Lover’s of Lightning

**Part — 1**

I, Natalie Cartman, from Ohio, will be dead by the end of the story. A murder or execution I can’t say. I will leave that upon you to decide. One might as well say I will finally be allowed to live. But that’s just stuff people say to the miserably dying. Fun Fact I imagine, it not normal it’s not right for a low life like myself.

It was to be my last day in the box hell, more of a box than it was hell they told me. Because even outside the box my life was to be a hell they told me. Considering what they told me I had done. The monsters, they treat you much better than the world would have.

It was to be my first in a million years, a journey. To the death house. The old cell of mine had no tally marks like others. What was I to wait for? For me, it was all over a long time back. It was small and had a little less than the very basic.

There was a thorough check. I used to hate it, made me feel like a piece of meat from which bones were to be taken out. Now I didn’t care, cared for nothing. They transferred me, I was fluid. I didn’t care where it was. I just moved. Didn’t care which day it was. They had 5 guards to transfer a single prisoner too tired to scratch her head. Quite the waste of resource.

There was such a silence like I had never heard before. Maybe death is the only quite thing about the legal system. This was the last daylight show in my life and it was soon to be over. And now would be darkness on and on.

The death house had managed to achieve a certain level of gender neutrality. As there were male officers as I was strip checked. Something I had not seen in ages. I wouldn’t have cared if not for the thought “what would my husband think?”. As if he mattered to anybody but me.

As I was in my new cell. I had asked for a pen and paper to write to you dear friend. I had written so less and read so much in the last few years that it’s a miracle I remember the strokes. And the reading in the first few months was so much about me. The defence feed I was guilty, my attorney I was not, and media they just told the most

interesting parts sprinkled with blood icing. And you know who won the media did, for everyone believes it, so did i.

“Catholic Girl Kills Husband in Cold Blood”. my first appearance read.

Cold Seriously! But then again I don’t remember much of anything before this emptiness. I was Catholic, probably, it somehow happened to be something very important to the three parties. I was just blown wherever strong currents from the big three took me.

Did I kill my dear, handsome, tall, brilliant husbands murder, I don’t know. Even those adjectives, you see, were the ones taught to me by my attorney

Spoiler Alert! The box hell dilutes your memory, you soon start to forget yourself or anyone else for the matter. It starts when you plea ‘Not Guilty’ and the big three they shoot you with bullets from your own life you never knew about. And When you are hit by thousands of bullets coming toward you with a velocity of 100m/s you hardly remember anything about the construction of your body before that. I went to prison knowing as much about myself as an enthusiast on the case would have.

But I was allowed to take a few memories. Memories of love for my husband and our dead son, a miscarriage. Memories I had guarded

with my bare body as the big three splash acid all over.

But life wasn’t that bad I read up to my neck. As if I wanted to forget who I was and embrace a million new lives. Happy lives, mysterious lives,

even lives like mine. But the lives were so easy to end. I was the bird of pages. Chirping in silence. For if I were to shout, all anyone heard was a noise,

They did not understand my language but I understood theirs.

Soon After she gave me the pen and paper, she came with some casual clothes. It was a blessing to have a change. They give you a personal guard in here. So Scared I would kill myself the day I was to die. She asked me if I wanted to call someone this one last time. Those words broke me into tears, for I wanted to talk to my husband, but how could I? I asked her to leave me. It was rude of me, I apologized in a moments notice.

I had good food. It was a curse. Pretty funny how similar Cure and Curse sound, isn’t it? They let you have anything you want on your final day. My only choice of food in what they told was twelve years. To someone outside, it might look like a blessing. To someone who had nothing to lose it was a reminder they indeed have something too.

**Part — 2**

I sat on my chair, writing to you, dear friend. Writing about my final moments. Writing about how I was soon to meet darkness. About the dead emotions all over and around my body. And then I heard someone. The only voice I loved to hear. The only voice who would also listen. My tall, dear, handsome, brilliant husband.

“Honey, What is it that you are writing on the paper, for I so wish I was the paper and the paper me, for then there would be love for me too”

“Speak not like that dear husband, I love you all the world,…but after our little Charle”

“But where is little Charle? I haven’t seen him all day”

“He is with his friends, now playing, didn’t want him to see me this day. Bethune is a real pretty girl”

“That she is. Come here, honey”

I like when we talk in this fashion, reminds me of the old days, the green grass, a life not just of mere survival. Getting up from the chair I moved towards him, he kissed me on my forehead. I love when he kisses me on the forehead. But I knew deep down it was a kiss from me to myself. And I had no one, at least alive.

He asked me to lay down on this lap. With his soft child-like hand he stroked my hair. Sometimes moving his hand over my face, squeezing my nose a little. He felt soft, He felt smooth, felt like the last blessing. At least that’s how I wanted to spend my last few hours of this cursed life. In the care of the man I loved, the man they told me I had killed.

“Naty, you look sick”

“Should I not be it’s my last day?”

“Isn’t that something to be happy about. You will finally get to be in my arms and with little Charle. We could finally walk the Eden holding hands like we were supposed to. Charle is so handsome now, you will be so proud to see him. You know he is very good at baseball. He might have a future there. He so longs to see you. So do I to finally get to spend my life with you. A life they have taken away from us.A life we finally get to live. They call capital punishment cruel, I say it’s the best gift they could ever give to you …to us “

“But dying hurts. Does it hurt Tom, Does dying hurt, Tom?”, I always loved saying that word,” Tom”. Hate my attorney for what he said about him, my dead love.

“Not at all, it did a little for me as I was taken away from you. But I got to meet our Charle, and he is such a handsome little boy now. And I can’t tell you how much I waited for this day.”

“So did I honey”

I was with a smile, smile like the one at our wedding. I couldn’t wait to finally get to meet him again and finally be able to see our little child. I was to see the bright lights of life again. Couldn’t hold the happiness in me. Anyone who walked past my cell must have thought me to be a crazy person. They were crazy to think I was to mourn this curse. Little did they know about the life that awaited these twelve years of death.

I had denied a priest as I had my husband and you dear friend to prepare me for the procedure and that he did. I feel a person who finds a priest or a therapist more soothing than her partner must reconsider their marriage.

And this way my love turned my curse into a cure.

**Part — 3**

What I write now is, what I expect the future to be. For now the pen and paper shall no more be mine and I am to be taken to the chamber. I can’t express how happy I am and how much eager I was to go through the procedure that would finally let me live again.

It was around 4:30 that day, they had a clock in my cell. Who knew they still existed. I assume the witnesses of my beautiful journey had finally arrived. My new cell was heaven compared to where I was earlier. It was so much more cleaner and I didn’t have to share it insects one of each kind. In a word it was pretty.

It was 7 pm. It was time!! 5 guards for 4 meter, the math didn’t seem right, but I sure did feel special. I finally saw my chair. It was so Magnificent, so remarkable, so heavenly.

Yes, I had considered I might end up in hell. But God will know the truth if I had killed my love, he wouldn’t have to care for the big three. And if had killed my love, which is so difficult a thing to think for I would take my own life before I could do something like that, he will most certainly forgive me for I have been a good child to him for the last twelve year. He can see LOVE, he will let it live. He forgives, doesn’t he?

I walked slowly towards the chair. The last steps. The last breaths. The last so many towards the first so much.

My last words they were, “Why is it all so Dark, It was supposed to be bright”