Solitary Confinement! Global Predators want you isolated, lonely, and afraid

Solitary Confinement! Global Predators want you isolated, lonely, and afraid My hair is grey, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night, As men’s have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bow’d, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose, For they have been a dungeon’s spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Are bann’d, and barr’d—forbidden fare… The Prisoner of Chillon, By Lord Byron (George Gordon)1 I was twelve and just beginning the seventh grade in school when my new English teacher assigned us the task of reading collections of poetry and choosing a stanza of a poem to memorize. Somehow, I found my way to Lord Byron and his magnificent work, The Prisoner of Chillon. I can still recite it at will. I was engrossed with the idea of being a captive, of being isolated and locked up, and I spent time contemplating how I could survive such a fate. Perhaps it was very early Bible stories, like the description of Daniel in the lion’s den, lost in the mists of childhood, that fed my imagination. Or my discovery, a year earlier, that local stray dogs were being held captive in a ramshackle shed at the edge of the town dump. The pleading eyes of the six or eight captive dogs haunted me, and I returned again and again to that shed the city called an animal shelter. I do remember concluding that despite all other hardships, as long as my mind was intact, I could survive anything, even a dungeon. But I was just a twelve-year-old child. solitary confinement, noun ˈsɑl·əˌter·i kənˈfɑɪn·mənt/ the condition of being kept alone in a room in prison2