It's impossibly ugly this sweater, but I wear it each week, no matter the weather Its fraying strands and moth-eaten holes are a story of when we were together This one was that fight in the rain This one was running to catch that train This dark stain on the chest was once the place where your head would rest Now you're gone but the story remains in the sweater I wear, even when it rains
Have you ever thought about how long 90 seconds really is? A minute and a half. A minute and a half stood between me and impending death.
“You have 90 seconds to hide” the masked man said as he paced before all us kneeling figures that at one point could have been people. Men. “If you are found, you die where you stand. Last one discovered will be released.”
And that’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? Freedom. But freedom always comes at a steep price.
The cull happened every year and everyone in the prison knew what it could mean. 12 men from the death camp were always chosen. 12 men to hunt. One man to be saved.
The choices were always random, a fucked up lottery meant to give all of us a false hope. 12 white balls in a sack of hundreds of red ones. 11 death sentences carried out. One man free. That’s the hope, really. To be that one man when odds are stacked so high against you you might as well just off yourself with a rusty nail if you were lucky enough to find one. That would be to much of a mercy in this place. But it’s there. That slim possibility that you will be the chosen one among 12 who will die in increasingly gruesome ways.
Unfortunately, at this years cull, I drew the last white ball. It was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I held it in my dirty hand. Stark white contrasted in the dingy light of the prison. They give you no time to think, no time to prepare. A shove to your knees and the ominous warning.
Only one of us will survive this.
I can only hope it’s me.
