In Chap­ter 187 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch reflects on his sur­round­ings from a tall, nar­row win­dow in the prison, which resem­bles a flipped let­ter­box. His lim­it­ed view cap­tures vast stretch­es of prison land and a dis­tant water tow­er, con­jur­ing images of the world beyond, filled with voic­es dis­cussing con­tem­po­rary events. He imag­ines con­ver­sa­tions about Mon­i­ca Lewin­sky, Hillary Clin­ton’s strug­gles, eco­nom­ic talks around the Dow, school shoot­ings, and nat­ur­al disasters—showing a world teem­ing with life out­side his con­fine­ment.

This prison is the third old­est in Amer­i­ca, with a his­to­ry embed­ded in its cracked stone walls and unset­tling dust. From his van­tage, Patch observes new prison con­struc­tion, con­trast­ing the old with the emerg­ing struc­tures as heavy machin­ery works relent­less­ly. Each day, after the labor­ers fin­ish their shifts, they trav­el back to civil­ian life, where the mun­dane act of cleans­ing them­selves takes on deep sig­nif­i­cance for Patch, know­ing their free­dom stark­ly con­trasts with his impris­on­ment.

Despite the pas­sage of time in con­fine­ment, Patch’s rou­tines remain large­ly unchanged. He ris­es ear­ly to man­age his dai­ly tasks, includ­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties at the prison library—his intel­lec­tu­al haven. He’s been ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing the library’s art ref­er­ence sec­tion while pro­mot­ing self-help and ther­a­py texts for fel­low inmates. The library, filled with four thou­sand books and a strict oper­a­tional frame­work, offers a tem­po­rary escape from harsh real­i­ties.

A librar­i­an named Coop­er arrives, engag­ing in light ban­ter and shar­ing griev­ances about the con­struc­tion dust en route to work. Their cama­raderie builds over the months, cul­mi­nat­ing in Patch send­ing a sig­nif­i­cant let­ter to War­den Riley, seek­ing change after endur­ing 513 days in prison.

Even­tu­al­ly, one day after lunch, Patch faces the inevitable as he’s sum­moned from his cell by Black­jack, a tow­er­ing guard known for his intim­i­dat­ing pres­ence. Their con­ver­sa­tion hints at a bond, with Black­jack inquir­ing about his daughter’s school project—an inter­ac­tion that human­izes the oth­er­wise stern atmos­phere of the prison. Despite humor woven into their dia­logue, Black­jack remains per­plexed about Patch’s ques­tion­able past, illus­trat­ing the ongo­ing com­plex­i­ty of rela­tion­ships formed in con­strained cir­cum­stances .