Unconscious “Watcher” Comes To The Rescue, Again

   I requested to use the room with a computer that has a printer attached yesterday. This so-called “law library” (it used to have bookshelves full of law books, but they were all removed and replaced with a computer) also has a copier that prisoners can use (at fifteen cents per copy) if they have a copy card (purchased on commissary). I needed to make some copies of documents for an appeal I’m working on concerning the prison’s decision to restrict me from using the e-mail program that other prisoners, even on death row, are allowed to use. Like an idiot I left the last document I was copying in the copier; which is the kind of mistake that I almost never make.

   I did not even realize my error until today, just a couple of hours ago. I actually might have realized it a little earlier, when I thought about the documents that I re-filed in my locker I couldn’t remember the forgotten document being there. I think this was my unconscious mind trying to get my attention, but my conscious mind clearly remembered making a copy of the document, so I assumed I must have just filed it without remembering. The possibility that I had left it in the copier never occurred to me; like I said, it was the kind of mistake I just don’t make.

   But then shortly after lunch today I got a note passed to me from the prisoner who lives across the hall from me. He had fund the document (which had my name and number on it) when he went to use the law library this morning, and was returning it to me. Along with my document was this note: “FYI – I have litigation being drafted against these people’s blatant skewing of the applicable BOP Policy’s promulgation of the e-mail access policy. If you want some aid with you circumstances give me a holler.”

   I had to look up the word “promulgation”, but this prisoner is one of those prison lawyer types who spends all his time fighting the System. I can really use his help, and since he has offered to help I intend to accept. But, I would never have asked on my own. In fact, just a few weeks ago this same prisoner offered to let me read his “Prison legal News” issues if I wanted (something he values highly), but I politely declined, explaining that I prefer not to play the System’s sick game. (It may seem now that I’m contradicting myself, but the way I see it is that the System is the real criminal, and while begging it for my life – i.e. filing appeals against my death sentences – is demeaning, asking it for a drink of water, metaphorically speaking, isn’t.)

   If I hadn’t “accidentally” left that paper in the copier he would never have known I was appealing the e-mail restriction. But when I look at all the evidence, there were plenty of indicators that I could ask him to help me. And even if my personal principles would not allow me to ask for help, I think my unconscious mind very cleverly found a way to get it!