The Last 24 Hours

Mashed potatoes. I know it’s going to be the end. It’s truly the end today. It’s the last time I’ll ever wake up. Waking up is simple. I blink my eyes open. Is there anything else to it? I don’t try to look inward or think anymore.

There’s no use in prescribing meaning to anything when you can only look forward to a bleak hole of nothingness ahead. I don’t believe in a God. I don’t believe there’s anything to live for. It’s better that way, comforting even.

I can’t help it but I often think about my daughter. Her bouncy chestnut curls. I’ll never hold her again. Tamara turned her against me, and I hate her too. I hate both of them. Her perfect soft skin - unadulterated by this cruel world. I used to like to pinch her flushed pink cheeks, frigid from the breeze of the harsh Minnesotan winters.

They don’t believe me. I don’t know if I believe myself anymore. Did I really kill that man? I’m not a big man, neither am I a strong man. My knuckles puncture white and tight against pale translucent skin - the lack of exposure to the sun and kindness, probably. My bones stick out in unfortunate angles and I’m a crooked human. I’m ugly, outside and inside. Beauty is not skin deep.

I fought with the warden and a few inmates a week ago. Not because I wanted to, but they like to pick on me. They’ve left me alone now after word got around that I was heading for The Chair. The bruises are kind of nice; if I poke and prod at them after - even for weeks, it makes me remember that I still have some feeling.

It’s not black and white. My jumpsuit is orange.

My last meal is mashed potatoes, three peas. I’m sitting in the plastic chair. The plate is a vintage white and the portion is heaping - the three peas are not laid on the top of the mound. They are placed to the side. Not altogether, not touching, but strewn in a haphazard fashion. One pea is touching the mound of mashed potatoes.

I chose this as my final meal.