endless life

Everything is sterile in this place, thats how nothing escapes their attention. Nothing gets out of its assigned position without them knowing about it and dealing with it. They keep track of, and completely control, every last detail that exists within the confines of these walls by eliminating everything they consider nonessential to performing the function that this complex was built to serve. That function being singular, simple, and only one--to make sure that whats inside stays inside, and that applies to what happens here just as much as it applies to the people locked down in the innards and bowels of this inanimate jungle. From the bald white ceiling to the pasty green and broken eggshell paint they use to two tone the concrete block walls, all the way down to the black tar glue used to hold the sickly brown speckled tiles to the floor, everything about this place is designed to keep your eyes forward, your hands empty and your mind blank.

Six years, five months and fourteen days ago I had a name, a name that I traded in for an long number that means nothing to me and something to just about everyone that has anything to do with keeping me here. The list of what I was given to go with my numerical name is short and sweet, it includes four pairs of cotton pants colored denim blue, five pull over shirts that you'd swear were made of paper, two pairs of laceless slip on rubber sole shoes, the right to three not so square meals a day, and a guaranteed endless supply of empty time with which I was inevitably going to use lying on a steel spring mattress flavored with every imaginable fluid that the human body contains contemplating my up and coming, state sanctioned execution.

My life officially ended with the sharp thud of a gavel used to punctuate the end of my sentencing. As I remember it, the judge was a squat man with a manicured face, who seemed to have a well rehearsed knack for dousing those who stood before him with a lavish amount of disgust and contempt. His demeaning gaze barreled right through me as he spoke his flat noted words in a scheduled fashion. The sum total of the verbal fountain that gushed toward me in a dry informative manner amounted to the fact that the people of the state of Illinois had decided it would be best if I were killed by lethal injection, as punishment for actions determined to be taken by me which were defined to be an insult against the human dignity of one Samantha Briggs, now deceased. Except for the three tearful women and angry faced man using his eyes to tunnel a hole in the back of my head that were seated in the front row of the courtroom pews, you'd think I was being fined for speeding. When the judges lips stopped moving, a firm hand grabbed my right arm as a not so polite cue for me to turn and begin my lock and chain inoculated shuffle to the beginning of my eternity in hell. As I was escorted out of the courtroom the women began to cry more intensely, and the man next to them looked as if he was ready to chew my spine apart with his teeth. I stared back at him, with a look of vacant confusion, turning my head as I passed by and neared the door--I was convinced he'd be there when they strapped me down and read me the lords prayer, it would probably even move him to tears, but I knew it wouldnt help.

The whole trial was a farce, and I didnt do it, but thats just my opinion I guess. Flat ass broke, represented by an incompetent buffoon paid by the state more to drink then to defend yours truly. My court appointed "attorney" never represented a defendant guilty of more then unlawful possession of name your substance. In the wrong place, not able to adequately account for my whereabouts during the day in question, no family, no friends, no employer, just my impotent word against the need to solve the case of a missing girl who turned out to be a dead girl, a very dead little girl.

She was very young, I found out she was about to start the second grade during the trial, only average looking. The before pictures shot in some K-Mart studio showed her to be chubby with bright swallowing eyes and pig tails, she looked shy and probably got picked on a lot in school. Her little body, as shown in the after pictures, pictures that the state prosecution team almost gleefully assaulted the jury with in order to make their point, testified to those with even the most limited and fragmented of imaginations, the merciless way in which she was abused, tortured and killed. When they showed me the same pictures weeks prior to the trial, saying they actually knew I was responsible for the horror forever encapsulated in the images, part of me was flattered thinking they had me confused for an 800 pound tiger, the rest of me knew I was doomed, as there was no way they were going to let this drag out. I didnt put up much of a fight, I didnt offer passionate denials, I didnt conjure up alternate theories, or desperately cling to my innocence, I didnt see the point in saying or doing much at all. In all honesty I didnt really care, not about the girl, not about those bereaved, I didnt care about the not-at-all hot shot district attorney who honestly needed to convince himself more than the jury that I was guilty, I didnt care about my likely to be less than rosy future, and certainly not about the three ring circus that was going to be my trial--I just didnt care, thats all Im guilty of, and that is really why they're going to put me down.

My first few weeks in the state lock up skipped bad and went straight to worse. They aren't supposed to lock the condemned to die up with the rest of the animals, but the way it went, they figured I needed a good warm up. Check in was easy, they already took all my worldly possessions when they locked me up in county, this was more a transfer, and basically involved me getting a new set of clothes colored blue instead of orange, along with a one statement briefing of the rules that came off more as a promise that they were going to hurt me as bad as they could without killing me. After that I was lead down a crooked corridor chopped to bits by steel bars and rails which somehow deposited us into a large cavernous four level cell block complete with an open atrium at the center. The whole building was foaming at the mouth in rage, of all the things you can do to land in a place like this the worst is child abuse and murder. Thanks to the war on drugs not one cell contained less than five severely disgruntled young men. Thanks to all the bleeding heart liberals most of these men were well fed, built like brick shit houses and represented little more then flesh and blood vessels pumped to overflowing with raw aggression and a pent up sexual desire having a tensile strength rivaling that of suspension bridge cables. Yeah I was going to get hurt.

Eventually we stopped in front of one of the larger cells, there inside were six guys who looked like they were waiting at least a week for me to arrive, and hadnt had a sexual emission for just as long. The door clacked open with a sound that both reminded me of and made me feel like I was about to crest a seven story roller coaster drop. One of the overweight, and under paid guards left me bound and shoved me face first into the chiseled quarry stone chest of one of the men with whom I was to share a living space with. The hulking giant immediately grabbed my crotch and bit my ear--The sound of the steel bar cell door sliding shut barely concealed the swine like chortling of one of the guards. There was dull pounding, thumping and tugging all over my body. Thankfully the sensations swirled together into one grey toned ringing mess inside my head. I didnt really know the extent of the damage being done to me, and didnt want to know. I was going to die anyway, so what was the point of being concerned.

The cycle lasted a few days and repeated itself for several weeks. I would get my face caved in, raped and beat to a pulp, then Id be hauled to the dingy dungeon that was called the medical ward where I would stay just long enough to have the worst of the damage fixed, after which I would be dumped into a cell and ravaged by more angry and ridiculously horny young men--they even had rules that they made for my assigned playmates to follow. When they broke some ribs they told my tormentors only to work on my face, legs and back. When one of the behemoths broke my jaw my face was off limits. It all came to an end one day when one of the monsters decided to show off his herculean strength dislocating my right hip and breaking the corresponding femur.

After that things got pretty boring. I was locked up in the plastic environment of an isolated wing. For 23 hours a day I was kept in a relatively spacious cell, which I had all to myself. The other hour of my day was spent standing under a four hundred square foot patch of sky covered with chainlink fencing. My happy abode was decorated in such a way that even a gold fish would be stunned with a profane boredom upon being saturated with my surroundings for more than a few minutes. Furnished only with a steel toilet bolted to the floor by what for all practical purposes could be construed of as aircraft fasteners, a bed that appeared as if it really wanted to be a cast iron skilled covered with burned pancakes, and a bus stop television that theoretically got 14 channels, but in practice really only got six. To spice things up and keep us inmates from swallowing our tongues in desperation there was provided a twice daily pick up and drop off of books and other reading materials. Years went by, each day being an exact and precise replica of the one preceding it. The routine and environment was enough to relieve even a zen master of his sanity, but somehow I kept it together enough not to make it worse.

At times I would forget about the weight of forestalled death they had hung over my head so many years ago, other times I would think they forgot they were supposed to kill me, in either case I just wanted to get it over with. It was on one of those days when I half forgot if they or I failed to recall my impending fate that the word finally came. They brought the news with my evening meal, a casserole, one course pretending to be three--their imagination truly knew no bounds. As the pea green tray was slid though the slot in the steel door that dominated the landscape of the wall encasing it, a shiny face trailed in behind filling up the slot, "Hey, listen up, you got three more days, three more days till show time--the priest will be here tomorrow you can pick your last meal then too.".

I didnt even get a case of the butterflies, hell after being in here for as long as Ive been it was a relief. As I ate my overcooked and dry meal I wondered if they'd still kill me if they knew how relieved it made me feel knowing I was soon going to die.

The priests visit was just long enough for me to tell him I didnt want to hear what he had to say. I was disappointed to discover that picking your last meal meant choosing items off a list. I looked over the list and saw that I had everything on it more times then I cared to count, so I scribbled the word "NOTHING" in large letters across the list, I never felt like eating in this place anyway.

All in all what was to be my last few days in this godless, sweltering, sweating block of steel and concrete went by just exactly the same as all the other ones--I didnt bother toying with hope, if I hadnt found my way into this man made hell I would have been dead by this time anyway, probably by my own hand--besides at least in here I figured I was getting hell over with, so when they hit the switch I could just die. Thats really the only thing I was counting on anymore anyway--that my death would prove itself permanent.

The death house was located at the same facility I was incarcerated in, so my last day did not contain all the drama of having to be lead through a media gauntlet or my being more or less intimately exposed to the cacophony of candle light debaucheries calling for everything from my eternal damnation to my complete pardoning that were sure to be brewing and simmering just outside the rolling waves of galvanized chainlink and razor wire forming the perimeter of what was to be my point of egress from this world.

They woke me up early and asked if there was anything I would like to say, to which I answered,"No". They asked me if there were any particular books or magazines I would like to read, soliciting from me another, "No". They asked me if I would like to talk to the priest. I said, "Hell no".

A few hours passed, the most of which I spent in the isolated boredom of forced slumber, then there was the predictable sound of fat men stuffed into utilitarian outfits weighed down with a varied assortment of objects, most of which wouldnt help them if they knew what they were for. These sounds soon gave way to a loud rapping on my door, I knew the drill, I stood up and faced the wall opposite the door, my hands behind my back. The only noticeable difference in todays ritual was that instead of two guards coming in to get me there were five, all were armed with the standard personal arsenal of aerosol cans filled with a crippling irritant, wood clubs painted Krylon black and an orchestra of keys, handcuffs and loose change. The two men at the back of the horde were dressed in full riot gear, as if somehow all the years of wasting away in this psychological furnace had left within me the slightest desire to preserve my life with a dramatic escapade of escape.

They locked my limbs together with restraints best described as over-sized necklace and bracelet components and grabbed my shoulders, muscle memory made me flinch with a violent shudder, even after all these years the abuse handed to me when I first got here still bothered my body, if it only knew it was but a few short hours away from being reduced to ash....ah but I digress. My face was in ruins, my jaw never healed right, leaving large visible knots where the bone was shattered, my left eye socket was deformed, but I could still see out of the eye it inadequately housed, several teeth were missing leaving even more that were broken, and my nose resembled an old wagon trail desperately meandering its way through a mountain pass. Less then visible, and evidenced outwardly only by the slow and alien way in which I walked and sat were the crooked ribs, swollen vertebrae and gimp leg, as well as a whole host of other permanent ailments, a catalog of which was so long I myself could not even fully recall.

When I was finally all buttoned up and ready to go, my escorted journey into the unknown commenced. The walls of the narrow hallway seemed to project their malignant colors off into infinity, steel caged globe lights dangled drearily overhead and buzzed with an electric hangover that vomited luminescent bile on everything in sight. All this mixed sourly with the olfactory blend of stale organic odors and the pungent stink of cleaning chemicals. Overall my final walk was something which I had resigned myself into believing was to be the final chapter of a book that death would prove capable of erasing from my mind.

We went through no less than seven sets of locked gates before we were in the hallowed halls of the execution dormitory. The area consisted of three general parts, each separated by thick masonry walls, there was the room all the participants, including me, prepared to play their parts in the upcoming show, the stage upon which my death was to be acted out flawlessly, and the gallery, which by far was the parcel of space given the most attention when it came to creature comforts. With my restraints still clinging to my body I was helped up onto the gurney already made ready for me. As instructed I laid on my back, arms at my side, looking up at the raw and complicated ceiling. Thick nylon straps that looked and felt like they were seatbelts then slithered across my legs, stomach and chest, at first they were slack, but then they began to constrict like artificial boa constrictors, I winced a bit in pain as my knurled spine was flattened out on the semi soft surface below me. I was wheeled around and towards the door opposite the one we came into, and stopped. The face of the priest swooped into my field of vision like a descending vulture, henpecking me with solemn eyes and practiced words.

My throat was very dry, I stared at him for a moment, thinking how comical I must appear, and how comical he appeared to me. A few words jarred loose from my mouth which only he seemed to understand, giving a frustrated frown as his only reply. The swinging double doors were quietly crashed open with my gurney as I was wheeled into the room where the deed was to be done. I craned my head over, my neck cracked in protest, I could not see them with my eyes, as we were separated by a two way mirror, but I knew they were there. I could clearly see with my mind those same three huddled faces, sopping wet with tears, quivering with sorrow and regret, hoping beyond hope that the events that were about to unfold in the next few minutes would extinguish the smoldering fire of their loss. There was no doubt that sitting on the edge of his seat in angry anticipation would be the girls father, if they video taped the welcome party they threw for me in here I am certain he had a copy locked away in a safe place. I could almost feel his hatred for me creeping into my bones, the gloom of the others fell on my face like a wet cloth, I just wanted it all to end. Three delicate pin pricks on my arm, that left a distinct sagging sensation from the weight they attached to me, announced in uninterrupted terms that my wait would not be long.

The persistent priest put his wrinkled hand over my eyes and forehead, this was definitely a put on for the spectators. He babbled something in latin the exact meaning of which I doubt he knew. There was an audible click and a rush of cold entered into my arm, it felt like ice water was being poured into body, slowly spreading in a staccato pace towards my heart. Soon my heart was enveloped with the frozen serpent that by now had wound its way throughout my entire being. Twisting around my heart and lungs, tighter and tighter, strangling everything that moved with its arctic presence, the trilogy of my chemical end took immediate effect. The priests ring and the shaking mass of his hand soon felt like hot iron as my body sank into a pitch black coolness. My ears rang loudly with a roaring hiss that sounded like radio static was being dumped into my head, my breathing slowed to a snails pace and my thoughts cooled down to absolute zero. Dying is so easy.

Minutes passed, then hours, days, weeks, years, I completely lost my sense of time. I tried to open my eyes, but found out they were already open--a suffocating blackness filled them. My ears seemed as though they were stuffed with endless yards of cotton, I felt a building pressure inside my body, like I was being inflated and floating. Shouldnt I be dead yet? Why am I still here? The questions echoed without a voice in the total silence surrounding me. Horrified, the steel mallet of panic smashed into my whole body, shattering me, breaking me, I began to reel, swirl and tumble in the consuming void of my thoughts. My mind hurled me violently back and forth, up and down, as if I were being tossed about, snatched, grabbed and toyed with by a thousand angry shrieking demons. I reached out to steady myself, feel myself, find myself, simply to touch something or anything, but there was nothing, I couldnt even be sure I was moving. I was an inkless pen being dragged across a blank slate, I gasped for air, but could take nothing in, my panic grew in a cumulonimbus way at the realization that I could not breath. My panic was then starkly reborn into a cold and lasting dread as it occurred to me that I did not need to breath.

"Oh shit, it cant be like this forever, what kind of sick joke is this?"
"I must be in a comma, they must have screwed the injection up"
"WHY AM I STILL HERE!"

I tried to think rationally, but it proved too difficult a task to perform. I tried to remember something, an image, anything, but was drawing a complete blank. Sounds, images, sensations, they were all intangible, I could not move, there was no space, there was no time, it was as if I had no body.

Eons may have passed as I writhed in mental agony, struggling to come to grips with my persistent consciousness. I HAD to be dead by now, my body was surely destroyed in some leaky furnace by now, how could I still be awake like this, how!

Eventually my thoughts began to settle and form the sediment of a loose and soft reality. At first they came in as loud and startling flashes that danced maliciously through my mind. Memories of things I had seen, memories of sounds, memories of faces. Memories that began to grow steady and clear, memories that slowly faded into sharp resolution, they swirled around me slowly, I watched them drift by, unable to reach for them, unable to touch them, some drifted away and dissolved, others thrashed by with amazing force, and then out of the orbiting debris of all the mental garbage formed a tunnel, a tunnel that was more like a pit, I was facing its entrance, it was pulling me, tugging me, dragging me towards it at an accelerating pace. My mind choked in agony and horror, it was a hallway, a two toned green and white hallway.