Three Seconds

individuals in the country were crammed together and locked up with days that were totally predictable.
    Piet Hoffmann knew that he would be given the job of cleaner in Block B, one of the conditions from the meeting at the Government Offices and one of the tasks that the general director of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had been ordered to sort out. He concentrated therefore on the Lego piece that stood roughly in the middle of the world that was framed by a seven-metre-high wall and with binoculars studied, section by section, the building that he did not know yet but which in a couple of weeks’ time would be his day-to-day reality. He picked out a window on the second floor, the workshop, the largest workplace for inmates at Aspsås who chose not to study. A window that was positioned near the roof, with reinforced glass and closely spaced metal bars, but with the binoculars he could still see several of the people in there working on the machines, faces and eyes that stopped every now and then to look out and yearn – so dangerous when all you could do was count the days and pass the time.
    __________
    A closed system with no escape.
     
If I’m exposed. If I’m burnt. If I’m alone.
He would no longer have any choice.
He would die.
    __________
    He lay down on the balcony, crawled over to the railing holding an imaginary gun with both hands and aimed at the window he had just decided on, on the second floor of Block B. He studied the trees by the churchyard wall – the wind had increased and the bigger branches were moving now.
     
    Wind strength twelve metres per second. Adjust eight degrees to the right.
    He aimed his imaginary gun at a head that was moving around inside the workshop window. He opened his bag and took out a rangefinder, aimed it at the same window.
    He had already estimated the distance to be around fifteen hundred metres.
    He checked the display, a hint of a smile.
    It was exactly fifteen hundred and three metres from the balcony of the church tower to the reinforced window.
    Distance fifteen hundred and three metres. Clear view. Three seconds from firing to impact.
    His hands gripped the non-existent gun hard.
    __________
    It was five to ten when he walked back past the graves and protecting sycamore trees, down the neatly raked gravel path to the car that was parked outside the gate. He was on schedule – he had managed to sort out what he had to at the church and would be the first customer in Aspsås library when it opened.
     
    A separate building on the square, tucked between the bank and the supermarket, a librarian in her fifties who was as friendly as she looked.
    ‘Can I help you?’
    ‘In a moment. I just want to check some titles.’
    A children’s corner with cushions and small chairs and Pippi Longstocking books stacked in equal piles, three plain tables for anyone who wanted to study or just read for a while in peace, a sofa with headphones for listening to music and computers for surfing the Internet. It was a nice little library, quiet with a prevailing atmosphere of meaningful time in contrast to the prison wall that dominated the view through each window, signalling trouble and detention.
    He sat down at one of the screens by the lending desk and searched in the library catalogue. He needed the titles of six books and looked for ones that presumably had not been borrowed for a long time.
    ‘Here.’
    The friendly librarian looked at his handwritten list.
    Byron
Don Juan
Homer
The Odyssey
Johansson
Nineteenth Century Stockholm
Bergman
The Marionettes
Bellman
My Life Writings
Atlantis Collection of World Literature
The French Landscape
    ‘Poetry … and titles which … no, I don’t think we’ll find any of them up here.’
    ‘I thought as much.’
    ‘It will take a while to get them up.’
    ‘I need them now.’
    ‘Well, I’m on my own here and … they’re in the store. That’s what we do, with books that are not borrowed very often.’
    ‘I would really appreciate it if it was at all possible to get them now. I don’t have that much time.’
    She gave a sigh, a little one, like someone who has been asked to do something that is a problem, but also actually a joy.
    ‘Well, you’re the only one here at the moment. And I’m sure there won’t be many more in until just before lunch. I’ll go down to the basement if you could just keep an eye on things for me here.’
    ‘Thank you so much. Only hardback copies, please.’
    ‘I’m