You know that you are shit. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That’s you.

No one came. No one let him out, and no one came to execute him.

He didn’t lack remorse, but he didn’t exude a remorseful air.

A man doesn’t cringe. A man doesn’t get down on his knees. A man doesn’t crawl.

His statement for the judge he’d written carefully on a sheet of white paper provided him by his lawyer.

I am sorry for my roll in what became of my children Lucas & Ester. I am sorry that I was temted to anger against the woman who is ther mother for it was this anger she has caused that drove me to that place. I am sorry for that, the woman was ever BORN.

Pissed him that the smart-ass lawyer wanted to correct his spelling. Roll was meant to be role. Ester was meant to be Esther.

The rest of his statement, the lawyer would not accept and refused to pass on to the judge. As if he had the right.

Took back the paper and crumpled it in his hand. Fuck this!

Anything they could do to you to break you down, humiliate you, they would. Orange jumpsuit like a clown. Leg shackles like some animal. Sneering at you, so ignorant you don’t know how to spell your own daughter’s name.

Sure, he feels remorse. Wishing to hell he could feel remorse for a whole lot more he’d like to have done when he’d had his freedom. Before he was stopped.

Covered in welts. Bleeding.

A good feeling. Washed in the blood of the Lamb.

He believes in Jesus, not in God. Doesn’t give a damn for God.

Pretty sure God doesn’t give a damn for him.

When he thinks of God, it’s the old statue in front of the courthouse. Blind eyes in the frowning face, uplifted sword, mounted on a horse above the walkway. Had to laugh, the General had white bird crap all over him, hat, shoulders. Even the sword.

Why is bird crap white?—he’d asked the wiseass lawyer, who’d stared at him.

Just is. Some things just are.

But when he thinks of Jesus, he thinks of a man like himself.

Accusations made against him. Enemies rising against him.

Welts, wounds. Slick swaths of blood.

Striking his back with the rod. Awkward, but he can manage. Out of contraband metal, his rod.

It is (maybe) not a “rod” to look at. Your eye, seeing what it is, would not see “rod.”

Yet pain is inflicted. Such pain, his face contorts in (silent) anguish, agony.

As in the woman’s sinewy-snaky body, in the grip of the woman’s powerful arms, legs, thighs, he’d suffered death, how many times.

Like drowning. Unable to lift his head, lift his mouth out of the black muck to breathe. Sucking him into her. Like sand collapsing, sinking beneath his feet into a water hole and dark water rising to drown him.