The New Death Row At Stillwater Penitentiary by Diego Valero

Warning: Contains slight allusions to violence

“Patience is a virtue.” Father Hill always said during catechesis. He spoke the words in a way only a fervent believer can, but he never seemed too preoccupied with teaching the practical side of exerting patience. I don’t know if he expected me to learn via osmosis from parables, or if simply drilling that hackneyed maxim into my head was supposed to somehow reprogram my behaviour.

Suffice to say, I never managed to attain the ever-elusive key to patience; not many virtuous men end up in here, although those who do would swear their perceived rectitude on their mothers’ graves. Liars, the lot of them, if not poor fools in denial. If you’re wondering how does one come to find themselves amongst such illustrious company, I’m sorry to disappoint with a story devoid of thrills and spills.

About a half a year ago, my cousin approached me with a proposition. I was to drive him and his friend over to the bank, they would take care of the rest. “You’ll make more than what you take home in a year.” he said, and I, lacking the patience of a better man, accepted. I was ultimately unsuccessful in my quest for quick riches, but I did earn a one-way ticket to Stillwater penitentiary. Though I never got the chance to settle in with my fellow dregs of society, for I was once again forced to relocate after only a month. My shortness of temper and sight got the best of me for a second time, when a difference of opinions with my cellmate escalated into a physical altercation. We both found new accommodations afterwards; him, the infirmary, and me, the solitary confinement cell where I currently reside. A fortress of solitude inhabited only by a rickety foam mattress, a small latrine with running water, and yours truly, all delicately arranged within the confines of three and half cubic meters, all to myself. I did not mind the limited space at all, but managing the copious surplus of time that suddenly fell into my hands proved more torturous than I could have anticipated.

It is quite curious how, despite the capacity of higher forms of reason, the human mind is particularly inept at as trivial a task as time-keeping, as attested by all the amateurish musicians who can’t hold a beat to save their lives. When deprived of natural light for extended periods, the body’s circadian rhythm decalibrates, and its biological clock is plunged into disarray. Seconds dissolve into minutes which dissolve into hours, past and future converge into an infinite, inescapable present. However, one may still catch a glimpse of a guiding beacon when navigating the turbid tides of time. That lighthouse appeared to me as a series of recurring patterns, in which I found an oddly comforting monotony that kept my fleeting wits tethered to reality. Three meals a day, every day—brought to my own door by my own personal concierge, as they do at the Ritz itself. At noon, the guests in General Population fill the courtyard for the allocated recreation time. The hustle and bustle runs through the corridors outside my cell, carrying whispers of gossip and sordid dealings, and painting mental pictures of a crowded market square. Finally, just before supper, a faint static intrudes through the poorly-insulated vents, beckoning like a siren, and I project myself onto the warden’s lounge, where I tune in to listen along to the MLB broadcast on the radio. With time I got lost in the soothing rocking of my little routine, counting down the days, envisioning the moment when I’d get to see the blue sky and taste the fresh air again. But I suppose

my peaceful way of life had been tempting fate for too long, tantalising misfortune to come and wreak havoc.

It occurred in the middle of the night. An incipient tumult awoke me, and then a strepitous thunder shocked me to full lucidity. Hasting footsteps moved further, immediately followed by nearing, anguished yells. Then came a sound I’ve been lucky to hear only once or twice, yet is its profile so unmistakable, so violently vivid, I’d be able to identify it anywhere—the roars of gunfire.

Such escalation of force was reserved for the unlikely event of a riot. I found myself disbelieving. Had the prisoners been driven mad to the point of revolution? I could only count on sound to keep me informed on how the situation developed, yet I needed not to bear eye witness to know a massacre was taking place. The instant in between each fired round was filled with telling clues. A Bang, a scream of pain. Another Bang, a desperate plea to stand back. Another bang, a body hitting the floor. And then… silence.

The commotion ceased at once, and my racing heart alone disturbed the dead quiet of night. The agitators had been subdued as quickly as they rose up, and in a strange way, I pitied them. Any plan of insurrection hatched within these walls was doomed to fail since its ill-conception; believing otherwise was a severe misconstruction of the penal food chain. Once you enter the gates of this correctional facility you are stripped of your agency—chained, declawed, and tamed to join the ranks of the sheep, and regardless of an overwhelming numbers advantage, quelling a rebellion of sheep is a trivial task for single wolf.

I tried to fall back asleep, but I spent the rest of the night in a semi-conscious state. Recalling the fallibility of the psyche, I was prepared to deem the entire ordeal a fabrication of my most wicked dreams, had it not been for what followed.

The first sign of something amiss was breakfast, or more accurately, the absence of it. I had never known hunger during my stay at Stillwater, so when my gut began baying for food, I attributed it to a natural increase in the body’s fuel consumption in order to better regulate its temperature in the burgeoning winter. I could not tell how much time had passed, but with my stomach growing progressively restless, I was certain that, for the first time, my room service was late. My neighbours in their cells took to their doors to voice complaints from similarly empty stomachs, still, no food arrived. The unrest spread further amongst the populace when no one came to unlock the cell doors for the day’s activities. I joined their chorus of bemoaning wails in the hope of eliciting the faintest acknowledgment of our presence by our keepers. When the only response was the reflected echoes of my own voice, I knew that the clamour fellon deaf ears, if any at all. One by one we lost the will to protest as they succumbed to hopelessness. With my energy depleted, I started to feel the pull of gravity on my eyelids, and as an onset state of hibernation took hold of my conscious sense, my unconscious hearing could distinguish an ominous portent hidden in the static white noise of the vents.

The rattle of dragging chains, its friction with the ground resonating in a horrid metallic whirr that rang painful in my teeth, trailing behind footfalls that channelled the impetus of marching legions in each step. One-two, one-two; like drums of war heralding the advent of death. The procession paused for a beat, then I heard it again—the same blood-curdling screams from the night of the

riot, this time coming from the cell next door. A morbid curiosity overpowered my better judgement and I approached the porthole on my door to see who—or what—what was responsible. Before my cell stood a bipedal entity, whose very essence bespoke a blasphemous convergence between the kingdoms of man and beast. It moved with uncanny grace, carrying along an anthropomorphic frame of impossible proportions that could hardly contain its dreadful character, and leaving in its wake a crimson trail of what I assume was once my fellow inmate. My sanity, unable to bear laying eyes on it for a fraction of a second longer, broke the monster’s hypnotising spell and I took cover in a shadowy corner, hoping it did not see me.

“This isn’t happening. It is but a nightmare.” I said to myself over and over, emulating the fervour of Father Hill, as if relentless repetition could conjure thought into reality. Unable to dispel the truth however, this encounter begets a sobering epiphany. It dawns on me just how terribly mistaken I was in believing there to be any difference between incarcerators and incarcerated. There are no wolves nor sheep in this prison—only humans. All equally constrained by the earthly limitations of our fleshy vessels. The creature I speak of pertains to a higher form of being, the ultimate result of the evolutionary process, and it had at long last arrived to take its rightful throne of apex predator. In an act of karmic comeuppance, it was now mankind’s turn to be done unto us as we had done unto all other intelligent beings of creation.

The harvesting continued to take place periodically. On which interval I cannot say, nor can I even begin to speculate about the metabolic mechanisms of the new warden. Furthermore, it appears not to be governed by any deliberate order or pattern in its selection process. Sometimes I hear its feeding ritual occurring in the same corridor as my cell; other nights it manifests as distant reverberations in a remote corner of the premises.

It is said hope is the last thing to die, but hope has long abandoned me, yet I am still alive to suffer its absence. I’ve had transient fantasies of escape; bellowing at the top of my lungs for a saviour to come, or scratching a hole in the ground until my nails fall off, but even as I search every fibre of my being, I cannot find the strength to stand up. All there is left for me to do is wait, adrift again on the tides of time; my anchor is lost, the flame of my lighthouse extinguished, surrounded by boundless blue as far as the eye can see. Each moment flashes in front of me, taunting me with the promise it’ll be the last, before finally dissolving into a bitter taste in my mouth as I must carry on this Sisyphean journey—a half-hearted excuse of non-committal existence, trapped between life and death. In the realm where hourglasses defy gravity, and pendulums are frozen in place, I have nothing but time to perfect the art of patience. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

However irregular, the end remains an immutable constant. The only reason I am still drawing breath is the unpredictable whims of fate, and my luck has worn thin. The realisation weighs on me like a noose around my neck. My 5 years have been upped to a death sentence, but my body will never know the merciful release of the electric chair, nor my soul the dignity of a Christian burial. This cold concrete cage will be my final resting place, these four walls my coffin. Even in my final hours I cannot escape my cowardly instincts, having stooped so low as to quench my basal needs with toilet water and whatever small rodent finds its way into my cell. I am not a virtuous man; the kind of man that can meet his end on his own terms. Though god alone knows exactly when, one day, as sure as taxes are due each spring, the executioner will come knocking on my door.

Nonfiction