Reality of a Prison Writer 24–E.C. Theus-Roberts

Reality of a Prison Writer 24—E.C. Theus-Roberts

(written Feb. 22, 2022)

                Here we are six chapters into the desaparecido chronicles, thirteen days since my secuestro and too many illusions gone to count. Reality can be a very bitter pill. Then again, a lot of bitter medicines do the greatest good.

                I’m learning when reality doesn’t conform to anticipations many people find themselves at a loss. I’m beginning to see it’s especially true for those in positions of authority. When Colorado desaparecido-ed me, prisoncrats there told prisoncrats here in Indiana “expect hell and then some.”

                Since arriving February 5, I’ve been under 24/7 observation, So much anxiety, so many precautions. And as Indiana’s custody officers are realizing, all for naught. Questions have turned from “what did you do?” to “who did you piss off?”

                I have a saying, the Universe conspires. It conspires to bring us our heart’s desires. When you’re faithfully pursuing these you’ll start noticing serendipitous events. Think of somebody. They show up. Speak of good news from an editor and receive notice, that same day, of an accepted submission.

                Synchronicity—confirmation you’re on the right path.

                Most wouldn’t consider being desaparecido a positive sign. But what about when you continue encountering serendipity?

                Was I not the one, just before being desaparecido, who said I wanted to indulge in two weeks of nothing but writing? While I may have wanted time to work on my revenge-tragedy novel “charnal”, I’ve still spent every day writing since I got pen in hand. Nine days and counting. And so, the Universe conspires.

Wasn’t it the Rolling Stones whose song says “you can’t always get what you want/but if you try sometimes/ you get what you need!”

PART TWO

                My greatest fear as an incarcerated writer and author is loss. In comparison to art, (which is frequently, absent-mindedly mangled and mishandled), a writer’s intellectual property is of no account. The most concern given a scribbler’s product in prison is, maybe, putting it all back in the same place after it’s been pawed through by officials. It’s that disdain that strikes terror in my literary heart.

                In prison, many see what I do as a pastime, something like busy-work. For most it’s just words; words in ink on paper—unremarkable and literaraly replaceable. For me, writer and author, it’s an intrinsic part of my being.  My scribe ergo sum statement is no flippant wit. Literary creatives commit mind, body and spirit to the craft. It’s so much more than a hobby or even obsession that compels me to spend 20 out of 24 hours hunched over desk scribbling away and regret having to stop for food or sleep.

                It’s terrifying. waking up every day, knowing the sum total of your literary oeuvre is in the hands of someone who may never have considered the allusions in Oscar Wild’s Vera, or even heard of it.

                Here I am life upset due to some vindictive prisoncrat refusing to let me leave a past behind and my primary concern isn’t about the sorry situation. My insomnia inducing worry is over Charnal , all forty-four thousand words of its unfinished draft. I dread its loss. I dread the loss of several hundred thousand words of book manuscript, still unpublished, essays, stories, poetry and unformalized conceptualizations or prospective works for a future day that’ll quite possibly now never come. Most of all, I dread the mortal blow capable of ending the life I live, to lose my oeuvre would be a fate indescribable.