... at the break of dawn. It was cold and the freezing temperature woke me up, and I saw that I was lying on the ground sandwiched between two men who were fast asleep. Normally, such proximity to other inmates would be something I would never allow but during the night as it got colder people naturally huddled closer to preserve body heat in this unusual situation. It was clear to me that everyone did this out of necessity and for no other reason. Anyway, I extricated myself from the huddle and sat up. The sun was just coming out. I could see quite clearly now. The desert was just the same as last night, but it still took me a minute to get my head around this new situation: I was definitely out of the dungeon, thrown into this desert, shackled to another man. I didn’t know what to think of it but I decided not to dwell any longer or else I’d go crazy.

Out of habit, I began to do my warm up exercises, then my push-ups. Before I got to five hundred everyone else was up and some people joined in, while others just sat there enjoying the feeble warmth of the waking sun. It was quite a glorious morning; even the bleak barren countryside looked cheerful under the sun’s rays.

I finished my push-ups. Feeling revitalized, I sat enjoying the moment until I spotted some insects darting about, hiding in the clumps of grass that sprouted amongst the sand here and there and the thought struck me that we might have to catch these critters to survive. Then a lizard poked its head out from behind a nearby stone. I decided to have a go at catching it.

‘Hey,’ I nudged my partner who was just stirring, ‘I need you to get up. I’m gonna catch that lizard over there.’ I poked the man in the ribs and he turned around. He didn’t move, only grinned and farted. The lizard darted away. Several people laughed. This seemed to break the ice on this new situation. We decided to have a meeting, now that everyone except the injured man who had expired during the night and was now officially dead, was up.

A big, powerful-looking balding fellow with a scar on his chin took the lead.

‘There’s little point in staying put. There’s no food. No water. No shelter. We also need to find something to cut us out of these chains.’ The man raised his shackled hand for everyone to see. ‘It’s best that we leave now. Who’s with me?’

It seemed everyone was ‘cause everyone was nodding.

‘Right,’ said the leader, rising to his feet. ‘Let’s not waste anymore time.’

He stood up, ready to leave.

‘Wait a minute, wait just an effin’ minute!’ cried the inmate shackled to the dead man. ‘What am I gonna do? I can’t drag a dead body with me. I need help.’ He looked desperate, crouching there by the dead man, jerking his wrist to show everyone how he couldn’t move.

I had to admit this guy was in a fix. He was only little, barely five foot three or four and the dead man was close to six foot and though he was skinny, a dead weight is a dead weight. There was no way the little guy could move along with the dead body. And he knew it. He was sitting there close to tears. You could just see how scared he was that we’d leave him here, in the middle of nowhere, to die.

The leader spoke up. ‘Anybody willing to help?’ He was looking at each man as if he were probing into their souls and you could just tell who had one and who missed out. When it came to me, I decided I would help drag the body no matter what happened. I reasoned that as we were all in this precarious position together, we’d better stick together. I thought it would increase our chances of survival. It appeared most people shared my opinion. Already people were nodding; a couple of big guys stepped up and one of them took hold of the dead man’s free hand. The little fellow stood up and we all formed a line as we’d been conditioned to do from all our years spent in prison, and stood there waiting for instructions as nobody knew which direction to take. Just as someone suggested we try for the hills we could see rising in the distance, a sound was heard.