The Butterfly Effect

Like sand through an hourglass go the days of our....

No, that's not it.

I was trying to come up with a good "cause and effect" analogy and I got lost. Wheee! There goes my brain again, Martha! See if you can catch it and bring it back.

There was a fight out on the yard the other day. Word is that there was only two guys fighting... one white and one black. They claim it wasn't a racial thing, that was just a coincidence. They were cellies and they weren't getting along and things got out of hand.

Funny thing is, there are seven people locked up over this two man fight. After they locked up the fighters, they locked up two more guys who they thought might be in on it. Under Investigation. Ah, yes. We're going to have them for awhile.

Then the next day two more guys jumped on one guy because he didn't help one of the guys who was fighting. So they locked up those two for assault and the third one under Admin P.C. And I heard that they might be locking some more people up for that first fight.

And the funny thing is, nobody really saw that first fight. They all saw what I saw. There was something going on out on the yard and I saw dust flying and a crowd gathered. From where I stood it looked just like a football game. It was right there where they play football. All of the sudden, everyone started to disperse. And they scattered in all directions. I thought to myself: "Uh-oh..... something just happened there..." I was just about to get on the radio and call the yard dogs when someone else up the row did just that. They went out to investigate and found some guy who had just gotten his clock cleaned. A little while later they found a guy with busted up knuckles and knew they had their man.

Obviously I don't have all the information. I leave that kind of thing to the yard dogs and the big hats up in central. Inmates in general lie with such ease that telling the truth would cause them considerable effort. I usually can't tell the difference. That's why I stay in Adseg.

All of these people locked up for a fight that nobody really saw. Why do we make this so hard on ourselves? Should we really care?

Yes, I suppose we should. If nothing else, but to keep the statistics down.

I wonder how many more there will be when I get back to work.