“You will drink your tea.” said Warden Basho as Prison 88 stared down at the lacquered tea cup and refused to drink. This was the nine-hundred, ninety, seventh time they had performed this ritual. Prisoner 88 had plenty of time to think, plenty of time to count the days and plenty of time to remain in stoic, silent rebellion. Enumerating his refusals had become the object of his fixation. How many more days could he perform the only act of defiance left to him? How much more time could he hold out.The problem was that Warden Basho had just as much time.

The two men sat across from each other in an astringent white isolation cell. A single ceramic tea cup, without a handle and wafting steam, sat on the rectangular metal chambers. Warden Basho wore an unadorned blue wool uniform and . Prisoner 88 wore a gray white suit and

I. In the notorious Shikoku prison, a brutal reform program uses Buddhism as a means of control, twisting its principles to break the spirits of inmates.
II. The prison’s administrators, led by the ruthless Warden Basho, coerce suicidal inmates into ending their lives, presenting it as a form of liberation and a way to achieve enlightenment.
III. A select group of inmates are chosen for an even more extreme form of punishment, forced to undergo sokushinbutsu, an ancient Buddhist practice where monks mummify themselves alive, under the watchful and sadistic eye of Warden Basho.
IV. The inmates subjected to sokushinbutsu are put through a rigorous regimen of meditation and fasting, designed to weaken their bodies and minds, and ultimately transform them into “living mummies”, with Warden Basho personally overseeing their descent into madness and despair.
V. In a twisted attempt to find meaning in their suffering, the prisoners occupy themselves by repairing broken poetry with urushi lacquer, the same substance used to preserve the bodies of those undergoing sokushinbutsu, symbolizing the blurred lines between life and death.
VI. Prisoner 88, Hiroshi, eats and drinks from a kintsuge bowl, its repaired cracks a constant reminder of the fragile nature of existence, as he passes his time repairing fragmented verse with the same lacquer used in the sokushinbutsu process, his own body and mind slowly succumbing to the brutal regime imposed by Warden Basho within the cold walls of Shikoku.
VII. The prison’s walking meditation garden serves as a stark contrast to the brutality that pervades Shikoku, where inmates are forced to cultivate sumac trees under Warden Basho’s watchful eye - their bitter leaves used in traditional medicine but also eerily symbolic - amidst tranquil stone pathways meant for contemplation that instead serve only amplify despair .