Thursday 27 April 2023

The Whole Town.




They asked the local artist to the build the prison, apparently they needed a second.


He built it down the hill from the first and asked me what I thought constituted a prison being a prison.


I considered the first, high on the hill and answered; ‘walls, and lookout towers’.


His, down in the valley, had both and was therefore consistent.


Ok, the walls weren’t so high but they were extended with wire, though none of it barbed and it had a lookout tower that simply towered above everything including the valley.


If any guards expected to leave the tower without being seen they would have been disappointed.


His prison was circular, built from river stone and looked as if one concerted push would concertina the walls. 


Inset every quarter of the circumference, he had included a sculptured figure of a human with outstretched arms. It was a fusion between a Henry Moore figure and the Christ that looks down over Rio de Janeiro.


At full capacity his prison would hold the few, never the multitude; the first prison held the whole town.


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