Notes from a Prison Cell

by Andrew Felsher

11/2/25

The prison cell resembled other prison cells. It had concrete floors, vertical iron bars, a toilet, a narrow bed, and a sink. Since this was art and not prison, there was no need for running water, a ceiling, guards, a barbed wire fence, cheap labor, expensive phone calls, security cameras or a watchtower.

What separated this prison cell from others was that, once complete, it became aware that it was formed, isolated on a mountain top, and immobile. 

When spectators reached the peak, they were confronted by that structure. 

Some took selfies. Some cried. Some meditated. 

Some implied it was a waste of space and material. 

Others sat at a distance, leaned against rocks, tilted their heads, squinted, took out notepads, and sketched the prison cell, drawn to the juxtaposition of prison with clouds and the sky, all punctuated by the occasional hawk. 

One couple even waited until sunset, placed a blanket down beside the prison cell, and arranged a bunch of mushrooms they had collected into rows of poisonous and edible.  

“That looks poisonous,” one said, poking a red mushroom cap.

When the prison cell spoke, asking whether the mushroom that had grown through one of its cracks was poisonous, there was no response. 

*

In the coming months, the prison cell didn’t know how to make sense out of what it had heard. Was it meaningful or not? Did people care? Did it contribute to art or the world?

Nothing responded to its voice, not crickets or chipmunks, not the nostalgic stars, not the hesitant clouds trudging by, not the trees, moss, or protruding roots. 

When the prison cell was on the verge of giving up on speaking, a sparrow said from a nearby branch, “You shouldn’t desire to be heard by anyone.” 

“I never said I need to be heard,” the prison cell blurted, pretending to be annoyed, though relieved that something responded.  

The sparrow flew itself between the iron bars and landed on the concrete floor. 

“Even if you speak,” the sparrow said, “and plan out what you say, carefully let the words reach the rough surface of meaning, things will still fall apart.”  

“I heard someone say people don’t critically think,” the prison cell said.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” the sparrow said. “And don’t crave attention. Being alone is the only solution.” 

“If being alone is the solution,” the prison cell said, “then why are you talking to me?” 

The sparrow gazed at the mountain tops. 

“All I want is for others to get me,” the prison cell added. 

“You’re worried you might not be special,” the sparrow said. “That’s the problem.” 

“I don’t care if I’m special,” the prison cell said, wounded by the accusation. “Stay. Witness their responses. You’ll see.” 

“I came here to be alone,” the sparrow said, “not to talk.” 

The prison cell retreated into its immovable self.

The sparrow, recognizing that it had been a bit harsh, chose to stay until a couple people arrived, crossed their arms and scratched their heads before one ruled, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s Marxist,” the other said. 

“Stop thinking about Marx all the time. And please take the Lenin poster down from the wall in the bedroom. I’m not asking again.”  

The hikers, having reached an impasse on whether the prison cell was Marxist or not, then argued about when they should leave. 

“Before sunset.”

“After.”

“I want to check the apartment. Do you think we caught the bed bug?”

“Why are you thinking about that right now? We came here to get away from the city.”   

“You heard them,” the prison cell said. “They can’t agree on anything. Maybe they would benefit from an artist statement. Some people searched for it and were disappointed that there was nothing written about this. It could give them something to agree on.” 

“Their troubles won’t be fixed by an artist statement,” the sparrow said. “You don’t understand.” 

“Tell me.” 

“Next time.” 

The prison cell spent its days turning over the possibilities of a long friendship with the sparrow which would be replete with in-depth discussions about the sparrow’s travels and what was meaningful and meaningless.  

As the prison cell felt itself swell, the sparrow did not return for many days. 

Disappointed, the prison cell voiced its questions about society and meaning to ants, clouds, even the reliable sun. 

Ants were too dedicated to their role within their strict organization to form an opinion about people. Clouds were passive, accepting airplanes that cut up their bodies. The sun didn’t speak. Too much responsibility for warmth to get caught up in the prison cell’s tedium.  

*

One afternoon a pebble, which had just escaped the rubber sole of a person’s hiking boot, collapsed on the concrete floor of the prison cell.  

“I’m free,” the pebble cried. “I was stuck in their boot for years. It was a prison cell.”   

The prison cell didn’t respond and didn’t want to respond. 

In the coming days, there was no wind and no rain. The pebble didn’t budge. 

The prison cell’s hope that the sparrow would come back gradually depleted. It had no choice but to speak to the pebble about the sparrow. 

“The sparrow thinks I should trust people more.” 

The pebble indicated that people, contrary to the sparrow’s words, should never be trusted to understand anything. They need a clear and simple explanation. The pebble then ranted for hours about all the entanglements of algorithmic apparatuses with systems of oppression—from the prison cells hidden in credit scores and predatory lending to the prison cells of language and bodily gestures and gender, a long list of perversions such as someone it heard about who could only get aroused by chopping off shrimp heads which escalated to the point where he was constantly buying shrimps with heads on and carrying a bag and a pair of kitchen shears wherever he traveled. 

“That’s odd,” the prison cell scoffed, though the mentioning of shrimp reminded the prison cell that shrimps belonged to the ocean and it would never experience the ocean, never smell seaweed, or feel the texture of sand. 

---

Weeks later the sparrow returned and explained that it came back only because it had implied a return. It also wanted to confirm the reason nobody responds to the prison cell is not the absence of an artist statement but the absence of Wifi.  

“You’re wrong,” the pebble said. 

“The pebble told me about algorithms and oppression. An artist statement can help. Maybe we can inspire people.”

“Stop fixating on the statement,” the sparrow said. 

“Nobody expects Wifi on a hike,” the pebble said. “That’s such a terrible idea.”

“I’ve experienced things that you can’t experience and can’t understand.” 

“How can you say that?” the pebble grumbled. “For years I was wedged into the podium of a lecture hall at a prestigious university. If I could type, it would take me two weeks to write a polished manifesto that proves all contemporary institutions are mirrors of the prison system. Forget publication. Forget praise. I’d go straight to the Nobel Prize.” 

The sparrow was silent and intimidated.  

“Say more about the Wifi,” the prison cell said.

“Wifi is a means to connect,” the sparrow said. “Infinite possibilities. We depend on it.”

“That does make some sense,” the pebble confessed. “Without internet the modern world would collapse.” 

They all recognized that internet access would improve the dilemma and would bring others closer to this prison cell. 

The problem was the prison cell didn’t have arms or legs. The pebble was just a pebble. The sparrow could only pick up light objects. Their ambition was impossible to realize.

“People need to be involved,” the sparrow said. 

“We need money,” the pebble ruled.  

“Back to the statement,” the prison cell said.

“I know what needs to be stated,” the pebble said. 

“You’re not the artist,” the sparrow said. “You have no right to speak about this.” 

The prison cell was conflicted. On one side, it wanted to respect the artist that spent many long days carefully forming it. On the other side, if the artist had intended for there to be an artist statement, then there would have been one from the outset. The only plausible thing to do from here would be to disregard the artist and produce the statement themselves. 

“I don’t see other options,” the prison cell said.

“That’s deceiving,” the sparrow said. “Don’t include me.”

“You’re unreliable,” the pebble said. “At least I’m consistent.”  

The sparrow ignored the pebble. And the prison cell recognized it didn’t know the artist’s motivation, only the process by which its physical presence came into form. The pouring and shaping of wet cement into a flattened platform. The bolting of the toilet and iron bars. The long days. How the artist built it alone and wept. 

“The artist wept,” the prison cell said. 

“Many artists weep,” the sparrow said. “That’s not enough. What are we going to say, ‘the artist wept while forming this prison cell with calloused hands’? How would we differentiate the artist weeping from my mother weeping over a broken egg? Or how she wept when I destroyed her nest?”

“This isn’t about you,” the pebble said.

“The artist weeping is accurate,” the prison cell said. 

“Both of your thoughts are,” the pebble said, “surface level. Once, I heard a lecturer repeatedly say ‘the prison of pixels.’ Everyone loved it and snapped their fingers.” 

“I don’t think the artist cares about pixels,” the sparrow said. 

“Regardless, we can’t ignore,” the pebble added, “that the prison cell represents the peak and essence of inhumanity. It’s convenient for numbers that satisfy privileged formulas. This is the juxtaposition of leisure and brutality. It’s so clear to me.” 

The prison cell became reticent.

The sparrow shook its head.  

There was silence.

“Sparrow,” the prison cell said, “you speak of nests.” 

“That’s obvious,” the pebble said.  

“Arrange twigs,” the prison cell said, “into letters and words that can form a statement.” 

“Impressive,” the pebble said. 

The sparrow knew an artist statement like this at the end of a hike without Wifi was not as appealing to people as an artist statement in a museum. 

Still, they needed to be pragmatic. 

“I’m thinking we could put into writing,” the pebble said, “‘The struggling artist stammered in his sleep, ‘the internet is the black hole of desire.’”

“It’s not a black hole,” the sparrow snapped. 

“Quicksand,” the pebble added, “formulaic caskets, algorithmic corpses.”

 “If we’re going to speak for the artist,” the sparrow said, “then we need to understand the artist. Research is needed.” 

“That’s a waste of time,” the pebble said. “I know plenty. If we sound remotely sophisticated, people will be subordinate to us. We don’t need to be “accurate.” I don’t like how you think.” 

“Find the artist,” the prison cell said. “If you see him up close, maybe he’ll reveal something about me. He has sunken eyes and a long drooping face.” 

“That’s stupid,” the pebble said. “The artist is irrelevant. I know what to say.” 

Ignoring the pebble, the sparrow told the prison cell it would search for the artist. Soon, it followed hikers on the descent to witness any mention of the artist and where he might reside, but nobody knew anything about the artist.  

*

While the prison cell waited for the sparrow, fewer and fewer hikers climbed to that spot. The sparrow never found the artist. It had no choice but to piece together fragments of what people said and make the prison cell meaningful. For an entire day the sparrow arranged twigs into a statement that lay on the dirt beside the prison cell like a doormat: 

The pebble said, “Too wordy. I would have said, ‘It’s impossible to exist both digitally and physically. Say thank you. Drown in the algorithmic quicksand.’”

The prison cell didn’t know enough to disapprove.

The sparrow lacked the energy to speak or chirp its one-note melody. 

The next day a sudden strong breeze destroyed some lines, rendering them indecipherable. The pebble blamed the sparrow for using twigs that weren’t heavy enough. 

By night the wind settled. 

Again, the sparrow worked, slowly, pushing itself to re-write and form the statement. 

Drained, its movements became imprecise, wings couldn’t flap. The sparrow didn’t finish the sentences and had forgotten the agreed upon lines. It ended with A PRISON CELL IS NOT A PRISON CELL. IT YEARNS FOR NATURE. LEISURE DISRUPTED BY THE PROXIMITY OF PRISON STRUCTURES. 

The pebble said, “This is better than before, but it’s missing something about the internet being one ever-expanding prison.”

“I’m exhausted,” the sparrow said. “The internet isn’t just prison. It connects too. It collapses the distances between here and there.”  

“I don’t yearn for nature,” the prison cell said. “I’ve never seen a prison. Maybe I’m not what you both think. Maybe we’re all missing something.”

Later, while the sparrow rested on a nearby branch, a young couple reached the peak and let their dog off leash. 

The dog darted toward the prison cell and slid in the dirt, obliterating the words. Then it grabbed a thick twig that contributed to P and locked it in its jaw. 

“Why isn’t he tired from climbing?” one person said, panting. 

“Every stick he sees he either destroys or locks in his jaw. So greedy.”

“Capitalist dog.”

After that, the sparrow didn’t speak. The prison cell didn’t speak.  

The pebble became quieter and quieter, until it was taken by a heavy storm, buried beneath other pebbles, dirt, and fallen leaves. 

The sparrow could not endure traveling back and forth from the city in the coming cold, winter months. 

“Go back,” the prison cell said. “Stay there. This doesn’t work. You were right.” 

The sparrow ignored the prison cell. Each day it arranged twigs into, A Prison Cell is not a Prison Cell. 

The sparrow was too committed to that task that it stopped listening. 

The prison cell kept pleading to write, “Prison Cell wants to be heard.” 

Some days the snow would bury the line. Other days people would recognize that words and language could be borrowed and exchanged, made into something other than what they had been. 

The sparrow quickly understood people’s need to alter and name things, to bend nature to fit themselves, but the prison cell was disturbed that they could so mindlessly disrupt that which the sparrow worked to sustain. 

Seasons came and went. 

The sparrow survived storms and starvation, the sweltering heat, iced feathers. It surpassed its life expectancy of three years and lived until four, never parting from the prison cell for more than a day. If it left, it would roam a nearby town and return to describe people and birds. Sometimes it invented stories that weren’t true, to make the world seem larger and more nuanced. 

One day, like every other bird, the sparrow became old and died. Its body lay in the dirt and gradually decomposed. The prison cell felt its emptiness expand. 

After many years, when the prison cell no longer cared whether it was a prison cell, not a prison cell, art or not art, the artist returned. The iron bars had rusted. A layer of moss blanketed the concrete. The toilet was smothered with graffiti. 

It was then that the artist placed himself inside.

Unmoved, the prison cell remained silent. 

Within a few days, raucous crowds gathered.

The artist relied on spectators for food and water. 

Yet nobody attempted to open the cell door, which was never locked. 

Weeks became months. Spectators lost interest, avoided offering the artist food, or would tell him that they don’t have spare cash. Some even offered to consult him on how to stay in good shape to avoid atrophy. A priest, of course, offered to listen to a confession. A criminal defense attorney left her card, indicating that they might be able to plea down to a reduced sentence. 

“I’ve worked on many complex cases,” she ruled, shaking her head as her card failed to rest on the artist’s dirty fingertips. 

The prison cell wished the pebble would return, emerging like a cicada from beneath the dirt. It wanted to hear what should be said about this, how law unprovoked has the capacity to transform a struggling artist into something impotent and guilty. It didn’t make sense. 

When the artist became depleted and malnourished, incapable of standing up for prolonged periods of time, he carried a strong stench due to a lack of available soap and water. 

He was no longer referred to as “The Artist.” 

He became, “The Prisoner.” 

Park employees, who never looked directly at the prison cell, adjusted the signs for the trail to guide people to “The Prisoner.” 

“He’s not a prisoner,” the prison cell implored.  

Park employees didn’t hear. 

The artist didn’t hear. 

Nothing heard.

The crowds gradually shrank, until there would only be one person every few hours. And then one person a day. Then one a week. 

When there was nobody left and the artist couldn’t move, the prison cell said, “Why do you do this to yourself?”

After not speaking for the entire stay in the cell, the artist said, “Nobody opens this door. I don’t understand.”  

When the artist died, people returned.

The artist’s limp, starved body was taken away like a limp, starved body. 

The body, which was now referred to as “The Body,” was so thin that it slid between the iron bars without the need to open the cell door. 

And then, on a Tuesday, a crew of three dismantled the prison cell.

Notes from a Prison Cell was first published in English with Bottlecap Press in 2023. This chapbook included drawings from artist, Fi Jae Lee. A longer version was also translated into Portuguese by Elton Uliana and appeared in São Paulo Review.

Acknowledgements: Thank you everyone who had an impact on, and supported, this piece and its many iterations: Fi Jae Lee, Yehui Zhao, Vi Khi Nao, René Steinke, Minna Proctor, Elton Uliana, David Grand, Jacques Fux, And Carla Bessa. I would also like to thank some writers whose work has been necessary for the making of this piece: Jackie Wang, Franz Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Jerzy Kosinski, and Michel Foucault.