Shaves are scheduled for a certain hour. The institution strives to create a routine that differs little from day to day. The hypnotic sameness makes it appear as if every day is like the day that came before, and every week an echo of the week that preceded it, and every month the same, and every year the same, the same-the still, unchanging same. In prison, time is a thick, dull mallet that pounds consciousness into a coma. They leave a dark place where time crawled and are expected to find a meaningful, productive niche in a social order that races at baud rates and dances to the surging rhythms of the Dow Jones industrial average.
Time is a burden, a blur, a blessing.
Still, for at least some of the imprisoned, time can be a friend. For them, it is a space to study, learn, and unlearn that which is helpful to interpret life's misery. The prison becomes a school, and the cell is transformed into a classroom. For them, time can be liberating. But some states, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, for example, have terminated their prison college programs because they see them as gifts to prisoners.