American Gods- Neil Gaiman

Shadow was in prison for three years. Hundreds of sunsets and sunrises he had missed while locked up in his four by six cell. A cell that boasted a bunk bed covered in ratty sheets, an old wooden desk and a toilet seat at the corner of the room. The calendar read June 22, 2011. To any other person it was another warm summer day, but to Shadow it meant freedom. Freedom from all the prison guards and malevolent inmates. Freedom from his four by six cell and mostly it was freedom from being locked up inside with just himself. As he prepared his belongings which comprised of a ratty old book, a calendar, a pen and a sweater a prison guard had appeared by his cell and called out that hey were ready to release him. Shadow quickly gathered his stuff and followed. He made sure that he did not say or do anything that would jeopardize him getting out. It took a while for everything to be settled. There were a lot of paper work to deal with and the office was not at all keen to let Shadow go, for one judge believed that he was not at all worthy of such a privilege. This frustrated Shadow and triggered an emotion in him that he was all too familiar with. An emotion that put him in this situation in the first place. Without realizing it, Shadow had blacked out, took his pen and stabbed the prison guard on the wrist. He quickly realized what he had done though and immediately apologized, but it was too late. He felt the freedom he was not able to taste slip away from him. How one emotion had overpowered him, he did not know. His plans of returning to the country side and seeing his family, gone. The taste of baby back ribs from the diner, gone. Shadow felt defeated by himself and did not even bother to fight as the prison guards took him away and sent him back to his lonesome four by six cell. He set up his calendar, lay on the bunk and fell asleep. How many more days he would be there, he did not know. Hundreds of sunsets and sunrises would pass him again was what he was sure of and it was he himself that caused him to be in this predicament all over again.