His crutches racked against the beds in the infirmary as he moved around trying to adjust to the new way he had to walk. The pain was still there and the balancing of his armpits on top of the crutches was just a complex ordeal to someone like him who had never found himself in such a predicament. There were a lot of inmates lying on beds in the long ward, with curtain partitions as usual. Some were still nursing injuries from the prison riot that had happened five weeks ago, two weeks before he came. Two inmates died that day, with one prison officer barely escaping with his life. That's what he had been told. His eyes registered inmates with missing legs and arms and some still had bandages on their heads and chest. It seemed that the riot had been pretty deadly and costly. He was just glad he had stepped into these walls when everything had cooled down and the security was tight, all though it wasn't tight enough to protect him from what had befallen him yesterday.
He finally reached his bed after a while, having come from lunch from a designated room where sick patients could help themselves to a delicacy. From the way he was experiencing his pain, he already knew from the get-go that putting down the food in his stomach would be much of a hustle. There was this time during his lunch that he decided he didn't want to continue eating, and it took the warnings and scares from the prison officers monitoring the small hall that finally got him back to his plate. The food designated for the infirmary patients was far much better. When he remembered that he had gotten this opportunity to eat such a sample of nice meal found in a hell hole of a prison that he was in, and who had cooked it first, he couldn't find the wits to thank those annoying and bullying inmates. He kept his hate soliloquy.
His eye stared at the ceiling above him when he finally rested his back on the bed with the help of the nurses. The other one was still covered in a fresh bandage. The pain was still there, though it was dying out minute by minute. He remembered how his face looked when he had gone to the washrooms earlier on. The black eye was ripe and had a bulge. It seemed it was going to take months to heal if not years. His eye constantly shifted to the wall clock in front of him by and his heart almost skipped a bit. 2:03 pm. The day was speeding up and the visiting hours were almost ending. They were closed at 4:00 pm. He still couldn't quite believe that his parents had not yet arrived, despite landing in the State of Arizona yesterday. His anticipation grew to worry when a lot of time had passed and there were no signs of them. On one hand, he was anxious enough to see them, while on the other end he was scared if they'd found him with all the scars that he bared. If there was one thing he never liked to do was put his parents in a valley of too much worry.
"Yo, how you doing." A man spoke up. Ethan opened his eye to see Josiah standing by his bedside. He closed his eye immediately.
"Hey, I'm talking to you." He heard Josiah's heavy voice. He seemed like he was giving out a command, even when he tried to sound calm. Josiah was this well-built old man. Older than his own father from what he could render by his looks. A squeeze to Ethan's injured eye made him open his eyes and looked at the fella above him.
"What do you want Josiah?" Ethan groaned in pain.
"Had some wound from the kitchen. Hot oil you see? So I had to come and see the nurses so that they attend to the small injury." Josiah said as he turned his left arm around looking at the sheath dressing it had been covered with.
"I don't see... how that's connected to me." Ethan found the effort and courage to speak again.
"Well, you know... I remembered there was some guy over here that was injured yesterday in the kitchen. He had a pretty rough accident." Josiah gritted his teeth mockingly. "I heard that he broke his leg and injured his eye so bad. Tsk, tsk, tsk." He shook his head, eyes closed.
"I'm fine. Thanks for asking." Ethan told him, rolling his one eye. Josiah couldn't help but laugh at him, mockingly of course.
"Look kid, we had no intentions of hurting you." Josiah wheezed out some difficult breaths. "You insisted on staying so we had to take care of you." Ethan kept quiet, as his one eye gazed at the man strangely. "From the way things are, I can conclude that you decided to keep your mouth shut." Josiah patted Ethan's shoulder. "No officers have been at me or my crew, so I know that you know how to listen and obey instructions." He smiled.
"It was just a kitchen man! You really had to beat me so that you could achieve what?" Ethan blurted at him, his voice so heavy and drenched in hurt and anguish.
"It's just a kitchen. And look where you are now, because of the 'just a kitchen.'" Josiah mumbled flicking his eyebrows at the kid below him who had still rested himself on the bed, chest still up. "Look kid, you continue keeping that small mouth of yours shut and I promise you, life here will be good for the both of us."
"Just go away..." Ethan sighed.
"Oh, I am going away," Josiah grunted, "But before I go, I have to tell you something. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna heal pretty soon and will be back in action. I however do not want to see you in that kitchen when you are fully healed. Next time I swear I will kill you. So don't test me, you'll end up dead... you hear me? Find somewhere else to shove your horny ass into."
"I have no interest in the kitchen whatsoever, Josiah." Ethan talked back rudely, affording a smile in the end. "You guys just go cook yourselves. I don't care." He shrugged as his latter chuckled.
"Rest well Purcell." Josiah finished and walked out of the room, staggering in a manner of sort.
Ethan turned back to the wall clock by his front. It seemed like he had teleported in time. It had passed to his unexpected surprise. 2:30 pm. "Where the hell are they?" He asked himself unable to calm his way down. He could feel something had gone wrong. No matter how angry his parents had been at him over the years, they would still do what he told them. Being the only son around had good perks of its own. He was obedient to them and caring and he was loved and spoiled in the process. They wouldn't miss his birthday visit if they had made a promise to him. Things however were looking different today. He couldn't help but fidget under the sheets he was resting himself on. An announcement would echo through the prison yard and cell blocks for him to be viable for the visit if his parents had come. But it seemed like it was never going to happen.