Crystal Eaters by Shane Jones

the tops of his toes in ten-yard clips. People watched him walking odd from shack to shack and they shook their heads, pitied his strangeness. He sprinted across a busy street of mining trucks pumping their breaks and screamedand laughed, the feeling of coming alive through pain and crystals, before collapsing against a store wall and shaking, his feet ballooning with liquid as the candle maker himself told him to hurry along while poking him with a stick.
    He opens the second letter on the bed. It’s from Brothers Feast. He’s received these letters before, a kind of fan mail from those following in the footsteps of The Sky Father Gang:
     
             1)    What’s a jailbreak in reverse look like?
             2)    Would you like to leave the prison?
    He grabs the white box from the closet and takes out the black crystal which is changing shape with use – in his palm it looks like two small intertwined pinecones. A passing guard who already appears maxed-out, eyes not looking like eyes, stops at his cell and stares. Pants picks off a crumb-edge that the guard takes. The guard smiles, places the crumb-edge under his tongue, and crab-walks away to the sound of ringing bells. Pants knows what’s going on because he’s seen it before: guards getting sky-high are messing with the alarms and jumping and laughing inside an office with bullet-proof glass. They are taking turns pressing their faces against the glass and blowing kisses until they pass out. The crab walking guard on his way back to the office is having too much fun, grinding his pelvis against the walls as he goes.
    Pants sits back on the bed. With his front teeth he shaves off a layer of black dust from a flat side. He catches the dust on the top of his pointer finger, raises it to his nose, inhales, poof .
    He writes back that a jailbreak in reverse would be criminals running into jail. Or no, a jailbreak in reverse would be criminals or people who belong in jail running into a jail and freeing everyone who doesn’t belong in jail and the criminals staying in the jail. He rips the paper with hand speed. He’s excited with the possibility of leaving as the thoughts, ideas, spin and tear atthe You could have done something banner. He draws a square with arrows running in and bubble-lines running out. The arrows are labeled Brothers Feast and the bubble-lines The Sky Father Gang.
    Answer to question two, this answer written with more control: Yes and I will help you . He’s heard the prison looks real pretty from the outside, and who knows how much time is left before the city moves in. Is it true the heat wave is only getting worse? From my window the sky looks faded from too much sun . Beneath this he writes Pretend to be inmates. One of you will play the role of a newbie transfer guard. Say it’s for a transfer to a holding tank called Willows Bay. I’ll leave with the others. Brothers Feast will remain inside the prison until they become legends in the village and then set free when the administration realizes what’s happened. They won’t, they can’t, keep the foolish innocent. If there’s a problem, just act insane. They never keep the crazies in here. If you can pull off breaking into the prison, you can later pull off breaking out of a psych ward. Just follow these guidelines…
    Pants McDonovan dances with black crystal inside him and the thought of leaving the prison. He closes his eyes and pumps his legs and sees himself running from the beach with Harvak at his side. The family stove floats in the ocean. I’m going to see you again. I’m going to leave and get a chance to start over . At the horizon the prison melts like stomped mud and a ring of light expands outward igniting the ocean in shark-fin flames. Harvak barks looking backward and leaps to the side from the following light. Mom stands in the front yard holding the cast iron pot rimmed in little green crystals. When Pants looks up, the sky is a mirror of all this,