“Open cell.”

“Hey Pete.”

“Clarence. As requested.”

“Thanks. Desert?”

“On its way.”

“No worries. That’s for you. You always talk about how you can’t resist a good meringue.”

“…Thanks C…”

“Welcome. How long they give me, to eat?”

“Long as you need. You’re not due ’til 4.”

Clarence Bishop, Fallen Angel’s what they call me in here. You’ve probably heard the story, the events that lead to my incarceration…and swift declaration of execution.

What I tell you now will potentially make you uncomfortable but I think that’s an important note. It’s not supposed to be comfortable, the truth rarely is. 

Sometimes a single phrase can sum up the entirety of an event something like, “wrong place, wrong time.” For me it would be, “scorned race, deplorable time.”

The trial was seen by many as, “A victory the people needed.” By the majority however, it was described as, “The remnants of human spirit’s defeat.”

“Clarence Bishop, you stand guilty of murder in the worst degree: premeditated designed decimation of cultural misappropriation.

“Your victim: patriotic privilege. Cut down in its prime.

“You accuse the victim of multiple counts of rape against a multitude of victims with no proof being offered towards these claims…”

“No your honor.”

“What proof then do you offer?”

“The self made records of patriotism, written in discrimination. The records, your honor, that all too often are chosen to be forgotten. I’ve entered them as, ‘Privileged Omissions of Guilt.'”

“Is this, your only proof? Son, this court can’t conceive brown eyes are capable of seeing truth.”

My verdict was reached before I sat back down.

“Guilty in an act of terror derived in fabrication resulting in the defamation of, ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ It’s your lack of constitutions, boy, that prove ours to be superior.

“Sentence: dishonorable death by lethal injection made available to the public so that it may be filed in history as a forgotten folly.”

*                                                               *                                                                      *

“…C, it’s time…”

“Pete. You’ve been good to me…you didn’t have to be.”

“…Ready?”

The first step, felt like I was learning to walk all over again. Funny, strange I guess, how so often an end can feel so much like a beginning. 

Maybe that’s just how life is. A beautifully synchronized beginning and end. Peaceful, when you think about it really.

I wonder, if people wonder what their last words will be or hope they might be. I think, for me, it’s not so much about being remembered but more so about making one final positive impact. Not an act but a choice:

My persecution solved nothing and addressed everything but the truth. The accusers instead chose to label me as the problem. The wrong in a world built in the right, a society defined by a solid line dividing black and white. Borders and walls built in haste in order to avoid necessary change. 

Ignorance and fear killed me. Blended with discrimination to create my lethal injection. 

Odd how keen people can be on division until mixing becomes the best choice to support the illusion of power. 

A singular pharaoh ideology was the foundation of a pyramidal society beginning to control its population by killing it internally in infancy.

We suffer, collectively unaware; equal in all aspects of life but unable to notice because we’re too busy trying not to seem wounded. Contributing to our downfall because we deny our pains. 

 

I’ve never been one to deny what I feel, I’d never want that for anyone including you. Let your feelings be heard, by the masses, yes, but first and foremost by you. 

Today, I die. For you, but don’t be sad for me.

If you know me, be angry, be hurt, be sad. But not for me, don’t cry for me. Cry for those who don’t yet understand, so that your tears might help them grow to understand all they fail to see. 

Don’t allow my death to stifle your life, please. I’ll live on in you, with you, as you should do with each other. 

Let every heart beat, every breath and every movement bring meaning and purpose to you moment by moment. So you may be the belief when people don’t know what to believe in. So that you may be silent when the world seems chaotic and loud. 

Be the truth, patiently waiting for your moment when others beg for you to choke on lies. 

 

I know, once I lay on the table, they’ll expect it to be the end. They want to believe it’s over. I wrote this for you, because I want them to know how wrong they are. 

Not just about me, about everything. 

This, is only the beginning. With my last breath, true freedom will ring.

 

-Gustavo Lomas