On the first such day Samokh did not fall asleep, and spent the whole next day in endless efforts to stay awake, pecking his nose at every minute. From time to time the warden looked into the cell and tapped the bars with his baton, on the one hand insinuating that he could see everything, and if you covered your eyes a little longer than the blinking time, he would immediately report a violation – a prisoner in the SHIZO was sleeping at the wrong time. On the other hand, such attention gave Samokh some confidence – he continued to realize that the whole damn structure of the prison administration was probably designed around him to get something out of him. That realization kept him from extinguishing his sense of self-importance to those around him-so necessary when there were no rights to anything.
This one, too, he fell asleep. There was no strength for anything, and even the shouts from the cell opposite eventually merged into such a background that it ceased to disturb him. He dreamt this time of his drill of unspoken resource and of Rambanhr, who is at the head of it. They had beaten Guzokh to a pulp to begin with, then they had taken out some chums from the BSS and shot them, then they had brought in Ananhr herself and started mocking her, calling her an upstart and a whore working her sweet spot. It was impossible to see her reaction or even her face properly in the dream. At those screams the dream ended, Samoh woke up and heard that they were screams from the cell across the hall. And it was so easy to feel the presence of the Church's combat unit near him…
A day later, the punishment days in the SHIZO were over, and Samokh was taken back to his regular cell, where there was a broken toilet bowl with shit in it and, of course, a swarm of flies over it. This day he was not supposed to leave the cell except for the evening formation and rotation, and if it were not for the constant companion from the cell opposite, who had also been released from the isolation cell and brought back. Apparently, he was treated the same way as the holy bucket in the SHIZO – he could not be touched, changed, paid attention to by the warders, and in general the only thing that could be done with him was to move him from one place to another, and in strict accordance with the location of the Metropolitan. And if the bucket was ordinary for obvious reasons, this unicum was undoubtedly dug out of some other prison and placed in this one, so that a famous person would not be bored.
At the evening inspection, where Samokh, believing that it was not necessary to arouse another hatred of him by unbuttoned buttons, decided to be a little patient and put everything in visible order before the cameras were opened. Of course, he looked like a clown in clothes several sizes smaller than his own. And in spite of the fact that there were no remarks to him during the inspection, fifteen minutes after the inspection, several prison officers broke into the cell in an urgent order, who recorded another malicious systematic violation in the uniform, which entailed, of course, a new transfer to the SHIZO. The second in a row.
Nothing had even had time to change, including, of course, the bucket of slop, which stood in the same place as before. There was no doubt about who would be brought to the chambers opposite in a few minutes. And moreover, if it had not happened, Samoh would have thought that something even more terrible was being prepared. So when the cutthroat appeared, it already calmed him down in a way.
This night I didn't even sleep that badly, though I didn't dream about anything. There was no strength at all, as before, so the process of sleeping was equal in an instant – I closed my eyes and opened them almost immediately. The warden tapped on the bars with his key, a traditional way of getting up in the morning for the isolation ward.
And it was somewhat surprising that Samokh had not been taken to any interrogation or other investigative measures. He was being held here simply to bring him to a certain condition, and, assuming that it had not yet been reached, was waiting for his time.
The second visit to the SHIZO was not so long – only one day. And the Metropolitan was taken back. But this time not to his cell, but to a double cell, where at first there was no one. In addition, the cell had a heavy steel door with a window that opened to serve food. The toilet worked, too, and it seemed that these conditions were much better than before. Samoh even thought that they had simply had enough of bullying him, and finally gave him a break, so that he could redouble his strength in the new stage. But he was wrong.
Half an hour later, a prisoner was placed with him, who was not only sick, but was radiating bacilli and germs. He went straight to his bunk, even in front of the warder, who did not prevent him from doing so, even though he was only allowed to sit during the day. In a room of two by three meters it was unreal not to be infected by such a neighbor, and already by evening Samokh felt how from inside he began to feel fever, and darkness appeared in his eyes, and everything dimmed.
Close to bedtime, the patient was taken from his cell with a loud notification that he needed hospitalization due to a corona virus – the same one that periodically appeared in one corner of the
Empire or another. In general, the story of the disease seemed to be over, but periodically new outbreaks appeared, which were quickly localized, preventing the spread. And there was no doubt that this patient had been brought by the S.S.C. from a fresh region, where a new strain of the virus had formed.
Samoh began to vomit, and considering that he had eaten practically nothing, nothing came out. Even before lights out, he collapsed on his bunk and fell asleep half-lying. Then in the morning, the inspection burst in on him after his official rise. They had decided to arrange it not at six-thirty in the morning, but an hour and a half earlier, and the guard went around banging on the cell doors with a key, waking up the prisoners. All the doors except Samoh's cell, who didn't wake up. The inspection recorded a new and vicious demonstrative violation of the order of the pre-trial detention center – it was necessary to continue pretending to sleep after the official wake-up, when the warden woke up everyone personally, and when it made no sense, because anyway they would wake up by force not immediately, but in five minutes. It was impossible to think of anything else but the SHIZO, and the Metropolitan went there again. This time he was already sick.
Of course, no one was going to send him to any hospital as the one who had infected him. They said that he would only infect the recovering plagues there. He would only violate all their loyal and understandably written norms, and here he would also cause physical harm to the people around him. Later Samokh learns that the sick man who spent a few hours in the cell with him, lying on his bunk, was convicted of murdering his sister and her friend at their home during a week- long binge – he broke into his sister's house demanding an explanation, and then stuck a knife to her throat and then strangled her friend. For him, the wardens considered it more necessary to take care of his health by hospitalization.
The third visit to the SHIZO differed from the previous two except for the presence of fever in his body and constantly cloudy consciousness. Samokh regularly puked his nose while sitting on his bunk, and his surroundings in the form of his eternal companion yelling and the warden occasionally banging his key on the bars had merged into a single entity that was purposefully trying to tear his mind away from him. Eventually, sometime toward evening, someone tapped him with a baton – first on the shoulder, then on the ribs. Then in the ribs again.
