For a second, there was silence on the bus.
Then the man with the paint burst out laughing.
“You actually believe that?” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “That’s just advertising!”
The card player shook his head. “Man, you’re gonna be disappointed.”
But the third convict leaned back in his seat, completely unbothered.
“Hey,” he said confidently, “if even half of that is true, I’ll be the busiest guy in prison.”
The bus driver, who had been listening the whole time, couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out a loud laugh from the front.
“Son,” he called back, “if those things do all that, you better save me one!”
Even the guard cracked a smile.
The three convicts spent the rest of the ride joking about it—imagining tennis courts behind bars, horse trails circling the yard, and a full biking track around the prison walls.
By the time the bus pulled up to the gates, the mood had completely changed. What started as a tense ride had turned into laughter echoing through the aisle.
As they stepped off, the third convict tucked the box under his arm and said,
“Well, guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
And with that, he walked in—still smiling like he knew something everyone else didn’t.