Counterfeit Captivity

Kirby Bresling had almost served his first year at Belew Correctional before he pieced together that he wasn't being held in a real prison. His first hint was that he hadn't received any visitors since he'd arrived, nor did any of his phone calls ever reach friends or family. The guards, wearing their mismatched uniforms - perhaps another clue that the prison wasn't official - would tell Kirby that nobody loved a convict and that he should just stop thinking about the outside world. The other 27 inmates at Belew seemed to have accepted this sad philosophy, though Kirby never stopped thinking that the outside world cared...and also that 28 total inmates was a shockingly low population for a prison.

Meals consisted of either name brand microwaveable dinners or takeout food from one of the neighboring town's many chain restaurants. On holidays, the prisoners were treated to home-cooked meals courtesy of the warden's wife, Erika Eleniak of Baywatch fame. However, Kirby detected a certain ingredient in everything they were served, regardless of the meal's origin. Mozzarella Geoff, a large inmate known for his love of stuffed crust pizza, told Kirby that the kitchen staff added elderberry to every food item so that specially-bred dogs could easily locate convicts if they tried to escape.

Escape. The word kept circling in Kirby's mind. The prison's many oddities, coupled with the fact that he hadn't committed a crime or faced any sort of trial, convinced Kirby that he needed to escape if he was ever going to breathe free air again. He asked around and was told to seek the help of Greater Than James, a medium-sized inmate known for his love of comparison symbols. Greater Than James told Kirby that he'd need to hide out for a few weeks in one of the many unused cell blocks, staying out of sight there until any search parties or "find 'em soirees" would pass. He'd also need to avoid any food laced with elderberry, since the dog kennel was right next to the shortest fence in the prison yard. If Kirby could pull this off, Greater Than James assured him, he'd get his real chance to leave Belew Correctional for good.

And, well, that's what Kirby did.

After the final search had come back empty-handed, the dogs' heads lowered in shameful defeat, Kirby waited until prisoner nap time and took off on foot. He crawled right past three guards who were playing poker with some of the we're-not-sleepy inmates. Avoiding the dog kennel completely (even though he'd heard that one of the females had just had puppies), Kirby scaled the second tallest fence surrounding the fake prison and he skipped off into the late evening. Unfortunately, skipping caused him to twist an ankle so he limped the rest of the way to town, making it to a bus stop just in time to catch a bus without having to wait another ten minutes for the next one. He took the bus all the way to the end of its line in north Cincinnati, where he stole a car and drove it to his home in nearby Columbus.

In the years that followed, Kirby anonymously stayed in touch with his friends still held in counterfeit captivity through social media and disguised personal visits. He would regale them with tales of his life in the free world, which they would pretend to be impressed to hear about. Kirby also became a fan of Baywatch re-runs, and had to resist the urge to send fan letters to the warden's wife. And even though it wasn't something he ever would have imagined that he'd do in freedom back in the days when he was still holed up at Belew Correctional, Kirby added elderberry to every meal that he ate for the rest of his life.