The air was rich with the sweet smell of lilacs, filling Aaron’s nose with pleasure as he peered across the garden to see those emerald eyes he had fallen in love with. He reached out with his hand as she approached, only to be met face to face with a wall.
“Daydreaming again, maggot?” a voice called from outside his cell.
That’s all it was, faded memories of a happier time, before the war they had tried to escape. had finally caught up with them. But he had to make the best of these grim circumstances. The wall was an empty canvas for his mind to inscribe on. Where is she now? His tear-stained eyes implored. Please give me a sign.
But the wall ignored his pleas, giving the same excuse each time for not fulfilling his wishes; All in all, we’re all just bricks in the wall.
How much longer could he bear this fate? Sitting in this cell decaying, with only one thing left to look forward to; an electric funeral. Aaron sacrificed everything he believed in for her, and would do anything to have one last gaze at those eyes. One last kiss, one last touch…
“Dinner-time, maggot!”
He watched as a puddle of Chili was plopped onto the floor. It reeked; a foul stench of something that's likely been spoiled for days.
Aaron couldn’t take it anymore. His suppressed rage was set to implode. All of the unorthodox methods of torture (being stripped of his garments, whipped until his cries wounded his pride, and being fed like a swine that had to rummage for scraps of food on the floor) had finally drove him over the edge. He stuffed himself with a handful of rotten chow, and spat at the guard.
“YOU LITTLE S***!” the guard barked as the prisoners erupted in a chorus.
Aaron sprang forward as the guard barged into the cell. But it was to no avail, his eyes were met with a pistol as the guard’s bickering became a deafening static in the background… then, darkness.
When Aaron awoke, his vision revealed a sea of red. “Tell my wife I love her.” He muttered to the absent air. But, he realized his plea was of no use. The pistol was now in his hand, and the viscous sea caressing his feet below, was not his own.
Rather than attempt an escape that was an obvious suicide mission, Aaron began to paint the wall now that he finally had the opportunity, thanks to the guard’s sacrifice.
“What’s her name?” a curious voice echoed in the background.
Aaron poked around to see a man with a fedora hat standing in the doorway, admiring his sadistic mural. His hands searched for the pistol, but it wasn’t long before he realized the man with the hat now possessed it.
“Just shoot me!” Aaron commanded, only to hear the man with the hat repeat his question.
The cell remained silent, as the man’s piercing dark eyes made Aaron tremble in fright.
“Anise, is it?” the man questioned.
“Ye, yes.” Aaron replied with a tremble in his throat.
“I have some news about her, if you’d like to know?”
The man didn’t bother waiting for a reply, he must have seen the answer lingering in Aaron’s watering eyes. He led Aaron into an interrogation room, and handed him a blank sheet of paper with a pencil.
“She’s headed to death-row, for all of the innocent lives she took with her.”
“She’s innocent!" Aaron squealed. "It’s all a lie!”
“Ah, Love. You were so blinded by it, that it made you betray all that you believed in. Thousands of lives were lost because of her. Not to mention everyone who died on your account, when you tried to help her escape. Her eyes deceived you Aaron, but I understand. Love can make you do crazy things in order to protect its bond. But some bonds are implosive when they connect.”
Aaron collapsed onto the table in tears, as the man placed a convincing hand on his shoulder.
“Write her one last note. I will be sure she sees it before she leaves this world.”
Aaron’s hand trembled as he tried to gain control of himself. He remembered a poem he had chiseled into the cell’s wall a few weeks back as a final farewell to Anise, when he considered committing suicide:
Your eyes shimmer like the sea
An entrancing shade of green,
That possesses me
To do things I’ve never dreamed
Now it seems we’ve reached the final scene
I’ll see you in paradise, my love Anise
“Is there any way I can see her, one last time?”
“The prison system doesn’t work that way, Aaron.”
“Please… all I wish is to hold her once more.”
“It’s going to be a tough bargain, but I think I can have that arranged.”
“H, How?”
A bullet plunged into Aaron’s skull, and his head fell backward limply, as his blank eyes stared into the blinding florescent lighting above.
“The devil shall see to it, when she meets you in Hell.”
