Deathrow High (Chapter 1)

This tale is about life, it mirrors everyday existence. If it’s a budgeted movie shot on video cam, you’ll get to pick up the hum of noises while filming. Therefore, don’t expect any highflying explosive effects or outlandish costumes; only be entertained by the mundane routine of reality.
Also, don’t be bothered by the guy in prison. You’ll never know why he’s in there in the first place. He’s just sitting in the shadows, allowing the dim light to flood through his soul until a contrast that highlights his mouth but camouflages his eyes appear to become two pitiless sunken sockets staring outward. Only his hand stuck forward in the light, holding a cigarette between fingers.
Frank sits silent. The smoke twirling off the fag mesmerises me. It looks like a serpent slowly uncoiling in to the skies. But fate has it that it’ll only be swallowed by the dark night.
“Emptiness is nothing you can share.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I was just singing to myself. Sugar Ray, Falls Apart I think.
“I remember…”
“Runaway, runaway la la la la la…o’ what the fuck.”

I’m visiting Frankie in his cell. I know I’m not supposed to, but I’m a nice guy and the warden likes me. I bring gifts, and besides, Frank needs company. He’s on death row, and perhaps someone in the inside has a soft heart toward dying men…I dunno.

Sometimes, men can be in the same room without saying a word. We don’t have that need to talk, unlike women…cos we’ve got nothing to say! Frankie can just sit there in his little own dark corner smoking a fag and I’ll sit down at the opposite end looking at him fag away.
But suddenly he started to cry. It wasn’t much initially, just a tear that streamed down his cheek like a shooting star crashing out of the shadows of outer space. Then another, then another…soon I heard a sob crackling from his throat…then another.
And to my horror, he began to growl. Gurgling sounds like those of persons smitten by sorrow. Eventually it got louder until it resembled cats screaming in the middle of the night behind alleyways. I was standing erect by then…lost…
The guards, alerted, came running to see, but they look more like fancy to me, like the way people slow down to stare at accidents on the road. Frankie keeled over in howls, mucus hanging precariously from his nostrils a foot down and I remember this war movie: A British soldier about to be beheaded by the Japs had the same facade as he, only that it was drool on that poor chappy that defied the laws of gravity.

To the guards I must have looked like a Messiah where a sinful man implores for forgiveness by clinging to my trousers and wiping his nose on it…