The bomb had not gone off yet, but it would shortly.

Despite Hans’s best attempts he could not convince his jailors of this inevitability. His cellie had made that perfectly clear, would not shut up about the mayhem forthcoming, gore and devastation imminent, guaranteed and to be expected from the explosive device he had ingested, connected if his unwitting coconspirator understood correctly to some rudimentary timer, rigged to detonate any moment now, or immediately should anyone attempt to disable it.

There were no windows apparent, so Hans could not rightly guess how long he had been detained at this point. He’d drifted to sleep on one of his familiar park benches, and awoken quite disoriented in what he presumed to be a drunk tank, but upon closer examination not one he had any immediate recollection of acquaintance with, and he’d known a few. He had presumed all in their general jurisdiction, until now. Yet these rickety tin walls, the almost antiquated rusted bars, white porcelain commodes... There was something patchwork and almost anachronistic about the fusion of utilitarian metallic and its dilapidated ornamentation, which confused and threw him, and the bad company was only making matters worse.

“Soon, you just wait!” the sticky loon on their surplus army bunk beneath him hissed in a malicious whisper, again began describing the chemical reactions the balloon of C4 in his belly would undergo once triggered, the projected blast radius, the structural damage the fire and crushing debris should inflict, how coroner’s would be lucky to salvage a few chunks of bone, scraps of hair and scalp between the two of their combined remains. “The rest... Incinerated!”  He cackled gleefully, which set Hans off all over again.

“Halp!” He cried at the top of his lungs. “You gotta get me outta here, I’m beggin’ ya! This mook is fitting to blow the place sky high!” After a beat or two a turnkey eventually appeared, sneering humorlessly. He dragged his billy-club across the bars like in an old movie.

“Can it in there rummy, I done told you once already!” Hans sighed in exasperation.

“Any idea when I get arraigned?” he whined, trying another tack. “And wasn’t I supposed to get a phone call?” Hans added, unable to conceal a certain petulance in his tone.

“You already did that,” the guard barked. Had he? Hans hoped his old lady was not on her way to post bail in the middle of the night. She would be less than thrilled at this development, certainly could not spare the expense.

“Pipe down or we’ll pull you out of there for some calisthenics, give you the exercise regimen in the yard!”

“Excuse me?” The I.E.D. materialized behind him.

“He’s saying they’ll work you over, bust your chops!” the miscreant translated. Hans blinked unsteadily.

“Where are we?” he at last uttered weakly.  The screw merely smirked sardonically at this query, and strode back off out of sight.

“Don’t worry,” his bunkmate consoled, patting Hans on the shoulder. “This’ll all be over in no time.”  The prisoner then drifted in and out of consciousness on the top level of the bed, staring at his reflection in the chrome ceiling tiles contemplatively between erratic bouts of slumber. He stunk to high heaven, indeed had not yet been provided a shower; any time the man asked about arranging one he was informed they were only offered at certain scheduled times, that they’d just had one besides, and he must have napped through his chance again. For all Hans knew days may have passed.

Their quarters contained four beds total, and every so often a bleary newcomer would be shuffled in, unchained and abandoned. Then, after a brief spell their captors would reappear to retrieve them, uncommunicative about why Hans conversely need remain, any timetable foreseeable relative to his potential release. The chow was at least ample though, unusually rich and hearty, almost to the point of being suspiciously so. Hans noted that his cotenant, however, was abstaining from touching these many sumptuous delicacies spread out across his steel serving trays, waved them away religiously, left each meal untouched.

“What gives?” He finally asked, gesturing to the squandered platter. Wasting food had always been a cardinal sin in the household in which he was raised.

“I wasn’t born yesterday!” the coot scoffed, turning his nose up at the fare with a knowing snort. “They’re meaning to fatten us up. Going to eat you, if they manage to, they are.” Now that he mentioned of it, the incarcerates who had speedily flown the coop had certainly been plumper sorts, compared to he and his emaciated confrere, Hans recalled.

“I prefer a blaze of glory to being slowly peeled like an apple by those vultures, nibbled to a skeleton by a pack of piranha, if it’s all the same to you!” Hans considered this. It seemed unlikely, but he could not altogether discount the possibility. He felt queasy as ever still, yet that did nothing to alleviate his appetite. While often inclined to drink his meals, stretched thin and unable to find the wherewithal for groceries, Hans also possessed that proclivity of the dog who has known starvation and when presented with an abundance of sustenance will stuff itself gluttonously for fear the nourishment will be taken from it any moment, keenly cognizant of the possibility the next meal might be a long way off, or not arriving at all conceivably. Stress eating further satisfied his unfulfilled oral fixation, mitigated the acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms his body was undergoing moreover… Having finished his heaping helping of Salisbury steaks, pudding cups and potatoes au gratin Hans, eyed the other neglected platter with undisguised longing. “You don’t want that?” He at last inquired sheepishly.

“Help yourself,” the kook replied with disgust. Not needing to be told twice, Hans climbed down and snatched up the vittles, began shoveling them down his greasy gullet, stuffed his miserable face with wanton abandon.

At some indeterminate point later on the consumed charge went off as the man had said it would. The damage was extensive, but in the scheme of things it amounted to hardly a dent in the complex’s sprawling facade, certainly did not halt or even slow operations significantly; there were infinite blocks and wings where that one came from, the incident merely merited a modicum of caution tape’s affixing, yellow signs’ allocation. The latter they had a considerable stock of on hand, and the former was an affordable expendable they had plenty of room in the budget to absorb. Hans, thankfully, was himself spared the indignity associated with that hullaballoo at least… The gourmands rated him delectable.

Jerome Berglund graduated from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program and spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he was born and raised. Since then he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. He has previously published stories in Grim & Gilded, Stardust and the Watershed Review, a play in Iris Literary Journal, and poetry in Hey I'm Alive Magazine, Something Involving a Mailbox, and Fauxmoir. Berglund is furthermore an established, award-winning fine art photographer, whose black and white pictures have been exhibited in galleries across New York, Minneapolis, and Santa Monica.

Writing Publications:

https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/post/writing-publications-by-year-and-journal