Hi, Fellow Believers. It's 9:40 pm, and this place sucks. Remember the guy who freaked out his first night at Shawshank? That's me.

Why is this place so cold?

Eight hours in the ER sparkled and shined compared to this room. And it's dual occupancy. There's an 84 year-old man next to me. My cellmate. Poor guy. From Yugoslavia. English "not so good," he says. But it sounded good to me. I think he's bed-ridden. Groans occasionally---as does all creation.

Maria is not allowed to stay here. I so badly want to run out of here. I'm trying not to panic. This is one step above prison. Thing is, I'm in Boca Raton, so I thought things might be better. The hospital in the third-world country of Peru was nicer. Roomier. And I mean, by a lot. You find this hard to believe, but I'm telling you the truth.

Maria was with me all through the ER experience. They gave me two antibiotic IV drips. Took blood. Did a CT scan. The usual entertainments. Talked to God a lot in the CT scanner. In the ER, when Maria was with me, I thought, "This place is okay."

Then they brought me to my cell. I said goodbye to Maria, which was a blow. I'm soft. It hurt. Not her fault, though. I'm soft for my wife. I am not much good without her. Still good for God, but not for me. If that makes sense.

They stuck me here and told me to stay in bed. I tried to maneuver around and get something out of my bag. An alarm went off—and I mean, a Shawshank alarm. The speaker over my bed crackled, nothing to be understood. Two nurses ran in. "You're not supposed to get out of bed."

"Apparently not," I said. I half said it to be funny; I half said it to say, What the fuck?

"You can't move until the nurse checks you."

I worked at a hospital in Canton, Ohio for three years and we never had any "get out of bed" alarms—not a goddamn one. I hadn't even gotten out of bed. I swung my legs around. Then—boom. That's all it took to get the Shawshank guards running.

Kelly texted me in my agony and said, "Use your charm." I said, "I would, but I haven't had opportunity."

It's true; the only offensive weapon I have here is my charm. It's my only means of surviving this institution.

Besides prison, this is the most unnatural place that exists in God's universe. Nothing is natural here. Something evil birthed this system. It's not the fault of the nurses working here. But I am wondering, tonight, what the hell I'm doing in the middle of it.

I feel captured by it.

I don't belong here.

So two nurses came in and told me I had to stand up and take off my pants. "We have to sponge you down," they said. They were serious. Two of them sponged me; they each took a half. One of the nurses, Karen, said, "Two of us are sponging him." My charm accidentally kicked in, "What kind of hospital is this? I'm going to have to tell my friends about this place."

I said it only to survive. Nothing else in me wanted to say it. Nothing meant it.

Karen and Lisa laughed. I'd tricked them; gotten away with it.

I survived the cold and naked sponging standing on the cold and naked floor.

Where the hell am I?

I hate this place to death.

Being Pauline is evading me right now. I haven't had much of an education, I guess. I'm used to bicycling across the United States and running eight miles a day. Now people poke me and gape at the hole in my neck (exclaiming in awe), then talk about cancer, then take my blood pressure, then hook me up with monitors---and all I want to do is put on my running shoes and run the hell out of here as fast as I can. I think I could pull it off, too. I could make it. I know for a fact I can run to Fort Lauderdale from here. Done it three times—and then some. I would shock the hell out of them, too. Where did he go? He's due for his morning sponging!

They'd find my monitor and ducky slippers on the floor. So long, suckers.

I felt safer in Peru. Truly. I don't feel safe here.  

I feel like writing Timothy and having him bring my cloak. Oh—and don't forget the scrolls. And the vellums. And the kratom. And the Ibuprofen.

8 a.m. can't come soon enough. But Maria might give me a Knute Rockne talking to. I hope not. I hope she spoils me and listens patiently to my tales of woe.

Why are they taking so long to hook me up to another antibiotic I.V.? Karen said she was coming. Now it's 11 freaking 45. Oh, I forgot: nothing is natural here: not sleep, not needles, not light, not the floors, not the curtains, not the doors, not the yellow slippers. Only the Slav next to me is natural–and he's groaning.

It's three hours past my bedtime. Sleep is curative. But do you think they care? They work all night. What do they care?

"When you were a young man, you went where you would. Then, when you have become decrepit, others will take hold of you and take you where you would not."

What the hell am I doing here?

I actually had hopes of making an MZTV show. Not a chance. When do they let people go to bed? I wish I had sleeping pills. About a hundred would do. (I'm...only...kidding.)

There is no lounge on this floor in which to make a show. Aultman Hospital in Canton Ohio, where I worked from 1980 to 1984, exceeded in convenience this prison block. It had a lounge. Forty-six years ago, it had a lounge for patients to sit in, to exit their cells for awhile. That was 1980 in Canton, Ohio. Now it's 2026 in Boca Raton, Florida—and not a lounge in sight.

I'll try to stop complaining. But this is my first night in Shawshank.

I'm freaking out.

I'll never take freedom for granted again.

Peru offered kinder, slower attention. Gentler people. Neither harried nor hassled, the Latinos. Quieter. Some ancient wisdom survives south of the equator.

Still, I tried to charm the hell out of Karen while she and Lisa stripped me and put the yellow slippers on me.

They do everything here by rote. They have no idea, really, why they do anything. It's all by rote. Why are they not letting a man who runs 8 miles a day and who ran 66 miles in 22 hours just three short months ago put on his own slippers? And the slippers are duck yellow. What if I don't even want slippers? They don't ask. Who came up with yellow, and why? It's not natural.

When I say I'm trying to charm the nurses, read nothing into that. I mean, nothing. There is no sexual aspect to this whatsoever. It's pure survival tactic. I need to befriend my captors. It's the Stockholm Syndrome already—and I just got here.  

I suppose I'm not allowed to take my own medicine here. Well, screw that. I'm going to pop three Ibuprofens. I've got to find a way to cheat, to steal, to humanize myself; I've got to find a way to recover my relative sovereignty and conquer these tribespeople.

May God help all the poor souls in jail. God. Please help them, Jesus, help them. DO something, You Two! But they know how to break people here too. They do it via rotish exercises, none of which make sense. I DON'T WANT SPONGED OFF BY TWO NURSES. I DON'T. But I didn't have a choice. I wanted left alone in the bathing department. I can wash myself, I wanted to tell them. Maybe I don't even want to wash, I wanted to tell them. Did you ever consider that, Karen? Lisa? No. No such free thoughts ever entered the minds of these women. And what if I don't like yellow slippers?

Shut up! Everyone likes yellow slippers! Eat your gruel and wear your slippers!

Speaking of yellow, Lisa has come in and put a yellow band on my left wrist that says, in giant capital letters, "FALL RISK." "But I'm not a fall risk," I say. "Everyone here is a fall risk," says Karen.

See what I mean? It's all by rote. Karen = autopilot. They're all on it. Autopilot, that is. Not their fault. The system incubates and hatches it.

I'm going to fetch the Ibuprofens.

...there. I did it. Not even detected. And I'll do it again, too. And again. Just try to stop me.

Monday's video might have been the best I ever recorded. This email might be the most pitiful thing I've ever put to pixels. Or maybe it's my attitude that's pitiful. I feel pitiful.

I'm lost without my wife.

This place is a human refrigerator.

The lighting is Shawshank lighting—no; my mistake. Remembering the movie now, Shawshank had natural lighting via windows in the upper level.

Nothing is natural here; nothing. Nothing of nature exists in the cell I'm sharing with the Slav. Just styrofoam and plastic and pressed board—and that's the food.

I suppose they are trying their best. They're in a world that even they do not understand. They pass through it by rote and get paid. All they know is that, on Friday, they get handed a paycheck.

I hope none of them read this.

Part of me hopes none of you read it.

Apparently, the Slav gets an enema every hour.

Jesus, save us.

Martin Zender
Boca Raton, Florida
June 6, 2026
Come Quickly Lord Jesus