Six Days Til Parole

A poem and the story behind it

The airport terminal smelled of body odor and stale breath, a liminal place where time drags and people drift like half-finished thoughts who’d rather be anywhere but here. I was early for my flight to Houston, nursing a lukewarm black coffee and scribbling in a small notebook to pass the minutes, when he sat down across from me on the row of hard plastic chairs.

He was lean in the way hard labor makes a man lean—not gym-cut, but pared down by years of concrete and routine. Grey sweatpants, grey sweatshirt: state-issued monochrome that he wore like it was intentional camouflage. A small black duffel sat between his sneakers, unassuming, holding whatever life he had left. No phone in his hand, no restless scrolling—just quiet observation.

His knuckles carried faded ink, old tattoos blurred to blue-green shadows and warped by scarring. He noticed me writing, head tilted slightly, and after a beat he spoke, voice low and rough like gravel under boots.

“What you working on there?” he asked, nodding toward the notebook. “Looks like poetry.”

I glanced up, surprised he’d clocked it so quickly. “Yeah. Just messing around. Trying to get something down before the flight.”

He leaned forward a little, elbows on knees. “Wish I knew how to do that. Put the shit in my head onto paper so it stops rattling around.” A small, wry smile. “Six years inside and all I got are memories. No words for ’em.”

I studied him for a second—the way he sat loose but alert, like a man who’d learned to measure every man and movement and situation out of necessity. The poem I’d been refining flickered in my mind, the one that I’d one day type out on deckled-edge paper, edges rough as if torn by gentle hands: The working title I’d jotted was Six Days Til Home, all that raw uncertainty about where the days ahead would lead me and what might happen and my willingness to face the dark parts without flinching.

I closed the notebook, tapped the cover. “I could write one for you sometime. If you tell me what you want it to say.”

He laughed quietly, the sound almost startled out of him. “For real? Shit, man. I’d like that. Something about… I don’t know. Coming out the other side. Not knowing what’s waiting, but walking into it anyway.” He paused, eyes distant. “Call it ‘Six Days Til Parole’ or whatever. Make it honest.”

“Deal,” I said, hiding my surprise at the alignment of our thoughts. “I’ll figure it out.”

We sat in companionable silence for a minute. Then he offered, unprompted: “Name’s Kricket. Just got out. They let me out six days early. Funny how they expect you to be happy for a few days when they take away years.”

“Josh,” I replied. We shook hands—his grip steady, no posturing.

He glanced at the notebook again. “You ever write about people you meet? Like this?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “If it feels real.”

He nodded slowly. “Then write this part true: the freest I’ve felt wasn’t when the gates opened. It was right now—sitting here, talking to a stranger who might turn my mess into something someone else can read. That’s free.”

The gate agent called pre-boarding for Houston. I stood, slinging my bag over my shoulder. Kricket stayed seated, duffel in his lap like an anchor.

“Take care out there,” I said.

He rose, slow and deliberate. “You too. And hey—if you write that poem? Put it somewhere I can find it someday.”

He gave a nod as my group was called and I turned to walk toward the gate. As I hit the jet bridge, I turned and saw his grey silhouette and his stone eyes.

Then I turned and disappeared down the jetway. And tucked in my notebook was the start of something new: his poem, waiting to be finished.

Now that it is, I just need to find a place to leave it.