The thumping and banging continued. It seemed clear to me that it wasn't a wrecking ball. Maybe they were adding cells. Maybe they were burying us. I just didn't know. I didn't really feel fright anymore; I felt like I had already expended all the fright I was ever going to throughout my life, however much longer it was going to be. I started to fall into a complacent apathy. I spent some time thinking more clearly than I had since I was thrown in there, and I had made the decision to end my life. This time it was different. The last time, when I broke my bones and lost my finger, I needed to die like I needed to breathe. I had thrashed about, frantically treading in the freezing waters of a meaningless existence. But this time I was thinking things through. I could calmly and rationally decide what I wanted to do, and could spend some time thinking how I could accomplish it in the most dignified manner possible. I knew Perkins would get out. He'd be fine without me. He'll have a great life. But this is my destiny. This cell is the debriefing room of my life. There isn't a heaven, so this is my chance to digest it all. How many people have been afforded the chance to do that? I had so much time to think that when the time came, I wouldn't feel sad or afraid.
Those few days, which I had decided were going to be my last, were surprisingly pleasant ones. I spent them thinking about all my life's memories. The time when I was eight, and my Dad woke me up at midnight and let me watch cowboy movies with him and told me not to tell Mom. The time when I was twelve and my dog was dying, and he gave me one last lick in the face. The time when I was fifteen and sac-bunted my high school team to the city championship. The time my mom and I went to the coffee shop the night I graduated high school and talked for six hours. The time I finally learned to whistle at the age of twenty-two. The way my college girlfriend and I would play-fight in bed before going to sleep. I loved them all. I didn't feel at all like someone doomed to die; moreso someone privileged to have lived.
Perkins had stopped telling me the time, because I no longer asked. I managed to keep some semblance of time with the aid of the directionless thumping that would stop and start, stop and start.
Then came the point at which I concluded that after about five more series of banging, in about a day or so, I was going to kill myself. I had found my missing ring finger, which by now was rotted to bones. I had snapped the metacarpal in two, forming a sharp, jagged edge. I would slit my wrists with it, and that would be it. I'd heard it wasn't too painful. I really just felt annoyed at myself rather than anything else. It seemed like such an angsty way to go. I wasn't pissed off or jaded, only accepting of my fate. I wished I could have just inhaled a lethal dose of helium.
The loud jarring from the walls stopped.
"Casey. Where are you? Like, where are you in your cell?"
"Why?...Uh, I'm over here on the toilet."
"All right." The jarring resumed, and this time it sounded a little different. I concentrated. Then I was blinded. A beam of light violently exploded into my cell. I yelled and fell off my toilet.
My eyes burned, and only stopped burning when I put my face in the corner and covered them with my hands. Then I heard Perkins, clearer than ever.
"Happy birthday, you son of a bitch."
"You don't even know when my birthday is! My fucking eyes! Fuck!"
Perkins sniffed. "Oh shit. Oh my God your room smells like ass. I'm going to throw up right now."
I laughed, my face still stuffed into the corner.