between a rock and a hard place

My new neighbourhood is a special place. My house is a quite ordinary apartment building but next to it sits the private villa of the Pizza King. The PK is an enterprising man. Not only did he introduce the pizza to us suspicious Finns decades ago and convinced us to love it, but he also came up with the idea of unstaffed hotels (ideal for us Finns who hate having to talk to anybody in person if we can manage just as well by flashing a credit card), named the ferry line to Sweden after himself and has a hand in most things that happen in this city.

My neighbour on the other side is the prison, more commonly known as the Strand Hotel. It is a beautiful old red brick building that overlooks the bay. From my fourth floor flat I can conveniently look over its walls, and I wonder if it is not some kind of breach of the prisoners' privacy to have people in the surrounding buildings looking in on them like this. Except for us neigbours, not many people have ever had the chance to peek into the prison and I wonder if I could not make money on this by setting up business as a prison correspondent. Or smuggler - I bet I could throw stuff over the walls. Or spy - take pictures and sell them to the Americans.

On the other hand, nothing really ever happens behind those walls. No riots, no murders, no drug deals. Occasionally I see the prisoners walking around the courtyard. That's about it.

I never see the Pizza King either. Rich and famous as he is, he hides behind walls too.

Strange place, this. I mean, all of this.