Same Sex Marriage Final Analysis

"Cages" A Short Story

My father once told me that we all dig our own graves, but that sometimes we throw ourselves into them Ð'- without knowing how, or why, or what for; we merely lose our footing in this world. Most people are unable to determine the exact moment with which they let life wriggle from their clutches, allowing it to escape to the farthest corners of their minds and the deepest recess of their souls until the memory of it becomes nothing but a whisper of something familiar, something that once was real. But for those of us who do remember, we are truly the cursed of the Earth. No time served, no repentance made, no absolution sought will ever free us from the bonds that surround us or unlock the cages that we have built for ourselves. We become life's pariahs, secluded even from our own lies and deceptions about our unchangeable fates until we become entrapped in hollowed out frames of bone and sinew and flesh Ð'- nothing more than a ghostly visage of what we might have become.

I am one of the cursed.

Upon my release, I've always imagined Ð'- always known Ð'- that I would myself returning here, to the place where her life and mine collided in a torrent of flesh and blood and silence. The cafÐ"© hadn't aged a day in twenty-five years; I could still smell the noxious aroma of grease mixed with the scent of the bleach-soaked rag which hung from my fingers Ð'- the rag that would soon envelop her face. But it wasn't the same Ð'- she was nowhere to be seen. I'm not sure why I expected any different. Foolish of me, I know, to have thought otherwise. You can't bring back the dead; you can only stand there, letting the chilled air wash over you and relive the pain of that terrible truth, idly letting it sink into the most secretive chambers of your dark heart. No matter, though. Truth to be told, I had longed to find myself here for so many sleepless nights and unending days that I could have made this journey with my eyes sealed shut, the memories that boiled behind them hidden from the world and safe in the finality of such a revelation -- but I never anticipated or believed that I would find it so painful to open them; so difficult to release them; so afraid to let them go. Life, it appears, has a slow burn.

* * * *

I tried to make the most of my imprisonment. I tried to allow the lingering wisps of my horrific actions and the eventual capture thereafter to serve as the impetus for my own salvation. I tried, believe me I tried, but for every day spent in the license plate factory or roofing the new prison facility or out in the fields tarring the road, I found myself spending another lonely day in solitary, consumed with and surrounded by a darkness that was only matched by that which was to be found in my own heart.

My every action seemed futile until three months into my sentence. I was down in the laundry, attempting to survive the monotony of my day Ð'- a monotony that I mistook then for an attempt at a return to normalcy and contrition Ð'- when I found myself cornered, and alone, with Frankie Ð''Forky' Faison, the most notorious and feared convict that called San Remo Penitentiary his home for twenty-five to life. He brought others with him, too; several unknown assailants that chose to conceal themselves in the corners of the room -- tucking the shadows that resided there into their pockets and the deep into the creases in their clothes until they were covered in them. Only the glint of lust in their eyes was successful in revealing their position. I'm not sure how long the attack lasted. It could have been anywhere as quick as ten minutes or as dreadfully long as an hour. We were alone, and the only thing I'm positive of is that all of them had a turn at me.

They beat me within an inch of my life after they had had their fill Ð'- after they had been successful in obliterating the last remaining threads of dignity and pride that I had managed to coddle and conceal. I spent the next two months in the infirmary as the prison staff feebly nursed me back to health. I could tell they would have chosen not to, that if given the choice they would have rather allowed me to rot in the prison basement with the other vermin that found their way into similar traps during the course of their short lives. It appears strangely fitting then, I suppose, given my crimes, that cradled only in the threshold of death Ð'- and only then -- would I find the possibility for new life.

It was my second night spent in the infirmary when God finally chose to speak to me Ð'- or rather, that I had finally chose to listen. The prison chaplain, Father Reichold, was making his usual midnight rounds when I had first found my eyes opened, awoken by the sound of his voice Ð'- a voice that spoke the loudest in hushed whispers. He was seated next to the bed across from me, attending to Conroy Ullman, a two-bit purse snatcher who had slipped and fallen off the roof while installing some scaffolding. Upon listening more intently, it was evident to me that the father was delivering to him his last rites. The father was reading quietly aloud from the bible, in particular a story which I would later come to know as that of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the tale of a man who found himself resurrected from the shallows of death by God's love despite his previous corporal transgressions. Strangely, I found myself able to sleep soundly once again. Conroy, however, would not survive the night.

The next morning, to the bemused reaction of one of the orderlies, I requested a bible be brought to me so that I may read further. I consumed God's word and allowed it to seep into the very marrow of my bones, convinced in the belief that it was his love and forgiveness that had helped keep me alive in the immediate days following the attack. I read from the good book at a voracious pace, finishing the thick tome in just over a week. Only I didn't stop there. I continued to read until my eventual release from the infirmary, and even more thereafter. I began attending the services that Father Reichold held every morning before breakfast and within weeks eventually found myself enrolled in the San Remo Fellowship, a program that educates the small cabal of inmates who had found Christ in matters of faith and religion Ð'- even allowing them an opportunity to be baptized in a denomination of their choosing, an opportunity which I readily took advantage of. I allowed myself to be submerged in the baptismal waters, hoping to drown forever the haunting visage of myself, that dark half that resides within all of us, which had for too long been in control of my actions,