Day 5

• Trent Jones, Grade 7C
• Short Story
• 2011

Day 5 27/4/2009
This is the 5th grueling day of this hard labor. I shouldn’t even be in this state. All I was trying to do is help and warn China. I knew that the barbarians were coming. I got over to the other side of the wall but when I got back the stupid guard caught me and thought I was helping the barbarians plan an attack. It is annoying because people climb over The Great Wall of China all the time. I am the Rat in the Chinese zodiac. People say that the rat is lucky. For me it isn’t. When I got caught I had to see the commander. The commander’s name is Commander Peng. He announced “Liang Reng, because this is your first offense you get only 7 days of hard labor. If you do something again, the consequences will be big.” (I am a poor man so I could not afford a lawyer or someone who represents me so I just had to take the toll.) I even have to live in a cell.
This is a very crowded cell. It has about 3 people. They look like they are really tough. They have tattoos everywhere, piercing everywhere too and they all have either Mohawks or they are completely bald. I asked one of the guys how they got in here and they protested that they stole weapons and killed someone with them. They all had 5 years of hard labor. The cell is very bad. It has a hard concrete grey floor, a little window in the top of the cell with metal bars going across it too. They kept out most of the light. It did not have a toilet or a bed either. I just had to squat in the corner, it even has these metal bars and metal walls. It is so cold. It is like I killed someone but all I did was climb over The Great Wall of China.
The night I was sentenced I couldn’t sleep because there were no blankets or anything to sleep on either. I also couldn’t sleep because I was so scared of what I will have to do the next day. That night I thought about a myth that my dad had told me. It is the Legend of the White Snake. It has a tragic part when a person nearly dies but it gets better when everything ends happily ever after. Well at least there is only 2 days left. Although I don’t think I can last that long.