Prison During COVID: Part Three
When COVID lockdown inside prison stretched from weeks into months, the outside world stopped feeling real. Prison became everything—the walls, the noise, the smell. The hunger, mold, and leaking ceilings were all normal. Every day I felt heavier. What really got to me was being forgotten.
I did not worry about other inmates—I had a reputation—everybody knew Bigzz, the man with the tobacco and other things. People knew better than to test me. When rules stopped meaning anything, things turned unpredictable.
Everybody knew what went on. Corruption stood right in front of everybody. Guards watched it happen and did nothing. Contraband came in. Phones came in. Drugs came in. Everybody knew but nobody stopped it. Rules only mattered when they wanted them to.
Violence stayed normal. Fights broke out over cigarettes, debts, or nothing at all. One day a guy owed me money. When I asked for it, he snapped. He shoved my wheelchair back, flipped the table, and smashed my head open. Blood was everywhere. The guards took their time coming in, like it was just another day.
Lockdown messed with our heads. At night, guys talked through the walls. I could hear plans and threats. People continued to lose it. Most of the time, it was smarter to stay quiet and watch.
Pain followed me every day. My knees hurt. My back hurt from kitchen work. My teeth kept killing me. Sleep barely came. I could never fully relax.
Seeing all of that changed something in me. I was watching people throw their lives away, watching guards sell their power, watching the system rot from the inside. The anger persisted, but I stopped running the game.
I could not change prison. I could not make the guards do right. I could not make people care. The only thing I could change was me.
I kept to myself more. I watched more. I talked less. The most dangerous thing in prison not other people. It is your own mind.
By then, something bigger felt closer. Lockdown was not the end. Tension was building. People were breaking. The system was about to show its real face.
And Bigzz right in the middle of it.