"Another day, another plate of this sh*tty government food, and another insult thrown at me by one of the inmates;
apparently even murderers and thieves have standards. These fools are all so misguided. Even the guards look down
at me as the scum of the earth, yet they don't even know me. No one does; at least, not anymore. The grey stone walls that
I once despised have become my only haven from the hellish outer world known as The Yard. In here, I'm Sam. I write, I read,
I whistle; I do anything to make the days go by faster. Out there, I am a pariah. Men who have dealt drugs to school children
look down at me as if I were the spawn of Satan himself. I am just a man dammit, I shouldn't be here! I used to protest my
innocence everyday, but it seems as though my efforts are all for naught. I have given up, my time here is over. I
write this note as I sit on my puke and blood-stained cot, yet again staring at the walls of my cell. They may contain my body
here if they wish, but my soul will shall take flight out of this world, out of the world of the wrongly imprisoned, the wrongly
accused. So for once, someone in this shithole made a shank that wasn't meant for anyone else. I hope you all rot in hell
for keeping me here, and I hope they find the guy who did it. If they don't, I hope he does it again. And again. And again and
again and again until one day, he realizes how fucked up it is, and he dies feeling pathetic, and his soul burns for eternity. Goodbye,
fuc--"
"Sam Wilson?"
It was the prison guard for my cell block. I was still lost in thought when he arrived, shiv in hand, trying to gain the courage to
do what I set out to do.
"Are you on fucking dope boy? I've said your name at least three times. Jesus, I knew you freaks weren't smart but I thought you'd
at least know when another man was talking to you."
"I'm sorry, sir. What is it?"
"Well...believe it or not, Diddles, it's been two years. Today you're free to go. But let me just tell you one thing...for two years,
I watched over you. I may not have been so pleasant, but everybody get's their first chance to fuck up. Even the freaks like you.
But if you end up here again, and I'm the one watching you, you'll die here. Everyone in this prison, they want to rip your eyes out
for seeing what you've seen, and rip your fingers off for touching what you've touched. Next time, I might not notice if they give it a try.
Now get up and let's get the hell out of here. Say, what's that in your hand?"
I still had my makeshift dagger laying in my left palm, and as I realized that's what he meant, I turned as white as a ghost.
"It's um...it's my toothbrush s-sir.", I said, beads of sweat pouring down my skin.
"Hahahaha! A toothbrush? Boy, I know that things a shank. But I also know you don't have the cajones to do shit with it!
And what the hell kind of craftsmanship is that? What were you plannin' on doin' with it? Aggrivatin' somebody?" The guard's words
pierced me harder than that toothbrush ever could've. However, the thought of being free filled my body with chills I hadn't felt since I
arrived in this hellhole. I didn't even care that the years had been taken from me, I just wanted out.
As I walked through the aisle past the other cellmates, they all hee-ed and haw-ed and yelled names. I tried my best to
ignore them; I just told myself they were all a bunch of benighted fools. Then one guy went off, not holding anything back, calling me
every name in the book. "Hey, man don't let that guy near the kindergartens around this town--"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!". I stood heaving with anger, my face blood-red. My heart was almost literally pounding out of my chest, like the old Looney Toons
cartoons. The guard shot me a menacing glare. I just responded with "...you have to understand, come on."
"Whatever greaseball, keep it moving.", he said. And so I proceeded down the hall, and ended up at the main offices to collect my possesions, things
which I had long since forgotten about.
"Okay, Sam," said the man behind the desk, "Let's see what you've got here...one t-shirt, white, one pair of blue jeans, some lame sunglasses
that I suppose you thought you looked cool in, a goofy picture of you with your dog, you're "wicked cool" Transformers wallet, and a "Gap Kids"
catalogue." He said with a smirk on his face. I gave him the most evil stare I had ever given a person. "Um..well that last one was just a joke..
here's your stuff." I took it and got outside. At least out there, I'd have a chance at being human.
...Right?
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,015 Literary Works • 672,847 Reviews
The title is a reference to Megan's Law, which is a law requiring sex offenders to register for their crimes, have signs put in front of their houses saying what they did, etc.
I realize the piece did not have much of an impact, but I also forgot to add that there was more to come than just this. Thank you for your review, I'll be sure to check your stuff out.
I'm wondering what is up with the formatting. It made this difficult to read. What did you use to type this up? If you used Notepad, there's an option under Format called Word Wrap; select it, and the text will automatically wrap down to the next line when it hits the edge of the dialog. Still, I suggest getting a word processor like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice (which is free) if you plan on doing a lot of writing.
With dialogue, you never put punctuation right outside the end quotations. You've repeated this mistake several times, so be sure to watch out for it in the future.
Another piece of punctuation you need to be more careful with is the ellipsis. I caught you using ".." instead of "..." at least twice.
You did a good job of dropping hints to the crime Sam had been accused of. As far as the impact of this piece goes, I didn't particularly feel anything; I think the formatting had a lot to do with it because it gave the entire story a disjointed feel. Also, I was wondering how the title relates to the rest of the story.