By: Kayla Develin
The nurse prepped the needle as her white gloves assessed his corpse.
“This should only hurt a little bit, Murray. You can look away if you’d like.”
“I reckon I wouldn’t feel a gnawing from a grizzly bear, staring into your eyes.” he replied, as the medicine slowly went to work.
His body went numb until he was comfortable enough to forget about the pain. Murray’s eyes shut and he drifted away to a place where he was no longer suffering. The voices inside of his head had always been there. It just took him a few years to realize that he was the only one who could hear them.
For the past 13, 140 days, Murray ate the food given to him through a 6 by 23-inch opening in that heavy, metal, door. That was life in solitary. Each time the door opened and closed, which wasn’t often, the voices prompted him to run. They pushed him. They questioned him. Sometimes, they were his only form of social interaction, so he valued them. After a while, the guards didn’t even have to bother using force. Murray ran to the one side of the wall. He ran to the other. He stayed within his confined space. He stayed there all day, and all night.
His children were married, or so he had seen through the pictures. He had grandchildren, and they were grown. The voices told him that he should go see them. But he couldn’t. He shouldn’t. Besides, they would never forgive him, even if they’d never met him. The other inmates were allowed to walk to a common bathroom to shower. Not Murray. Some of them were even allowed to go outside. But, not Murray. He hadn’t felt the sun kiss his skin in months, and it was only for a brief moment when he moved units. To Murray, the outside world was dead to him. He made sense of very little except for the voices contained within those steel walls.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Everywhere which way he walked.
One. Two. Three. Four.
“You’ve made your choice, Murray” they would tell him.
“There’s no way out” they shouted.
“Run” they encouraged.
But his time was cut short with his only friends who bargained with him so. When it was time to say goodbye, Murray was reminded of everything he didn’t have to live for. He was reminded of something he could never wish upon any murderer, no matter what their voices told them.
He was alone.
He lived alone. He died alone.
But now, he could finally escape.
Murray heard that steel door open and close for the last time. He shuffled one last lap around the prison grounds before he was led into the room. He locked eyes with the nurse, though he knew his fate was in her hands. Murray closed his eyes and sank into the most peaceful, self-inflicted decision of his life. He heard the voices tell him that it was all ok, it would all be ok. When the nurse said it was over, he was placed into the body bag. The weight of his thoughts aligned seamlessly with the weight of the man inside the bag. Confined to his grave, Murray would rest in peace.