In Chap­ter 211 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we find Patch in a soli­tary cell mea­sur­ing sev­en by twelve feet, devoid of win­dows and with a bed cramped near the toi­let. It’s a stark reminder of his­to­ry, with damp stone walls and flick­er­ing yel­low bulbs as the only source of light. Patch reflects on his cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, lying on a bunk with swollen fists, hav­ing held back dur­ing a con­fronta­tion with a younger inmate. He is acute­ly aware that his fate is now inter­twined with that of Mar­ty Tooms, both of them seem­ing like “dead men walk­ing.”

Amidst the bleak­ness, he recalls a con­ver­sa­tion with Grace, who urged him to leave his past behind if he ever escaped. This mem­o­ry ampli­fies his feel­ings of failure—not only in not find­ing her but in all aspects of his life. The sound of a voice from the neigh­bor­ing cell inter­rupts his thoughts; it’s the young inmate, express­ing his despair at being incar­cer­at­ed. Patch empa­thet­i­cal­ly reas­sures him, although a sense of inevitabil­i­ty looms over their exis­tence in prison.

As they con­verse, the boy, self-iden­ti­fied as Tom­my but also referred to as White, wres­tles with his own fear, reveal­ing that he was part of a group that was sup­posed to kill Patch. Patch pon­ders the boy’s life and the cir­cum­stances that led to his impris­on­ment. Tom­my’s attempts to dis­tract him­self from the grim real­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion lead to a con­ver­sa­tion that reflects a naïveté about the harsh life ahead.

Patch rec­og­nizes that the boy is at the precipice of los­ing all that once mat­tered, under­stand­ing that their iden­ti­ties will even­tu­al­ly be oblit­er­at­ed by the prison sys­tem. As Tom­my chat­ters on about triv­ial mat­ters, Patch feels the weight of silence grow­ing heav­ier, know­ing that both of them are trapped in a world that is set to hard­en their spir­its and erase their past. Through this inter­ac­tion, the chap­ter under­scores themes of despair, mem­o­ry, and the bru­tal real­i­ty of life with­in the prison sys­tem.