The crack in the ceiling was not big, but his eyes always traveled back to the filigree line. It started underneath the base of the overhead light. An ugly start for an ugly crack. It reached to the left corner above the window. Like a thick spider's leg, it came out from underneath the yellowed plastic cone and made a sharp twist to the left before it went straight to the corner. Well, as straight as a crack in plaster can be. A thunderbolt. Yes, it looked like a thunderbolt. When had been the last time he had taken a walk in a thunderstorm? It must have been more than a decade ago. He had loved it, the vibrant energy in the air that had made the hairs on his arms and nape raise. The moment he had loved most were the few seconds of total silence. No bird had dared to sing, no dog had barked, even the people had held in their breath.

And then came the wind, the storm that pulled on one's clothes and hair forcefully. It had been then that he had stretched out his arms to both sides and closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of excitement until the first drops of rain would fall. With the rain all sounds came back and mixed into a strange arrangement, unique in every way.

When he closed his eyes, he could recall the sound rain made when it fell down on leaves, or the metal sound big drops made on car roofs, or the soft tingle in the roof's gutter, or the static noise that underlined the whole concert. And then the first thunder would make the earth quake and his body resonate with his deep growl. And the first thunderbolt would flash through his closed eyelids. Of all the weather he loved thunderstorms most.

But right now, he just felt the cold tiles of the floor under his shoulder blades. He lay on the ground, all four limbs pointing at the four corners of the room. This was his way of changing perspective. If you lay down on the floor and look at the ceiling, you feel intimidatingly small. The bed hovers over you, the table seems giant.

But the funniest thing was the chair with the towel thrown over its backrest. When you lie on the floor, the ceiling seems to be the ground, so everything seems to be dangling from the ceiling. And the towel simply defied gravity. It was ridiculous how he chuckled over a towel on a backrest, but inside here your horizon gets smaller, entertainment must be found in other ways, so your humor becomes easier. Or maybe... yes, maybe he was just going insane.

The towel, he thought, it just needed a towel on a backrest to make me realize I'm going crazy.

This was worse than hell. There was nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to feel, nothing to think about.

If he had had the choice, he would have chosen hell over prison.

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