...I finally did it, after seventeen years of incarceration I was let go, jail life was no longer for me. Its been so long in those dark, cold dungeon sewer prisons for me to even remember why I was there in the first place. Even though I do remember, my heart is too weak to pursue it now, the establishment is not what it used to be, the regime before is now decimated, and the struggling republic now stands, they are why I am out of jail, but I have no qualms anymore, it doesn't matter who let me out or when, I am still not man enough to face any of it. I have been weakened, although I would hope my mind has stayed clear and sharp throughout this ordeal and able to allow me to function again out in the real world.

The city streets are now lined with lights and shapes of my imagination. But something is troubling me, off in the distance there is a sign that catches my attention. I am clearly several hundred feet down the red brick road. The brown underneath my feet looks like dirt, but the bricks in between suffocate the dirt around it allowing my foot to walk smoothly as I traipse lightly hoping not to disturb anything crawling underneath the bricks. I have no destination. I am supposed to meet with an old friends eldest son who goes to the local city university, in my youth I despised university "boys" as we called them, they were always lower than us, they did not know what it was like to work at eh age of fifteen in a factory for fourteen hours a day sometimes and still have time for elementary education. They had their fun, I know they did, I can see it in the way they walk, the gentleman and ladies that drape themselves over them. Times do not change, despite the better education out there, I grew up in a time that did not have such luxuries, but I guess albeit for the better. I somehow knew that I would be out of that horrible place sooner than most. It definitely makes you tougher, my father did not have to show me the ropes when it came to life. I worked the mills and factories until my unlawful arrest and punishment, and for what? Under the government's eyes I was just another drone, my words could not incite anything, not even a conversation back in the day. I thought I was a genius, but no one wanted to hear what I had to say except for, 'yes' and 'I'm on it' and 'see ya tomorrow'. No explanation, no further inquiry into something made better by a fellow co-worker, nothing.

Unfortunately, I seem to have lost a little bit of the language when I was 'away' because I look at this sign less than a few feet in front of me and have trouble reading some of the words. I am definitely in Moscow, I know the language since I grew up speaking it, but it changes, other people's influence on the language hurts my throat to read sometimes. These words I can barely make out, they look familiar but slightly altered, it is amazing that I am trying to figure this out. People walk past me not knowing who I am and slighting me my true self, acknowledging me as a poor beggar because of my out of style clothes and confused demeanor. If I was walking this street twenty years ago I would have looked like one of those university 'boys', all bundled up in the furriest coat, with a stylish hair and short trimmed beard. Apparently the jailers hadn't realized the change in times either, since they gave me this look. I etch out a smile from my lips, it feels foreign to me but I'm sure I have been doing it for awhile now since the only facial expression I have been doing for about one hundred yards is a dumbfounded one, there is a smile hidden somewhere in an expression such as that.