Carl The Shooter Jones could hardly sleep for the excitement and relief. He no longer heard most of the night time noises of the others in his block. After 23 years his brain blanked out the moans and groans, swearing, crying, ranting and raving. Tomorrow, the 21st, he was finally due for release. At the age of 44 he would be free. Free to walk wherever he wished, see whoever he wanted and he was determined to go straight. He knew the world was a very different place to the one he left when he was incarcerated at 21 for robbing an off-licence and shooting dead the old woman behind the counter because she wouldn't give him the contents of the till. He hadn't even known the gun was loaded. Jimmy the Brick had thrown it to him when they rushed out of the van and he stupidly assumed it was just to frighten people. The judge and jury didn't believe him.
And if he hadn't kept kicking off against the system in the early years in his first prison, resulting in years being added to his sentence, he would have been out years ago.
But tomorrow his old mum, although at 61 she claimed she wasn't old, had a bed ready and had saved some money so he could catch up on the fun he'd missed. Good old Mum. She wasn't very bright, never quite grasping what was happening around her but she'd come to visit every month, rain or shine. He knew he had aged her - her only child banged up. Fair broke her heart. His dad was long gone. Not dead but had buggered off with Aunty Kath, his mum's sister and no one had heard of them since. That was a few months after Carl had been sent down. Poor Mum.
Carl managed to get a few hours shut-eye and was up and ready early, bag packed with his few measly possessions before breakfast.
That night, after a tinned Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie, mashed potatoes, chips and gravy, he sat down with Mum to watch TV. Some bloke with unruly blonde hair was going on about some flu-type disease and washing your hands to save the NHS. His mum wanted to watch it but he hadn't put up with bigger bully boys' choices in the TV room in their nick and he wasn't going to watch this crap, so he found a great Western to watch.
The sun shone the next day and despite the March winds he sauntered around the shopping mall, bought an iPhone and dropped into Tesco on his way home for some fags and some decent nosh for his mum to cook. Blimey, he knew the population had increased while he was inside but this was just crazy, people pushing and shoving and grabbing pasta and loo rolls like there was no tomorrow. He tried to jump the queue at the tills but the venom sent his way had him scurrying to the back of the queue. It was more friendly in prison, and that was saying something.
Mum cooked his steak, three fried eggs and chips and they watched another film.
Stretching his legs the next day, he went for a walk around the park, his old childhood haunt. It was almost the same, apart for the child's playground having poncy swings and a rope climbing frame. No see-saw or roundabout. There was absolutely no one about. No kids on the swings, no people and he realised there were no cars or lorries. All he could hear was birdsong. He hadn't heard birds singing for 23 years. Weird. What day was it? Wednesday 23rd March. Surely not a Bank holiday? His mum never said. He wandered to the local shops but all but a corner shop were closed. A police car was cruising towards him. He'd done nothing wrong but by instinct he ran down an alley and burst out the other end into his road, dismayed to see the police car coming towards him again round the corner. Before he could disappear again they were out of the car and onto him. The next few hours were amongst the most confusing of his life back at the station. Words were thrown at him - Corona, hand gel, lockdown, NHS. It went on and on. The police kept asking him why he'd run. What had he done? His mum came and said because they hadn't watched the news they weren't aware of a lockdown over the whole of the UK. The duty solicitor persuaded the police to let him go as really they had nothing to charge him with, and he went home with his mum, and had to stay there, inside, apart for fighting for loo rolls at Tesco, for months.
Such was Freedom…
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