Published December 19, 2015
They think that they can keep me locked up behind these bars? Who do they think that they are? Don't they know that someone like me can't be contained by such a flimsy prison? Of course, they have already thought of the obvious directions. Metal grating blocks my path out from below and the bars are too strong for me to break through. The only direction I have left to go is up.
The lack of any intelligent guards will make this escape easy. But it isn't the guards I need to worry about as much as the drop on the other side of the fence. Just a straight drop to the bottom. I have heard of a lot of people surviving the fall if you do it right. The prisoner in isolation has done it hundreds of times, but they keep catching him. That is the only drawback. Every time we escape we just end up right back where we started.
The lights are out. Good. Time for my escape. I throw the blanket off of me and get my cellmate. He's not much of a talker, but he is helpful. Together we climb the walls and stare down the drop in front of us. I hear him give an audible gulp at the fall in front of us. We begin climbing down the wall of the cliff and I hear my cellmate loose his grip and plummet to the ground below. Even now he doesn't make a sound. When I reach him, I smile when I see that he isn't hurt. It would seem that the ground is soft enough that a drop wouldn't hurt.
We make our way through the dark yet familiar terrain and happen upon those that had imprisoned us. There they slept, without a care, and there I was, ready to make my move. I slowly made my way onto their bed and pulled back the covers a smile spread across my face.
“What are we gonna do with him?” the father said watching his young son sleep with his thumb in his mouth and his teddy bear tucked under one arm.
“I don't know,” the mother replied. “Every night he climbs out of that crib to sleep with us. I know that we're trying to get him to sleep alone, but we're gonna miss this when he gets older. Let's let him stay with us, just for a little longer.” The father shook his head as he chuckled and rolled over to get some more sleep.
I knew I'd break them one of these days, the boy thought as he held the bear closer to him.
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138,055 Literary Works • 672,071 Reviews
This one's very similar to that other one! Must have come from the same inspiration
I liked the other one better, if we're comparing the two. This one seems like it's doing a lot more... stretching. Like, with the reveal for the other one, it all made sense. For this one, it's a lot more nebulous, and I feel the metaphors don't hold up as well. I think it might be neat to include more "real life" clues in the thought process early on. For instance, he thinks about lacking intelligent guards, which fits with the "escaping prisoner" half but doesn't have a great obvious real life counterpart. I figure the cellmate is a stuffed animal, but they wouldn't be able to climb and lose their footing.
Another part that was a little awkward was the transition to the parents' comments. It seemed overly abrupt, rather than a smooth shift into "real life." In the other story, I thought the transition was just the right pace. Here, it's kind of like "prisoner-prisoner-prisoner-BOOM-PARENTS." I'd like to be eased into it for maybe another sentence or even two.
At first, I thought it was about a convict escaping and planning to kill his captors or something. I also kind of thought it was weird that the prison was so easy to escape, but now I know it was just a crib, so it makes sense. Him being a little kid was a nice plot twist, too. All in all, I thought it was pretty good.
Though, the transition from the kid's point of view to the parents was kinda confusing. Maybe next time put asterisks or something. Maybe it's just me...
Oh, wow. At first, I thought this was about a criminal who escaped prison and was going to get revenge on his captors. Instead, it was about a little boy. I'm still laughing as I type this review. I'm slightly confused of how this kid has the mind of of a criminal mastermind, but I'll let it slip and just except it for what it is. I love how the boy describes his crib as a prison because cribs are kind of like baby jail to me. This is a funny, cute short story that I think is absolutely brilliant. It gives us a cute character that is on the quest to escape his crib like it was some sort of prison and sleep in his parent's bed. Thank you for writing this. I hope you continue writing and improve as you write more.
This story just made my day.
When I started reading this i thought it was story about prison escape (real prison), and I thougt it was stupid. What kind of prison doesn't have guards or roof, but when I got to the end I saw how brilliant it really is. Especially that part with his sibling.
Only thing I don't understand is the metal crib. I thought the all cribs are made of wood.
This was so smart I loved it!
I thought that it was going to be like an escape from alcatraz sort of story and then the twist at the end completely surprised me, but has me grinning at my laptop like an idiot.
You're an absoloute genius!
Only one little part of this has me slightly confused. Who is the prisoner in isolation? Is there another child? Was it another toy? I don't know and I think that it actually works for this.
I just loved it all.
The other prisoner in isolation is an older sibling in a different room. It was the only way I could think to express this thought without giving away the ending of the story. I thought it was clever but I knew that it wouldn't be seen at the same time.
Yeah I barely noticed it until the second time reading it and was like omg! It was awesome! I loved it!
This was a wonderfully sweet story
I loved how you described the child escaping from the crib like a prison break. It's extremely cute to read the second time around (I imagined this cute little guy holding his teddy bear and giving him a salute as he jumped out of his crib.)
Hats off to the element of surprise we are met with at the end. This was a really creative way to express the feelings a child forced to sleep alone.
This is a story that I think, everybody will be able to relate to. I certainly was able to and was embarrassingly reminded of the fact that I still fear sleeping alone sometimes.
My favorite line was: "Every time we escape we just end up right back where we started."
I think this highlights as ugly truth we learn at a very young age. There will always be times when we will have to give stuff up and start from scratch. But we must never stop trying.
It's a beautiful short story. I loved the idea and your descriptions of the baby's feelings as a prisoner. I could read this over and over.
Thank you, XxxTheSwordsmanxx for your wonderful piece of art. I had a great time reading it