Just Another Inmate

Hotep,

The halls of unit 3 were constructed for the sole purpose of housing the gloom and perpetuating the distress of condemned men.  Moments of weariness transcend into days of loneliness, which eventually produces a man overwhelmed by years of emptiness.  

When the people on the outside lay to rest all memories of an inmate’s freedom – grasping to the halls of unit 3 and all that it entails – makes him just another inmate.

The judge and the district attorney no longer think about you, that is; until your number is called, then they will think of your long awaited demise as a signature moment of something they did right.  Since when has pointing fingers in the dark indicated the “right direction?”

If it’s any consolation, the jurors may think about you.  Their nightmares derived from self-guilt will keep you on their minds, but they can always pick up a phone and talk to someone to help dry the cold sweats.  

They can also sit in front of a computer terminal for hours, temporarily cleansing their minds of your ghostly existence, by occupying their thoughts with blogs about tropical flowers and the pleasantries of making pastries.  What outlet do you have?  You’re just another inmate.

If you rationalize a death row existence as not being so bad, until the state decides it’s your time to die; you’re just another inmate.

If life on the outside no longer counts unless it’s attached to a JPay deposit receipt, you’re just another inmate. 

Seventeen years I’ve been inside this box, coexisting with inmates and forming genuine bonds with prisoners.  Not a day has gone by without my sights set on the freedom that comes in the form of a familial embrace, that leads to an ongoing conversation about future ventures, and concludes with all parties involved exercising their freedom through the vernacular of a befitting goodbye: I’ll call you tomorrow; I’ll shoot you an email before the week is out; we’ll catch up at TGI Friday’s next Sunday.  Feel me?

Thoughts of freedom make me a prisoner to the halls of unit 3.  I don’t sleep long enough to grow tranquil in my subconscious freedom, so my daily plight is maintaining a free mind during my hours of interaction with a common logic to survive, when the thought of living is no longer rational.  I want to live; not survive.  Ya heard?

A prisoner’s quest to live will repeatedly be met by the innuendoes of some captors and most inmates.  I can only see them as mere pebbles on a beach that will soon succumb to my literary tidal wave – gaining momentum toward the shores of disbelief and closed –mindedness.  

My splash will be epic.  The residue of my flavor will be identified, as an inmate’s will to live, when so many choose to survive.  I will not be remembered as just another inmate.

Always 100,

MannofStat

Copyright © 2014 by Leroy Elwood Mann