The Last Breath Sephiroth017 The convicted murderer looked about the disheveled room. The room was very dirty and smelled strongly of urine due to the old worn out toilet at the corner. The bed, which was made of plywood covered by a thin sheet of ragged cloth, was barely any comfort. The room was dark and the only window was barred. The bars were rusty and the room looked more like an asylum than a prison cell.
The prisoner felt numb spending his last day on earth in such a room. Just yesterday, he had received the news of his execution by lethal injection. In spite of the room’s darkness, it was extremely hot and the prisoner’s body was sweating both from the heat and from anxiety. He didn’t really understand the predicament of his position. The lawyer barely told him anything. All he knew was that today he’d breath his last. Of course, you wouldn’t expect him to really understand anything. He never had any education. He couldn’t even read or write. The only knowledge he possessed was simple mathematics. He needed to know addition and subtraction to survive this world.
Without any knowledge of his helplessness, his mind drifted off to the day that served as the catalyst of his doom.
His name was Miguel Lopez. He lived in a squatter’s area. His home consisted of tin walls and a cardboard roof. Like most of the boys in his area, he didn’t go to school nor did his parents teach him to read or write. However, being quite intelligent, he learned addition and subtraction from the lady vendor near the junkyard. He was expected to work, in spite of his young age of five, in the junkyard. The family needed the money. Boys who don’t work get to be beaten up by their fathers. Miguel was all too accustomed to this for even if he worked all day his father would still beat him up if he didn’t give him money for booze.
The beatings and the inescapable poverty made him a rebel. When he reached 18, he made a very drastic move that forever changed his life. He hated his life and decided to start form scratch in the city. After saving up enough cash for a bus ride, he took a trip to the nearest city and began to look for jobs.
He found the world to be a hostile place in the city. Being uneducated, he was thrown out from every place he went to for work. Every place except a pub called “Lily’s”. “Lily’s” was owned and controlled by Mafia. The owner, Don Crisostomo, was a fat and lazy opportunist who hired Miguel to get labor for a lesser cost. Miguel didn’t argue about the low pay because it was infinitely better than the money from collecting junk and the pub was the only place that accepted him.
He started out as a bartender but soon found himself being one of Don Crisostomo’s prostitutes. It started when one bisexual, who happened to be Don Crisostomo’s right hand, saw him in the pub. Soon, he became a regular and would often spend the night in the arms of the various gays, bisexuals and women who enter the pub. He didn’t complain about this. The pay was good and the job was easy. What was he to complain about anyway? He never knew neither dignity nor morality.
This way of life carried on for years until he was trusted by Don Crisostomo. Soon enough, he was asked to handle some Mafia related affairs. He delivered packages and met with people representing Don Crisostomo. All along, he never had a clue as to what he was doing. Being the illiterate child that he is, he carried his orders without delay.
This signaled the start of his downfall.
Miguel was tending the bar as he always did every Saturday when an order from Don Crisostomo was brought to his desk. It instructed him to deliver a package to Signor Ibarra, Crisostomo’s partner.
He obediently got the package and proceeded to Signor Ibarra’s rest house. He wouldn’t have gotten in trouble if he knew how to read. The cab he rode in ran out of gas and decided to drop him off the nearest place to Signor Ibarra’s rest house. He somehow got the wrong address and left the odd looking package in the wrong house.
The next day as he was about to go to work, a hundred or so policemen swarmed in the pub. The package, he soon learned, contained a bomb destined to explode 12 hours after he delivered it. The explosion was set to kill Signor Ibarra so that Don Crisostomo will have Ibarra’s share of their profit. However, since the bomb was delivered to the wrong house it caused the death of a family of five. The bomb was traced back to Miguel by the cab driver, who remembered the odd man with the unusual package. The fingerprints were done and they matched Miguel’s fingerprints perfectly.
Don Crisostomo was furious with Miguel for he not only ruined his opportunity to get more profit but also endangered the activities of the Mafia.
Don Crisostomo was only too eager to point the accusing finger to Miguel and get out of the mess using his army of skilled lawyers. The Mafia was ready to get rid of Miguel but since he was facing capital punishment with a hundred or so evidence against him, they decided to leave him to the hands of the court. Being entirely clueless about his boss’ activities, the jury didn’t take long to convict him of murder. His lawyer couldn’t do anything about the trial. The evidences were heavy and the Mafia was backing up the prosecution. Miguel couldn’t hire a decent lawyer for himself nor could he understand the proceedings that determined his life.
Now, he sat in his prison cell desolate and tired of it all. Life simply lost its meaning and lure. He was stuck in his own abysmal, inescapable abyss awaiting the world’s irrevocable judgement.
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