I’ve been staring out of the window for hours now. The mind drifts…

It’s nearly done, I changed it all. I was born one of legions cluttered and stained with the mark of failure. One of a mass that moves nowhere at all. A cancer settled on an organ without the gumption of trying for blood or bone, of movement.

Thanks to me a multitude experiences life as a new man. I’ve received so many letters, “I always hated my name, you made me change it, now I have a life!”

The work ends tonight.

“Lights out!” bellows the fat guard. The windows bars shadowed from the yard’s floodlights.

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Dear Son,

Tonight my work ends, you will be alone, unique. I am sorry you never accepted my sacrifices for you. I will make it all better tonight. For tonight, you become James Smith, alone and precious on this world.

Don’t fuck it up.

Love,
The Late James Smith, Sr.

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I place the note in my shirt pocket, pull tight on the bed sheet around my neck, and leap into history.