Arbeit macht frei: - Fredrick Töben

Chapter 31
MY MOMENT OF SHAME
Lila sent me a small calendar consisting only of the critical August–
November blocks. This enabled me to have a good overview of how long I
had to endure imprisonment. A first timer alone in a holding cell usually
counts the seconds, then the minutes, then the hours, then the days and
nights, then the weeks, the months and years.
For many who are not adjusted to being on their own it is a frightening
experience. Hence the now usual suicide watch, which can be interpreted
as isolation torture. No matter what the authorities do to prevent suicide,
detainees who cannot take it any more often manage to terminate their life,
and they will always be seen as victims of an oppressive system.
There is no calculation of time for lifers who have stabilised and accepted
their sentence, but just a reversal of thought without visiting those darker
thoughts of ending it all; only to get through each day at a time, with some
hope that 15 or 20 years will pass somehow.
In this regard my 3-month sentence was a slight pat on the wrists. I plodded
along at a steady pace, putting myself under pressure to get the painting
done within the 11 weeks. Often I was in bed resting by 5 p.m. and by the
8:30 p.m. lock-up-time I was already asleep. The reward was that I was
pleased that I did not maximise my $2 weekly television hire. There was
little on television that I liked but I did enjoy the new ‘Hey, Hey It’s
Saturday’ program with Darryl Sommers. Perhaps this was because I
thought back to my time at Channel 9 in 1965 when I was one of Professor
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