What It’s Like to Be Moved From Cell to Cell, Prison to Prison [TheMarshallProject.org]

This article was published in collaboration with Vice.

I'm moving cells today. A guard issued the order at 6:30 a.m. this morning during rack-out, when the cell doors first open for the day. He read my name and prisoner number off a list. Soon I was piling all my books — my dictionary, my thesaurus, my Illustrated “Birds of North America” — and all my belongings into a cart outside my cell.

I'm conscious of a not-unfamiliar physical sensation, like a piece of me is being torn away. I try to push the feeling aside and keep myself moving, moving around my familiar 6-foot by 8-foot space.

I put a pile of books into the cart. Then my plastic clip-on lamp, my small fan, my small bronze Buddha, which has sat at my side for more than 25 years, and my small bell, given to me by a prisoner 16 years ago, the day before he died.

[For more of this story, written by Arthur Longworth, go to https://www.themarshallproject...to-prison#.W7GlfLVEY]