The Convict

Repetitively and methodically he hammered the stubborn rock with the ten pound hammer. With each blow tiny flakes of dolomite flew clear as the mighty stone grudgingly gave up ground. Then suddenly a huge crack appeared. He stepped back almost too stunned to comprehend. The slightest of shafts of light peered through the gap. He felt his heart skip a beat and his breathing increased as the excitement built momentum. He dared not hope that his labor had come to an end lest he was to be disappointed. He hefted up the sturdy old hammer and really put his back into it. Like a dam wall giving up against the pressure of the water the old enemy crumbled and gave way. Soon he was bathed in light that burned his eyes. He sat down and ignored the discomfort. With tears streaming down his face he let the sunlight burn his lily-white skin and his lungs savor the fresh air for the first time in over two years.

For over two years Joe Davis had hammered, dug and carved his way through who knew how many tons of rock and dirt. Now he was at the surface. He wondered what would greet him out there? Five years ago his life had been going along very well. He was 24 years old and had just bought his own little service station in his home town of Clearwater, Colorado . After serving for five years in the US Marines he had taken all his pennies and bought the gas station. He met a wonderful local girl, Tamsin, and had proposed to her. Life was good.

Then on one fateful night as he was closing up for the night a dark colored sedan had pulled up and three men climbed out. He told them he was closed but they were from out of town so he decided to help them out. As he turned to unlock again one man produced a handgun and demanded money. Joe had never been the kind of guy to back down and didn’t then. A struggle ensued and Joe was wounded. All three of the robbers were killed. Instead of getting support from the community Joe found himself at the fore front of a massive outcry from the certain sections of the community, because the would be robbers had been from a minority group. He was accused of racism and unnecessary use of deadly force. The trial by media that followed saw his own local community turn their backs on him, including Tamsin, and the trial that followed was a sham. He was found guilty of manslaughter in the second degree and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Three years for each man he killed.

Joe was furious. He felt betrayed and cheated. What had they expected he would do? Just roll over, get robbed and possibly killed? Joe knew he had simply defended himself and what was his. They had died because they were not as deadly as he was. Hell it was his country that taught him to fight and to defend what is right.

He was shipped of to the state penitentiary before being sent to a government sponsored work program. Prisoners were being made to work out their sentences in tin mines in Texas . All Joe focused on was getting through his sentence and then getting out. He was going to make it big on the outside and then he would show those that had betrayed him, all the people of Clearwater , Tamsin, everyone.  It was in the mines that it happened. Joe had been following the news with one ear about the trouble in the middle-east and the involvement there. His own former unit had shipped out to not too long ago. He remembered hearing that US troops had uncovered several massive storage facilities for weapons of mass destruction but that they were empty. and were accused of hiding them. Threats flew back and forth until Osama bin Laden made a statement that he had the WMD and if the did not pull out of the middle-east all together he would use them. They day after his ultimatum had expired Joe had been working his shift at the bottom of shaft 117 when the earth trembled and all the lights went out. Generators that pumped out the dangerous sub terranian gasses thus stopped pumping and noxious volatile fumes filled the passages and suffocated the miners. There was a mad panic dash for the emergency elevators but they too were not working. The emergency generators kicked in for only a few minutes then somehow the gasses were ignited. The whole mine exploded from the inside.