Edward's Dilemma by Paul Adan

he’d previously scooped a little water out of the sink and splashed it onto his crotch; he rightfully thought it would lend credibility to his predicament.  Not too long after that, when the CO passed in front of his cell while making rounds, Edward began to shake his arms and legs back and forth with considerable vigor.
    By the sound of the alarm, and medical alert, Edward knew he’d achieved the desired reaction.  In a matter of minutes, it seemed, he was surrounded by a cadre of medical staff.  Someone was calling his name:  “Edward!  Edward!  Can you hear me?  Edward, what’s going on?  Can you hear me?”
    He decided not to answer.
    By now, Edward was growing tired shaking his limbs around, but he managed to keep up the charade.  At one point, he could feel a nurse tugging at his eyelid in order to open his eye, and another nurse seemed to be wrapping a blood pressure cuff around his right arm.  Edward wasn’t sure if he should resist the effort to open his eye, or succumb to it.  He decided to open his eye. Seconds later, a nurse shone a bright light into his eye, and then grunted a comment to another nurse.  Next, Edward could feel someone lifting his left arm up above his chest – and then drop it.  Not wanting to get hurt, Edward engaged his muscles and slowed the descent of his arm.  Once again, he heard a nurse make a muffled comment. 
    Edward pretended to be coming around.  He was, after all, getting pretty tired.  After answering a few questions, someone finally uttered the words he’d been waiting to hear:
    “Get up, Edward.  You’re going to the clinic.  Edward!  Edward, can you hear me?  I need you to get up in the wheelchair so we can take you to the clinic.”
    Still pretending to need help, Edward got up off the floor with the help of a nurse, and then plopped himself into the wheelchair.  The performance was masterful, he thought, and he felt reasonably confident that he’d fooled everyone.  As he was whisked away to the clinic, however, he noticed an angry demeanor on the face of several nurses.
     
    Stuart Co. Jail, 3SouthF
    8 September – 11September
     
    OVER THE coming days, Edward continued to fake medical emergencies whenever he wanted to get out of his cell because he was feeling overly stressed-out, or depressed.  After three or four of these incidents, whenever he was escorted to the clinic, he was placed in a holding cell for several hours.  Usually, after spending some time getting thoroughly bored, he’d request to go back to his cell so he could at least lay down with a blanket.  Sadly, during each successive visit to the clinic, he sensed he was being treated with less and less compassion by the medical staff.
    Edward’s erratic behavior had several repercussions.  The good news was that he’d been moved to 3SouthF, a part of the jail where he could be more closely monitored.  The bad news was that he was getting a reputation, amongst the COs and medical personnel, as being a manipulator and a nuisance.
     
    ♦   ♦   ♦
     
    Stuart Co. Jail, 3SouthF
    12 September, 1:23 AM
     
    GREEN SLIME oozed out of the walls.  Edward sat on his bed and watched with increasing fascination as the stuff formed little bubbles, popped, and then trickled down onto the concrete floor.  Once it had formed puddles on the floor, it began to move; slowly at first, but then a little more rapidly as it got nearer to his bed.  Disturbingly, what had begun as a curiosity was looking more and more like a threat.  Edward stood up on his bed and watched in horror as the slime covered his bed – and then his legs and torso – and then, finally, his neck.  “Ahhh!  Ahhh!  Help! Help!” he screamed.  But no one was listening.
    The slime seemed to have a mind of its own.  When he had screamed, a green mass had rushed toward his open mouth in order to suffocate him.  Desperate, Edward called out to God for help.  “In the name of Jesus, be gone.  I command