Day 25,915 of My Incarceration

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 8/21/09

"Day 25,915 of My Incarceration"
by snowdog

Sept 17th, 2097. Day 25,915 of my incarceration

Damn, I wish the bastards wouldn't take up their fathers' profession. Seems like I had just finished celebrating the retirement of the one guard who once beat the hell out of me in the gym, then he reappears with a younger face and a grudge. Daddy told him to look out for me, I'll bet. Worse are the female guards. Most of them are nice, I must admit, but damn if they don't make me feel like I'm back in elementary school. "Ms. Halderman, may I take a piss?" At least most girls don't follow their mommies' dream of being a corrections officer.

Seventy-one years in this place today and no end in sight. I ran out of room marking the days on the wall long ago. Actually, I got punished for doing that sometime around day one hundred and seventeen and spent some time in cuffs while the walls were painted back to their cheerful bright white. White. Sterile. Cold. Could be worse, I guess.

I try not to let myself think back to that clinical trial that drove me to violent insanity, then took my ability to die. It tends to put me in the familiar depression spiral which I can see coming a mile off, but can't stop. I just needed a few lousy bucks to pay the rent on my fleabag apartment. It seemed like a good offer--free blood pressure meds, payment for my time. In hindsight, maybe I should have told them that I was addicted to heroin before I let them give me the other chemical they were testing. I wonder if the new drug made it to market? Does the label say "May cause immortality?"

You might not believe this, but I felt the pills hit my stomach. It burned like hell itself. I started screaming for the doctor. Everything went dark after that. Next thing I remember I had killed two of the lab workers in the room with various improvised weapons--I'm good like that--and was working on the doctor. I had him on the floor, both hands tightening around his throat. That's when I got hit from behind.

The corporate goon lawyers got a jury to believe that it was impossible for the drug to make a man violent. It had never happened before. It was the heroin they had found in my bloodstream. And, therefore, I was one hundred percent in responsible for killing those two girls. Then they pulled out the police record showing where I had attacked my father as a young man. That was all it took.

When they sentenced me to life in prison, no one knew about the other side effect.

I knew I shouldn't have started thinking about the past. Shit. There goes the son of that asshole guard now, eyes on me as he walks past my cell, just a little slower than the others. And a little smirk on his face as he fingers that stick of his. Punk.

I can't stay here forever. One day, one of the idiots they keep putting in the White House will be the death of this country. Let the Mexicans and the Muslims have it. I only hope I'm on the outside of the bars when the end comes.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I can wait that long. There is a faster way out. I could improvise a weapon to end it all today. Like I said, I'm good like that.