Remembering (standard:drama, 1755 words)
Author: Lori	Added: Mar 26 2004	Views/Reads: 3583/2215	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I did a rewrite on it. Thanks to Tim for his kindness. Thanks for everyone that made comments on it. It's still a story of a woman's last day on death row.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

She remembers that he bought a new car after she got back to work. He
also got three new girls that week. She was beyond caring, falling back 
into the old ways. The only thing that mattered was where her next 
"fix" was coming from. How much money she could make to buy that next 
rock. What "john" to go to so she could possible gets it for free? 
Those were the things Nora thought about. 

Nora thinks about the last beating she got. The pimp got mad because she
did a "freebie". The man had given her a couple rocks, instead of 
money. Nora hadn't cared about the money. She just wanted to escape and 
make the world go black for a little while. Not wanting to feel so 
cheap and used up. To put all her troubles on the back burner, feel the 
clouds all around her. Nora wanted to recapture that feeling of peace 
she had felt before. 

She doesn't remember how the gun got in her hands that day. She thinks
about seeing it on the table. Her pimp had always kept it there. He had 
always been paranoid about the police raiding his house. The man had 
been into more then just prostitution. Nora remembers he had threatened 
her with it. He had said that he should have pistol-whipped her. Nora 
thinks about him slamming her into the walls of the apartment. She can 
remember the pain racing through her body. He struck her in the face, 
the body, and the head. Nothing had been too much for him. The more 
pain he caused, the better job he did on her. The more Nora cried out, 
the harder they were. The more she moved away from him, the faster they 
came. The bloodier she got, happier he was. Nora had felt like she was 
going to die. But Nora wasn't going out alone. He was coming with her. 

The woman remembers hearing the shots from a distance. She thought she
heard someone scream, but couldn't place where it was coming from. At 
first, she thought she had been hit. There was so much blood covering 
her. Nora looked over at her pimp. It was like watching something in 
slow motion. It seems like he took forever to fall. She kept firing the 
gun, watched each bullet enter his body. A stray bullet hit one of the 
girls, running out of the kitchen. She died instantly, no one care that 
she was an accident. Nora puts the gun to her own head. She knew there 
was no way out of this one. Life had failed her again. 

Nora recalls getting tackled to the ground by someone, before she put
the bullet in her head. She remembers that it was the police arriving. 
She thinks about being handcuffed and put in the cruiser. She thinks 
about the long ride to the police station, with the rain falling 
outside. The policemen kept asking her over and over why she did it. 
The only thing she could say was she wanted the pain to stop. 

She pleaded guilty. The lawyer felt that she might get a lighter
sentence because of the circumstances. The judge didn't see it that 
way. He had said that she should have thought more about what she had 
done. Nora had killed two people; there was no way out of it. It was 
time for capital punishment. Even though one of the lives she took 
wasn't much of a life, the other one could have counted for something. 
He had felt sorry for her. No one should have had to put up with the 
things she had. But there was a price to pay, a price she was going to 
have to pay with her own life. That had been her choice any way. The 
only way to right the wrong she had done was to die. 

The older, wiser woman recalls every day in her cell. She remembers the
pain she has endured in that cell. Her pimp, and her life, has come 
back to haunt her in her dreams. No one comes to see her. There was 
never anyone that cared enough about her to come. Nora has had no one 
in her life to help her along the way. There's been no one to take away 
the pain, no one to love. There's been no one to hold her as she cried. 
There was no one to care whether she lived or died. 

The pain stops today. Today is her day to die. Nora didn't even try to
stop it. It was time for her to give up this life of pain. It was time 
for her to be reborn. Maybe this time, someone up there would get it 
right. Maybe in her next life, she will be loved and wanted. Maybe 
there will be someone in her life to treat her like a human being, 
instead of some kind of animal. Maybe she could have a baby to love. 
Someone she could read too, someone she could care for. Maybe she could 
be a princess and be waiting for her prince. He sure didn't help her in 
this life. 

Nora doesn't see the woman beyond the glass. The woman cries for the
child that never got to live. She cries for the woman that never got to 
love, the babies that never got born. She cries for the sister she 
never go to know. Not until it was too late to tell her who she was. 
She's looked for this woman a long time, and just found her yesterday. 

She recalls the walk to the room. She remembers lying down on the bed,
the needle going in her arm. She doesn't remember anything after that. 
There's nothing to remember. Nora died the way she has lived. Quietly 
taking that last breath, she leaves this world for the one beyond. 

She hears someone calling out to her in a voice of love. "Come on little
one, it's time to come home." 


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