mugshot, where they 2D photographed his face from front and profile views while he held up his Malyj/E30541 DOC ID board (ugly mugshots as untrue as a falsified police report). They also 2D photographed all of his tattoos. They took a blood sample, a voice recognition clip, a retina scan, a 3D facial recognition scan, and a brain mapping scan for lie detection/correction purposes. Using a large hypodermic-like needle, screwing and boring violently—like they were drilling for oily bone marrow, they implanted a microchip deep into his left-side hipbone, its GPS registered to Impound Number E30541 (Malyj’s DOC/State digits). They had already entered his urine sample, his DNA sample, and his six-inch-thick probation file into the system. “They,” VIL-EN and the Karpian State, were now monitoring E30541. Finally, he was roughly injected with a 3:1 concomitant of Sodium Pentathol and the State’s chemical creation for total mind control—Bogonarkodenotikos-19-66.67®; then forcibly seated in a well-lit, pink cubicle where he anxiously awaited to be questioned (chemically interrogated) while being videotaped. His mouth was dry as? . . . Tasted like 200 cc’s of? . . . What the devil?! . . .

Suddenly, Malyj was confused, swallowed by a silvery haze. Instinct warning of . . .

Slowly breaching the ominous haze, an obese creature was being born right before his dilated eyes. A vague, pallid blob—with thin, upright wisps of snowy hair, and soulless, pale-blue eyes, baring long, discolored teeth like bloody bayonets—loomed over him like a paralyzing nightmare. Its saggy-wrinkled neck collared by a silver and black leash, like some polychromatic nuchal cord restraining it to its life-giving haze. The obese creature’s large, pale-blue eyes, pointed, reddish teeth, and colorless, oversized claws roamed behind jumbled puzzle pieces of white, green, silver, black, and gray—and it stalked behind random flashes of light—all while circling around Malyj’s head like broken images perpetually forming a new abstract whole. The shapeshifter’s questioning sounded otherworldly, distant:

“Impound number?” An alien whisper. Unexpectedly, like a beluga whale expelled from the confused haze, the disjointed, psychedelic creature became a solitary white blur flopping about in slow motion. It smelled of?—of?—naphthalene!—something like mothballs.

“Eight- to ten-years-ago.” Malyj was fighting the truth serum, his years of vodka and heroin abuse giving him a greater tolerance to the drugs than previous impounds.

“Lie detected!” VIL-EN’s digitized voice boomed from a speaker in the ceiling; she had accessed E30541s BMS (brain mapping scan).

“Impound number?” slurred the pungent white blur.

Its soulless, pale-blue eyes frightened Malyj. “Eight years ago, no, no, ten years ago.” Malyj was still fighting the narcotics. His body flushed, tiny beads of sweat were forming on his tattooed skin. The thin thread connecting him to reality, to sanity, getting thinner and thinner, ready to snap.

“Lie detected!” VIL-EN’s simulated voice boomed from a speaker in the ceiling.

“Impound number?” the flopping white whale mimicked human speech.

One second of silence: an awful, eternal din.

Suddenly, Malyj was lucid, the ominous haze and swirling cubistic images had dissipated. The Pablo Picasso-like nightmare/headache now faded from his mind. He was still seated in the well-lit, pink cubicle. The obese, pallid creature—just an old, wrinkly, albino-white, snowy-haired, pale-blue-eyed, mothball-stinky, overweight nurse with red-lipstick-stained teeth; wearing a white lab coat, a silver and black stethoscope, a green military uniform, and black jackboots; holding a gray i-clipboard and a small silver flashlight in her colorless, man-sized hands that ended in ten, clear, long, artificial fingernails—was perpetually scuttling about while asking repetitive questions.

“Impound number?” English, and now clear as a bell.

“E30541.” Malyj answered automatically, the drug “holiday” and repetitive questioning victorious. He was now unknowingly chatty, truthfully answering her every question.

“Date of birth?”

“June 16th, 1966.”

“Place of birth?”

“Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But, I’ve lived in Florida since . . .”

“Veteran?” interrupting.

“No. But, my father and uncles are retired Navy. And, two of my five children are currently enlisted in the Navy. I . . .”

“Height?!” she rudely interrupted him.

“Six-three.”

“Weight?”

“Two-fifty.”

“Any diseases?”

“HIV.”

“Any others?”

“No.”

“Taking any medications?”

“No. I’m homeless; and unemployed without health insurance. I can’t afford . . .”

“Any history of mental illness?!” she rudely interrupted him—to refocus him.

“No.”

“Do you currently feel suicidal?”

“No.”

“Any addictions?”

“Alcoholic. Heroin addict. I’ve been clean since . . .”

“What languages are you fluent in?!” she rudely interrupted him, again—to refocus him, again.

“English, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish. I’m a second-generation Ukrainian-Ameri . . .”

“Religion?!” Interjecting a fourth time.

“Ukrainian Orthodox.”

“No lies detected,” VIL-EN’s synthetic voice soothed from a speaker in the ceiling.

The overweight nurse, Nurse Dorfman, used a small silver flashlight to inspect Malyj’s eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and body. Speaking for the video camera’s sake: “Eyes dilated, appear brown, but when exposed to light, they are hazel. Nose ‘Slavic,’ hairy, mucus filled. Teeth yellowed, one bottom-left molar extracted, multiple lead fillings and gold crowns. Still has tonsils. (Murmuring.) Recommend breath mint stat. Both ears hairy, waxy, having attached ‘criminal-type’ earlobes. Both earlobes pierced. Cranial development, odd, bumpy, ‘criminal-type’ according to the calipers and phrenology chart. Hair dirty, long, to middle of back, a ‘radical’s flag,’ appears to have been blond, maybe light-brown, now silver. Long graying goatee, unkempt. (Dorfman, using her small silver flashlight, now looking under and peeking inside of Malyj’s mangy clothes.) Unwashed body, dirty, smelly. Abdomen horrific, vertically scarred by major surgery. Circumcised. Impound heavily tattooed, all religious tattoos proclaiming his Orthodox Christian Creed, each one a violation of State law: only the Karpian State may be worshipped. No gang affiliation tattoos. . . . Too many recessive ‘criminal-type’ traits to list.” Nurse Dorfman, nauseated by E30541, pocketed the small silver flashlight and turned off the video camera.

Stoically, Dorfman s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d (left five fingers wriggling) and snapped! and then s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d (right five fingers wriggling) and snapped! a pair of flesh-colored latex gloves over her colorless, man-sized hands, guided woozy E30541 (by his left, dirty and callused elbow) to the examination area, had him step behind a feces-stained, canvas privacy curtain suspended by ancient galvanized hooks, drop his faded-and-tattered jeans, and bend over a cold, rickety, gunmetal gurney where she conducted a thorough and very painful anal cavity search under a single, buzzing, flickering, urine-yellow fluorescent tube (the whole time, her pale-blue eyes, rhythmically, traveled back and forth between his spit-lubricated ass and the lusty-ticking wall clock like curious pendulums; hoping not to break off a couple of her expensive artificial fingernails inside of another foul impound). Removing her noisome gloves, by pulling them inside out, she tossed the two bloody balls of flesh-colored latex into a blood-red, plastic, biohazard trash bin. He pulled up his soiled jeans quickly, frantically buttoned and zipped them. His pregnant-eyes birthing healthy tears. She washed and dried her massive hands at a small stainless-steel sink. Sniggering. Her every clear, long, sharp, artificial fingernail accounted for.

Dorfman checked Malyj’s temperature and pulse, took his blood pressure, and listened to his lungs and heartbeat with her ice-cold, polychromatic stethoscope. She recorded his health stats on her gray i-clipboard like a green-uniformed automaton, just a mindless old cog in the State machine.

Drugged and drooling, E30541 unknowingly signed his medical release on the white-coated nurse’s i-clipboard with his right thumbprint and was issued a durable, orange wristband with his impound mugshot, impound number, and a scannable bar code imprinted on it. Malyj’s bloody ass ~throbbed~ with a dull pain.

The initial probing had ended.

A different uniformednarmed male processing officer escorted (strong-armed) E30541 across Level NegThree - Processing. A bleak, expansive, subterranean level flooded with: stale, mechanically-recycled, poorly-filtered artificial air that tasted like sea salt; buzzing, flickering, fluorescent artificial light that had long-ago stained its long glass tubes, and cast the wet concrete ceiling in, a urine-yellow; a grainy cement dust that clung to subterranean-pale skin and faded uniforms like a gray crematory ash; staticky Muzak filled with subliminal messages; and there was a tenseness in the shadowy atmosphere, so thick, it felt like walking submerged through a nuclear reactor’s heavy water. Omnipresent processing officers, with chiseled-stone faces and blue-latex hands, mysteriously appeared and disappeared like spies bobbing in the wavy, death-black atomic shadows. The hopeless level had a dim, cold, moist, abandoned military-industrial complex feel. A depressed level making its human occupants feel painfully hollow—suicidal. Its frozen concrete floor like cracked ice beneath their feet. Its empty concrete belly groaning, digesting the exposed red-iron, leaving the riveted, welded, and rusted steel girders disfigured like diseased leviathan bones. Its irradiated concrete block walls—whose countless dying flakes of lead paint fluttered like the countless wings of heavy-metal insects from the face of every wall—echoed an unhealthy, peeling, grayish (imprisoned-colored) skin. Down a damp corridor that smelled of layers of old lead paint and of ancient rust and a century of sweaty fear; a long jailhouse corridor that sloped down toward its vanishing point: a single, temporary holding cell. The irritated male processing officer unlocked the well-worn, dull-gray-painted-and-peeling steel cell door with a large steel key, yanked! it open with an ear-piercing metallic-creak, shoved! horrified Impound E30541 inside and barked! a halitosis smothered “No talkin’!”, then slammed! the heavy steel door shut, locking it behind him with a violent twist! of the large steel key. The processing officer like a departing nightmare, his jangling skeleton keys (tinkling terribly) and angry boot steps (falling, exploding like bombs, their echoes out of time yet defining, framing, filling the ancient corridor’s space) slowly fading up and away . . .

The cold, windowless, temporary holding cell—if you don’t count the vertical rectangle of indestructible, wire-mesh-embedded safety glass set in the heavily graffiti-keyed steel cell door—was approximately twenty feet long by twelve feet wide by twelve feet high and currently occupied by at least fifty weary, drugged, and recently pre-processed impounds. Male and female. All of the crowded impounds sat silently—squeezed together elbow-to-elbow like the interlocking teeth of a human zipper—on a hard, narrow half-bench that ran around the perimeter of the rectangular cell: except across the cell door and toilet areas. The muted-silver steel, cantilevered half-bench protruding from the gray concrete block walls, was intentionally designed and angled to be torturously uncomfortable on the impounds’ buttocks and lower backs—especially after sitting on it for hours, sometimes days. A rusted metal sign of rules hung on the far, paint-peeling concrete block wall and read:

NO TALKING

NO STANDING

NO SITTING OR LYING ON THE FLOOR

REMAIN SEATED ON BENCH AT ALL TIMES

VIOLATORS WILL BE PUNISHED

Malyj, a timid old tooth, squeezed himself into the youthful human zipper.

The dull-gray-painted, paint-peeling holding cell was remotely monitored by VIL-EN; and also equipped with the processing officers’ video and audio and intercom equipment mounted in the front-left corner of the damp concrete ceiling. Everything digitally recorded. A dripping, ceiling-mounted fire sprinkler head and a buzzing, flickering, urine-yellow, ceiling-mounted fluorescent tube were also visible: both recessed flush into the water-stained concrete ceiling and guarded by an inverted, rusted wire mesh. There was a stainless-steel “mirror” mounted on the damp concrete block wall, a stainless-steel sink, and a stainless-steel toilet that offered zero privacy. The shit-stained chromium toilet was deliberately broken, left constantly flushing, the loud swirling and echoing water was being used as a form of psychological torture. The Muzak’s staticky notes fell from the perforated ceiling speakers like ticking seconds until interrupted by the hourly propaganda reading: “You are nothing, the State is . . .”—VIL-EN’s almighty, tyrannical voice rambled on and on. No one made eye contact. Everyone just counted the damp, disintegrating concrete blocks in the ancient walls—or stared down at the damp, unfinished concrete floor—or stared down at their disgusting, mismatched PVC sandals. “help, Help, HELP!” Distant, tortured screams escaped up, Up, UP from the badly corroded, perforated floor drain. An assortment of bodily odors mingled offensively.

There was zero concept of time inside the clockless holding cell. So when the cell door grated open and an old-fashioned television set and a bygone VHS player on a rusted wheeled-cart wobbled in—pushed by a youthful male processing officer and trailed by a frayed, orange extension cord—no one knew what year it was, let alone what time it was.

“Impounds! You will watch this prerecorded instructional video created by the system’s, now retired, Honorable Impound Judge Jan Jape!” bawled the youthful male processing officer. His scripted words echoing inside the clockless holding cell.

The video played (a colorful pause released moving images):

“Violators. Impounds of the State. Property of the Department of Corrections. Every one of you have been sentenced to ‘correction.’ Your freedom, rights, and citizenship have been terminated—meaning—you are not entitled to a trial. There will be no trial—for any impound—ever! Each and every one of you have been deleted off the surface grid; all of your surface possessions and finances—if you have any—will be seized by the State. As far as the surface world above is concerned—you have absconded, you are a wanted criminal in constant hiding, you can no longer reveal yourself to society . . .” An auburn-haired, brown-eyed, long-nosed, thin-lipped, golden-toothed, liver-spotted old woman wearing thick black spectacles and a heavy black robe said with overt disdain. Her bony white fist speckled red from squeezing, almost splintering her trembling wooden gavel; her wrinkled face distorted as if she could actually smell the offensive holding cell.

The silent impounds stirred, body positions shifting on the uncomfortable steel half-bench. The human zipper wanting to unzip. Most had believed their violation had been some kind of mistake, a mistake that would be cleared up during their trial. All hope was expelled from the unjust holding cell, leaving only panic, like the end of a dying man’s last breath. A cold, concrete holding cell crammed with fifty-six terrified impounds: approximately 1,400 feet of intestines twisting into painful knots; the accuseds’ guts ready to rupture and bleed from their real and imagined fears. Fifty-six terrified individuals with one collective goal: escape to the surface world—escape to freedom.

A male impound broke down and stood up screaming “Nooooooo!”, breaking the holding cell’s rules of no standing and no talking. An alarm shrieked; VIL-EN’s mechanical voice boomed from the concrete ceiling, screaming over the video’s audio: “Cell position violation! Voice recognition violation! Violator E061666, Violator E061666, Violator E061666!” Three mannish female processing officers rushed! into the holding cell, beat! E061666 senseless with their black telescoping batons (dull, heavy thuds repeating), then violently dragged! the bloodied, disfigured, and deceased male impound from the shocked-and-awed cell.

“E061666 liquidated!” VIL-EN’s imitation female voice boomed from the concrete ceiling, screaming over the video’s audio. Flakes of gray paint fell from the holding cell’s four concrete block walls, like startled moths scattered in flight, all a flutter like wings until reaching the bloody concrete floor.

Madness, pure madness, Malyj thought petrified, fighting not to speak up, to not act up. His convictions slid back into his head like a salted snail into its shell. The Karpian System had already begun to subconsciously modify E30541s thoughts and actions.

“Once the illegal thoughts and feelings of ‘I’ are corrected, the words, actions, and appearance of ‘We’ become ‘One,’ conforming to State regulations,” VIL-EN’s motherly voice soothed from the speakers in the concrete ceiling, talking over the video’s audio. VIL-EN’s contrast in tone, soothing or booming, a conditioning tactic whenever broadcasting State propaganda or verbally reprimanding incorrect impound behavior. A soothing voice for instruction and correct (profitable) behavior. A booming voice for correction and incorrect (unprofitable) behavior.

Judge Jape’s video audible again (the shrieking alarm halted; VIL-EN’s brainwashing muted):

“. . . the State will now begin the process of ‘correction.’ You will be made to conform, made profitable, by being cleansed of—purged of—cured of . . .” The color video ended abruptly in an explosion of black-and-white static that slowly settled behind a thick, arching, black-glass screen. The rusted cart was frantically wheeled out of the holding cell by the youthful male processing officer; the frayed, orange extension cord cracked whiplike, chasing after the old-fashioned television set and bygone VHS player. The solid-steel cell door slammed! shut—clunked! locked. An infinitesimal vortex of ancient dust pirouetted inside the clockless holding cell, then vanished with the time.

The surviving impounds remained seated, interlocked with fear, dead silent. All staring at the holding cell’s cold concrete floor, at the pool of warm blood E061666 had left behind to coagulate, at the reality of the thick human blood (sprinkled with gray flakes of old lead paint, and specks of forgotten rust and ancient dust)—that could have been their blood—slowly bleeding impound-red toward the “help, Help, HELP!” screaming floor drain. Dull, heavy thuds repeating, E061666s murder replaying in fifty-five terrified minds.

The steel cell door clanked! shanked by a skeleton key, then groaned open like it was wounded; how much time had elapsed was a mystery, time below unlike time above. A corrected female impound stepped into the holding cell, a corrected male impound mindlessly pushed a UniCart behind her; both figures wearing black jumpsuits, the uniform of the corrected: the black-clad were all slaves, spies, and informers, agents of the DOC. Five armed, green-uniformed processing officers observed, policed from the corridor. One by one, the corrected impounds sized up each flawed impound.

An iron hand gestured . . .

“You, female, stand up!” The chemically-corrected female impound spoke with authority (pointing).

E121867 stood up from the uncomfortable steel half-bench.

“2XXL!” the chemically-corrected female impound spoke again, her voice a pneumatic hammer echoing. Her every number, letter, and word uttered a steel rivet shot.

The surgically-corrected male impound, robotically, without speaking, threw E121867 an orange jumpsuit. A long scar, still red and engorged, burrowed across his dull, cast-iron forehead. His blank eyes unblinking in bruised sockets. His mouth drooling, an open, speechless zero (0).

“Sit down!” Two steel rivets hammered into a flimsy sheet of metallic air.

The iron hand gestured again . . .

“You, male, stand up!” said loudly, machinelike (pointing).

E30541 stood up from the uncomfortable steel half-bench.

“6XXL!” Four alphanumeric rivets hammered into a flimsy sheet of metallic air.

E30541 was thrown an orange jumpsuit.

“Sit down!” Two angry, heated rivets glowing red like molten steel.

E30541 obeyed mechanically; Malyj was incognizant of his being forever fastened to this moment in time.

VIL-EN watched and listened silently, secretly; she was hiding beyond the damp concrete holding cell—man’s physical boundaries intangible to her artificial senses.

This process repeated fifty-three more times, until every flawed impound was issued an orange jumpsuit, until every tooth in the human zipper was clasping orange fabric.

The heavy, solid-steel cell door slid open again, grinding along its rusted tracks. A second later, an hour later, a day later—who knew? The concept of time now altered, hallucinatory, inside the clockless holding cell.

“Single file, out intada corrido’, line up against da wall!” a tall, huge, “female” processing officer commanded. S/he was employed to overawe the male impounds: to make them feel small, weak; to make them reluctantly obey her; to hopefully make them physically challenge her. Then the emasculating jailer screamed:

“No talkin’! . . . An’ no eyeballin’ me!” Thick, twisting veins bulged from her muscular neck and arms like epileptic snakes on steroids convulsing. Her enormous black hands clenched into punchless, straitjacketed, angry white fists that s/he was dying to unleash.

Each flawed impound, male and female, one by one, was handcuffed—hands in front, and their PVC-sandaled feet were shackled at the ankles. Carrying their worn-out orange jumpsuits, the fifty-five lost souls were shuffled down another long shadowy corridor, policed by five armed processing officers (prodded along with wooden nightsticks and Nazi-like efficiency—like a herd of mindless sheep, or a funeral procession). A chain gang always descending, burrowing deeper and deeper and deeper into the dusty Earth. With every short-chained step toward “HELL,” miles beneath the squirming earthworms and twisted tree roots, Malyj was unearthing his own deepest, hidden fears and darkest, secret thoughts—and reliving his most painful, guilt-ridden memories.

The downward-sloping corridor dead-ended at the horizontal incinerator; its steel access door open, flames blazing hungrily. Each flawed impound, male and female, one by one, had their handcuffs and shackles removed, were ordered to strip down naked and to feed all of their feculent, personal clothing into the hot-orange mouth spitting black smoke and yellow flame; all personal belongings, mostly eyeglasses, jewelry, and wallets were tossed into the appropriate reclamation pile on the damp concrete floor (Malyj, heartbroken and feeling sick to his stomach, reluctantly surrendered his Ukrainian grandmother’s silver chain and silver Orthodox crucifix to be melted down: an old country heirloom, and his last, cherished, irreplaceable possession). Then, each flawed impound, male and female, one by one, entered a small, steamy, pink-tiled shower room to the right of the Holocaust-like furnace, had one minute to shower and drip-dry before a white-filter-masked, blue-latex-gloved, green-uniformed processing officer pelted their still wet and naked body with a chalky delousing powder. Each flawed impound put on their itchy, orange, State-issued jumpsuit (a faded-black capitalized word on everyone’s back: IMPOUND) and disgusting (now wet and slimy and squeaky), mismatched PVC sandals, and were handcuffed (hands in front) and shackled again. This silent, humiliating process occurred fifty-five times until every flawed impound was showered, deloused, dressed in orange, sandaled, and restrained in rusty irons.

“E30541! . . . Step fo’wa’dz!” The almost unintelligible “female” processing officer removed Malyj’s standard-issue handcuffs, aggressively cuffed him with a “large” pair, then screamed “Step back’n line!” inches away from his perplexed face. The heavy, heavy-duty steel cuffs were too tight around his thick, bony wrists, cutting off his hands’ circulation while painfully grinding across and bruising each radius and ulna. The dark-skinned, yellow-toothed Amazon left smirking, never giving an explanation to why only Malyj’s handcuffs had been upgraded?

. . . A moment later, an impound committed suicide by throwing himself into the hungry mouth of the fiery incinerator. Popping sounds like an erratic twenty-one-gun salute. The reek of his cremated flesh was burped back up into the steamy, Russian-bathhouse-like corridor. His nuked ashes mushroomed, then tiny-black “snowflakes” fell through the sweltering mist like a nuclear winter, death sticking to the impounds’ perspiring faces, hands, and feet. The stench of his freedom clung to their faded-orange jumpsuits like a nauseating mnemonic device. Malyj slipped into a dissociative state.

“E012569 self-terminated!” VIL-EN’s emotionless voice boomed from the rusted speakers in the sweating concrete ceiling.

Malyj sought asylum inside his mind. His head a padded room stuffed with crazy, straightjacketed thoughts. Thinking to himself: I’m safer in here, than out there . . .