The transport to „Big Eye”, one of the largest and most modern high safety prisons in the entire administrative sector „Central Europe“, did not last for a long time, but it seemed to go on forever for Frank. Mentally absent, like hit by an arrow full of narcotic poison, he stared vacantly into space.
The police officers ignored him and talked most of the time about a new TV show, called „The Little Whisperer“, where children could win prices if they uncovered “subversive behavior” among their relatives or neighbors.
Actually, the young man had planned to address the police officers, to tell them that everything was just a judicial error, but he did not do it. And they did not seem to have any interest to make some small talk with him.
After a while, the outlines of an enormous prison complex appeared on the horizon. This was „Big Eye“. Frank had once seen a report on television about this institute, where only happy and healed „patients” (this was the official designation) were shown to the people. Now he was on the way there.
The building was surrounded by high concrete walls, which were provided with barbed wire and watchtowers. It had several floors and on an outside wall, the prisoner recognized the strange symbol, he had already seen before on the label of his coffee powder glass.
A pyramid with an eye on its top. The sign looked somehow differently than the escutcheon of the “Globe Food” chain of stores, but nevertheless, the similarity was clear. „Big Eye” - the great eye. Nobody could escape from its view!”, thought Frank, driven by fear. He should be right.
The patient finally left the transporter and the officers did not have to become rough this time. He followed them, was silent and accepted all their instructions like being on drugs. Dress order, behavioral code, sleeping time. He hardly heard on all the talk, musing about the rising nightmare around him.
If he listened or not, was quite immaterial. He should remain here for five long years, according to an official court decision, and had therefore time enough to internalize the routine of the day to the smallest detail. After Frank had undressed, he received a white shirt and white trousers, just as white trainers.
„You will get a new set every week!“, explained one of the attendants. „Follow me now, citizen 1-564398B-278843! From now on, you are called “Patient 111-F-47” in this institute! Do you understand this?“ Frank answered with a nod and followed the man.
„Now go with the execution officials, they will bring you to your cell in block F. Don`t make problems!”
The new prisoner was lead many stairways up to one of the highest floors of the prison complex. Internally broken, he stared at the ground, but even in his lethargic state of shock, he noticed that nothing could be heard from the other prisoners. No discussions, no crying or any other sound. It was oppressing. The long corridors of „Big Eye“ were uncanny quiet and all the numbered cell doors were made of extremely thick steel. The cell with the number 47, in block F, was provided for Frank. He tried to explain himself, that everything was nothing but a nightmare. It could not be real and soon he would wake up, in order to enjoy the stench from his stairway at first. He would run out of his apartment and loudly yell over the corridor: „Nice, that you are here, stench!“
Yes, he would do it, because this prison could only be a cruel vision in the depths of his mind, and in the next moment this scenario would just split like an unpleasant thought. But it was not like that.
„111-F-47! Here we are! This is your cell!“, one of the execution officials suddenly said. The sturdy man with the brown mustachio and the sharp-edged cheek bone entered an access code and the cell door opened.
„In there, 111-F-47!”, he grunted.
In this second, clarity returned to Frank`s mind again. The young man abruptly realized, that he would spend the next five years in this room. This let his sanity splinter like glass. He broke down and lost consciousness.
After an indefinite time, Frank came round again. Waked up by a blazing neon light, which penetrated his lids. He was still dazed, felt sick and the glow stabbed in his skull like a sharp spear.
„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!”, said a voice somewhere in the room.
„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!”, it resonated again. Frank layed with his back on a light gray plank bed of pleather and his headache returned with a vengeance.
„Wake up, patient 111-F-47!” Again and again and again.
The head of the young man hurt, as if somebody had put it into a vice, he was hungry and felt tired and frail.
„Leave me alone!”, he begged and tried to turn away from the sharp light, but it was impossible.
„Patient 111-F-47! Listen!”, it resounded from the ceiling of the cell.
Frank sat down on the edge of the plank bed and held the hands over his eyes. „What do you want from me?”, he gasped.
„Welcome to your holo cell, patient 111-F-47! Don`t be scared! You are in a mental hospital and we want to help you!”, told the metallic woman`s voice from the loudspeaker.
„This new holo cell is a part of your therapy, patient 111-F-47! We use these mechanisms here in „Big Eye“, helping you to regain the path of the adapted citizen. In this holo cell, all outlines just blur; it is unlimited, like our “One World“, whose happy citizen you will be after your healing, patient 111-F-47!
Trust us and our newest therapy. Developed by philanthropists, in order to help people. This cell contains the freedom, because it does not know borders. It is your freedom to heal yourself, the freedom of your mind which will learn with our help!”
Frank Kohlhaas still held his hurting head. This light was intolerable and it should still last weeks, until he had got halfway accustomed to its sharp brightness. Finally, he examined his new home. The room had a size of perhaps hundred square meters, maybe it was a bit smaller. Frank could hardly see the outlines of the walls or the cell door, because of the bright, white light.
The glow was terrible and it penetrated his brain completely. Even if Frank screwed up his eyes, this unnatural brightness besieged his barricaded head persistently like an army. Frank`s headache became stronger. Then he just vomited on his plank bed and crept into a corner.
„Patient 111-F-47! Do you hear us? You are in a holo cell! Do you understand this? If so, then lift your hand!”, demanded the loudspeaker energetically.
The sick man signaled the fact that he had understood and still huddled in the corner. In the cell were no things, only the plank bed and a toilet at the opposite wall. Otherwise, here was only the biting light.
„You will get one hour of reeducation, twice a day!”, explained the unnatural voice from the upper corner of the room. „The first reeducation hour begins in 30 minutes, patient 111-F-47! Get ready!“
Frank was overtaxed with this situation and dug his face, still hiding in the corner, behind his knees. He tried to think about nothing and would have done everything to switch that light off. But this was not within his power. As nothing in „Big Eye” was within his power.
He was nothing but a white mouse here, a small laboratory rat in a cage, that had to endure everything the sadistic inventors of this so called „mental hospital” had invented. Shortly afterwards, the reeducation hour began, whereby the loudspeaker intensively explained 111-F-47 the reasons for his „therapy“ again. It said, that they wanted to make a „good human being“ of Frank. „A human being, which is human, by overcoming its humanity!”
The brainwash lasted a whole hour, while the light burned and hurt more and more. Occasionally, the prisoner lost orientation, because the sharp light was like a white nebula. Frank tried to fight the pain in his head, but he was at this cell`s mercy. Furthermore, he was in the hands of the cruel blaze and the metallically sounding talk of this steel computer woman, that tormented him.
„I can`t stand this insanity for two weeks!“, said Frank to himself and winced. „I want it to stop! Please, God!”, he whined.
But God didn`t hear him. The acoustic insulation of the holo cell was much too perfec
t, deep down in the prison complex „Big Eye“. If Frank had a God here, then it was him or her or it, the thing behind the loudspeaker. At night, at 22.00 o'clock, the sharp light was switched off. The whole room suddenly became dark then. So pitch-dark that even the smallest source of light did not remain. Frank couldn`t see the hand before his eyes anymore and in his head, the aftereffects of the blinding blaze jumped around as manifold colors. There was only extreme brightness or extreme darkness in this cell. Whoever had developed the concept of this instrument of torture, knew exactly, that this cruel form of conditioning could transform even the unruliest man to a willing slave, within only a short time. And so the first days in „Big Eye” slowly passed, leaving countless deep scars in the mind of the young man. But there was no escape. No possibility to flee, no rescue by God. Only the devil seemed to be interested in „Big Eye“ - probably he had even designed this hell on earth.
„Stand tall, patient 111-F-47! Here in „Big Eye“ is no quarrel among the inmates, there are no rebellions and no annoyance - everyone remains for himself, during the entire term of imprisonment. You, 111-F-47, are one of the first ill human beings, who have the luck, to receive a therapy in a holo cell. We are happy for you, that the computer-assisted selective procedure has chosen you for this room.
Behave willingly, be flexible and learn to respect the rules of the system! Not every patient here has the luck, to be healed a holo cell. You are one of the prototypes. Support the developers of this new form of healing, by helping your therapy to success!”, it resounded through the room one morning.
On other days, patient 111-F-47 was explained, how important it was to believe everything the media told him. How necessary it was, to free human beings from their instincts, to format and reprogram their minds so that they could overcome all their natural instincts. Furthermore, how inevitable the sedation of human beings was, so that they could reach a state of happiness. How important consumption and maximization of profit were, for a functioning society.
In these long weeks of isolation, the strange artificial days and the black unnatural nights, it was Frank`s largest concern, not to go insane. The isolation, the boredom and, above all, the haunting light had soon transformed him into a pathetic creature. He often thought about his father and his sister, the only members of his family, who were still there. Frank`s mother had died three years ago, he had loved her very much and with her death he had lost not only his biological mother, but also his best friend, his closest reference person in this world. The time after her death had been hard. Now, nobody was left to talk to.
To his father, Rainer Kohlhaas, who lived in the eastern part of Berlin, Frank had had only irregular contact. Rarely, too rarely, he had visited him so far, if he was honest. But Rainer Kohlhaas was an unemotional, taciturn man, and each discussion with him was laborious.
Frank and Rainer had frequently argued in former times. Often the father had openly shown his displeasure about Frank`s path through life and had always upholded Frank`s sister Martina, as the positive example. His son had hated these permanent comparisons, but now, all this was no longer important.
From time to time he had telephoned with his older sister, the more successful one of the two children. Martina had become a teacher, had married and Frank had often envied her, because of her good payment. But one day, she had confessed to him, how fraught and exhaustive her job was. She just hated to work on her school.
She teached the subjects „Biology “and „English“ at a school complex in Wuppertal, in the sub-district Westfalen- Rheinland. Martina described the situation in German schools as more than intolerable, and Frank had the suspicion that she already drank and took tranquilizers. But she held on, for her husband and her son, the little Nico. However, citizen 1-564398B-278843 had seen his nephew only twice and had always been proud to be his uncle.
In these terrible days, he often thought about the rest of his family which probably didn`t know at all, that he was locked up here. Perhaps, they would only be surprised about the fact, that Frank didn`t answer the telephone since weeks.
Perhaps the police had even informed his family members -that he had become an offender and was a criminal now, and had to face his fair punishment in that prison. He just didn`t know, but he could imagine his father`s face, if he got that message.
„I have always said, that the boy wastes his life. Now my old sorrow has finally been confirmed!”, he had probably murmured. The prisoner didn`t try to think too much about these unpleasant things.
„What has happened to my apartment?”, he pondered. „I`m sure that they have already rented it to another person. This can be done fast if the rent can`t be deducted from the Scanchip anymore.“
In these days, Frank could only speak with himself and tried to handle the pain. But it did not change anything. He had served only one month in this room, but Frank already got the feeling that he had walked from one end of hell to the other.
It was not easy to persevere here. And the daily two reeducation hours finally became even the most interesting things, which happened on a day in the holo cell. After a while, Frank occasionally even looked forward to them.
Nevertheless, sometimes he tried to destroy the loudspeaker, which hung much too high, to tear it down. Then he became so angry that he kicked against the walls or bit in his underarm till it bled. Frank`s lonely fight against windmills continued for a while in such a way. Always unsuccessful and ever more closer to the loss of his good judgement. Sometimes he cried below the loudspeaker, begged for grace and forgiveness and promised to follow each rule and each regulation for all eternity. He swore, to believe everything, what they told him. But nobody ever answered.
When two months had passed, Frank broke out in tears ever more frequently or crawled under his light gray plank bed. He thought, that insanity had already found him and skid down into a state of permanent panic. Patient 111-F-47 didn`t trust his own judgement any longer and felt seperated from the rest of the world like by a great ocean.
In the second month of his term of imprisonment, he made “insanity” to his companion. He invisaged him as another inmate, as a cellmate.
A very tall guy, gaunt, with completely pale skin and deep furrows in the face. Also dressed in the correct white cell clothes of „Big Eye”. However, if the “insanity” sat beside him on the plank bed, he unfortunately never answered. He just sneered at him, showing Kohlhaas his yellowish-brown teeth. But nevertheless, Frank told his spooky friend a lot of things.
Sometimes the patient also imagined, that „Mr. Madness”, as Frank called him after a while, snored in the complete darkness of the night, lying somewhere in the room. Then he crept over the ground and tried to find his strange cellmate, in order to tell to him that he might be silent. Frank thought about much confusing things and nobody could say, if the young men still knew, that it were confusing things. It was a nocturnal trip beyond the borders of human understanding, a mental journey through the darkest tunnels of his mind. And every morning, Kohlhaas was awaked by that bright, hellish light again.
„That`s the army of the light particles, which destroys my lids with their ramming supports, piece by piece, pouring into my head-fortress with loud screams - slaughtering everything without further warning. And this cruel horde massacres my helpless grey cells!“, said the young man, if he could hardly bear it.
Then he had phases, in which he searched his body on diseases for hours. He found malicious knots and parasites everywhere. His body seemed to be full of degenerated pimples and strange maladies under the skin, which filled his mind with sorrows.
At the end of the third month, he discovered some red points on the white wall behind the toilet, when he huddled on the ground, in order to protect himself against the aggressive light. Frank was sure that it were traces of blood, which had only provisionally been overcoated with white color by the prison`s staff.
Mr. Madness had no opinion about this, he just sat in the corner and beheld Frank sadly. Often
Kohlhaas remembered, whether it was actually possible, to smash his own head against the wall or the ceramic toilet bowl so hardly, that this torture was over. What would happen?
Would the attendants save him, just to let him rot here until doomsday? Another possibility was, to bite open his pulse veins. Unfortunately, there were no bedlinen or other things in this cell, which would have made a suicide possible.
But each time, when Frank had these thoughts, he finally lost the courage to do it. Moreover, Mr. Madness always looked worriedly at him in these situations, still sitting in his corner. The light disappeared, it was 22,00 o'clock.
Starting from the fourth month of his captivity in the holo cell, Frank Kohlhaas spent the most days with being just motionless for hours, lying on his belly - under the plank bed.
„May this damn light hit Mr. Madness! May he sit on the plank bed! I will stay here. Here, that blaze will never find me!”, he said to himself with a lunatic smile.
Meanwhile, Frank thought about his family more rarely. And what was the use anyhow? He was separated from the rest of the world. And his father, his sister or the little Nico, could not safe him from this horror.
And as the computer-controlled woman voice had already explained in one of the reeducation hours: „The connections to family and kinship are errors of nature, and all citizens of the New World Order must get along without them! They must be corrected by modern rules.
Interhuman relations harm the new order and obstruct the economic development. Humans must learn to overcome them. Having a family is not progressive, it restrains every advancement. Forget your family, because your new community is the community of the “One-World”. You are part of the whole, patient 111-F-47, and the whole is a part of you!“
His only entertainment in this confusing time was to examine the dust grains on the cell ground and Frank wondered how many interesting forms and colors he could find.
Sometimes it was really fascinaiting for him and so he hardly listened, if the gentle voice of reeducation from the loudspeaker explained to him, why the old order of the world was just wrong, and the new order was good without exception.
When the fifth month began, Frank suddenly became talkative. He talked with Mr. Madness about a lot of things and often his speeches lasted several hours. He invented lectures, which were similar to the instructions of the reeducation hours. Meanwhile, Frank planned to reeducate Mr. Madness, a very important personality who had already visited millions of people around the world.
Sometimes he preached the most important facts of each current reeducation hour, he recited them, yelled them and sometimes he tried to kick or beat Mr. Madness, if his pupil didn`t show enough interest. Although, he actually viewed this gentleman in the corner, who sometimes also sat on his plank bed, as his cell comrade and friend, he had occasionally to give some pain to him, so that he learned. But all his attemps to hit the imaginary man were unsuccessful. After a while, Frank had kicked a little hole in the white wall of the holo cell – but he had never hit Mr. Madness.
When another month had passed, Frank had given it up to convince Mr. Madness, to become also a good citizen of the new world state. Now he tried to memorize every single word of the reeducation hours and often he could completely repeat the first two or three minutes by heart.
He cried, sang and howled the slogans from the loudspeaker like a parrot. The necessity of the registration of earth`s population, the obligation of obeying, the autoregulation of economics, the inevitability of a society without sexes, nations and races, the necessary dissolution of all cultures and religions, the requirement of inhumanity as the basis of a new humanity.
His memory proved, although it was already owergrown by a mushroom of insanity, as amazingly good. Frank saw himself as a learner and with bloodshot eyes he cried, while the loudspeaker talked: „Jawohl! This is the only truth!”
Meanwhile half a year had passed and patient 111-F-47 had developed many possibilities of overcoming the hours and days. He had even set up an own daily plan in his mind:
- Meal
- Learn as much words from the reeducation hour as I can
- Explain them to Mr. Madness (however, only if he listened) - Investigate the fibers of the white wallpaper more exactly
- Finding new dust particles on the ground
- Lunch
- Arguing with Mr. Madness
Frank`s meal rations came through a hatch in the wall three times a day. The inventors of the holo cell had kindly made certain that he had never to leave this terrible room, not even for the intake of food.
Two months later, the monitoring cameras of „Big Eye“, which always kept every corner in this big prison complex in sight, including room 47 in block F, saw a broken man, lying like dead with face down on his plank bed.
Frank Kohlhaas, patient 111-F-47, seemed to have slipped into an endless lethargy. Meanwhile, he wished nothing more than the end of his shattered existence.
The cruel treatment had internally destroyed him, and even the irrational behavior and the emotional outbreaks, which had kept him alive for so long, were over.
Over eight months of holo cell had corroded his mind so strongly, that his body seemed to refuse its service any longer under such inhuman conditions.
The sharp, malicious light, which tormented him 14 hours a day, hand in hand with the impenetrable darkness of the artificial nights, had finally crushed Frank`s will to live. The holo cell 47 in block F, this hell chamber without windows, with only a plank bed, a toilet and a little hatch in the white wall, was ultimately the winner in this war against insanity. Not even Frank`s only friend, the mutely smiling Mr. Madness, had had the guts to stay here any longer - he had vanished.
On 21.03.2028, the light was switched off again at 22.00 o'clock in the evening by the computer-controlled system of „Big Eye”.
The unconscious Frank Kohlhaas, who layed somewhere in this cell, down on the ground, with his face in a puddle of saliva, was swallowed by the darkness again. He did no longer notice it.
The next day, the army of light particles started another great attack on Frank`s head. With loud crashing it surged against his lids like a battering ram and awoke the halfdead patient again. But Frank`s will was already destroyed and why should he be interested in another day of hundreds more in this holo cell. He hoped, with the still smoldering rest of his understanding, that he would meet death as soon as possible. Kohlhaas was sure, that he would praise the Grim Reaper like a redeemer, when he would finally come.
On 22.03.2028 at 9.45 o'clock in the morning, the electronic woman voice suddenly resounded through the brightly illuminated cell. Frank lay on the ground like a dying animal and hardly heard this anymore. The small part of his brain, which hadn`t been razed to the ground and hadn`t been brunt by the horde of light particles yet, was briefly surprised for a second about the fact that there was another announcement after the wake-up call. Then Frank`s mind switched off again. Nevertheless, this was unusual.
„Listen, patient 111-F-47! Your holo cell has been given to another patient by the computer-controlled administration of „Big Eye“. You will be brought to the mental hospital “World Peace” in Bonn, where your therapy will be continued for the next four years and four months. Please be unconcerned, your healing process will not be interrupted. A holo cell of the same type is available for you in “World Peace”!”
The young man hardly thought about the content of the announcement. They should freight him, whereto they ever wanted. He would hopefully soon be dead and free.
But up to the next morning, he still lived. Or better said: His heart refused stopping, although his owner really wished it - “from the heart”. He hadn`t moved at all, during the whole day and the following night, because he took his desire to die very seriously.
But the three execution officials, who opened his holo cell punctually at 8.00 o'clock and entered the room, didn`t understand this. They were the first human beings sinc
e over eight months, who visited Frank here - to bring him from A to B, from one hell chamber to the next.
„The guy still breathes, but he is totally down!“, said one of the three guards.
„Hey! Stand up, man! Don`t waste our time!“, remarked another and kicked Frank in the back.
„Hrrrr!”, hummed the prisoner.
„Shit, the guy is really broken! Uwe, look at this!“ The third enforcement officer was astonished. “Bring us some stimulants! We need some extra help in this case!”
One of the officials departed and came back with a cup of water and two red pills after a quarter of an hour.
„Hey! Hey, 111-F-47! Open your mouth!. Yes, good boy! And now, down with it!“, he muttered.
Frank swallowed the pills and was able to walk after a few minutes. He didn`t understand, what happened to him and hardly noticed, that he was on the way to leave the abhorrent holo cell behind him.
„Go! Get a grip, man! Just walk!. Yes, this is good. One foot before the other one! Forward!”, said the guard and supported Frank cynically.
Patient 111-F-47 had to be carried out of the prison building, more or less, because he was too weak to walk. After a while, the policemen simply pushed the young man forward.
„That the guy isn`t fit yet, after two pills of steroin!”, remarked the officer with surprise. „Hurry up! The driver of the transporter is waiting in hall B!”
The three man brought the picture of misery, which once had been called Frank Kohlhaas, with the help of steroin, a highly concentrated stimulant, and some beats against the head to the transport van.
Frank crept over the three stages of a metal stair and sank down on one of the seats. His hands were secured with handcuffs behind his back and he stared at the ground.
„Watch out for this guy! He is finished! Maybe he gonna vomit in our van! Ha, ha!”, said a guard to his colleagues.
„We will watch out for him! Don`t worry!”, answered one of the policemen with a grin.
Next to Frank were two other officers and a further prisoner in the back area of the transport van. The cops were armed with shotguns and tied Frank, who almost slipped on the ground, and also the other inmate, with an additional seat belt. Both men could only move their legs now.
The transport van started moving at 9.00 o'clock, and finally left the prison complex. Even if Frank had had the opportunity, to have a last look at the hated place of horror, which had brought him to his knees, he probably wouldn`t have done it. First of all, the back area of the transporter, secured by lattices, had no windows anyway, and secondly, patient 111-F-47 didn`t care, where he would find death. If it was in “Big Eye” or in “World Peace” or somewhere else, wasn`t important anymore. His only concern was, if it would go fast.
After they had driven one quarter of an hour and nobody had spoken a word, the prisoner, sitting diagonally opposite to Frank, hissed: „Hey! Pssst! I am Alf! Who are you?“
Frank ignored the question of the man. It didn`t interest him, who still sat there. He stared at the metallic ground of the van`s back area with blank look.
Suddenly one of the policemen said: „Bäumer, you crank! Stop that damn whispering! Contact among prisoners is against the regulations!“
„I thought, we are patients?“, answered the prisoner sardonically, giving Frank a nod.
Now the policeman reacted. He struck Bäumer in the face and grumbled: „Oh, I'm sorry, asshole! I didn`t want to be impolite.“
The prisoner swallowed some blood and saliva and looked at Frank with psychotic eyes. However, the young man was still mute and didn`t mention the small sign of defiantness, the other prisoner had shown.
“Alf Bäumer!”, he thought briefly, then his mind sank again into a blurred fog.
Alfred Bäumer, patient 578-H-21, was a tall man. He had a dark brown beard, broad shoulders and a tattoo at the neck. The few hasty looks, Frank had given to him, showed the picture of an aggressive man, who was about thirty years old. Above all, Alf`s bright blue eyes and the large scar in the right half of his face were noticeable.
How long the trip had already lasted, Kohlhaas could hardly say anymore. Perhaps a further quarter of an hour. Alfred seemed to have the things more clearly in sight. He hatefully stared at the police officers with his blue eyes, baring his teeth and looking at Frank from time to time. This man seemed to wait for something...
The Change