[ WP ] In the future , technology has allowed us to have pillows that monitor our brain waves , and when people wake up they can plug them into their laptops and watch their dreams .

It takes awhile for the full weight of the statement to hit you, and even then it takes awhile to really process it. Sitting here in this cell alone, with only a glimpse of the outside world showing through the excuse of a window as a constant reminder of where I am and what I've done, I've had a lot of time to think. That same statement playing on repeat in the back of mind relentlessly. Every thought I have plays over it like a singer over background music. Ever since the sentencing, the background music to my life had become a repeat of `` We find the defendant guilty on 2 counts of murder in the first degree. Punishable by death.'' 
 
 You could say it haunted me, but that does n't feel right. For something to *haunt* you, it has to be bad right? I've had a lot of time to think in here over the last year, and I've never once thought that what I did, what I had to do was wrong, or bad, or anything but right. I was sitting on my bed, back against the cold concrete wall, watching the specks of dust dancing around in the thin ray of sun shining through the slit in the window. When surrounded by nothing but ugliness, it becomes a lot easier to find the beauty in things. With this thought, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, preparing for another dreamless sleep. 
 
 `` Hey. Hey man. Do n't dog your neighbor like this man! You're the fella on death row ai n't ya?'' There was n't really any sure way to know he was talking to me, he had another cell on his other side, and here in block C we're all on death row. But I knew. I knew because he never shut the fuck up. 
 
 I always found it interesting how humans have some inherit desire to normalize things that are as far from normal as possible. Like calling the guy who is waiting to be strapped into a chair with a lethal dose of whatever cocktail they use these days to be inserted into their arm, as your *neighbor*. As if he was going to ask if I had any sugar he could use to bake some pies. 
 
 Earl was his name. He was a scrawny hillbilly from some backwoods town in Virginia. He was the type of guy if you saw him on the side of the street you'd find yourself spending the next fifteen minutes trying to figure out what bottle of bottom shelf whiskey you saw with his face on it. He seemed nice enough, once you got past the fact that he had murdered 6 women several years back that is. You lose track of time in here, but I'm fairly sure he had moved in ( thrown in ) about 3 months back, and everyday since he's asked me about why I'm in here. I think it's a Wednesday today, it does n't really matter, but I'm bored and like I said, I've done nothing wrong. 
 
 I moved over to the edge of bed closest to the shared corner of our cells, pulled the blanket up over my bare legs, looked up to find the speck of dust I had been watching earlier and began to tell what brought me here. 
 
 I married my high school sweetheart as soon as we had graduated. Back then I lived with my parents, well, that's what I had to tell child protective services at least. For awhile my mother had tried to stand up to him, but like the saying goes, you can only beat a dog and expect it to come back so many times. Except when she realized that she could n't stand up to him, and protect me from him, instead of leaving, she kicked me out. I guess the result was the same, she did n't have to try and fail at protecting me anymore. Anyways, that's really besides the point, they're both dead now. But when she kicked me out, my girl Kathryn took me in. She was my everything man, she saved my life. I did n't have much goin' for me ya know? I graduated high school, and I had some shit scrubbing job paying nickels on the dollar, but other then that I had nothing. Nothing except for Kathryn of course. 
 So we keep going through our lives, we ended up moving out her parents house and getting our own little apartment up on the west side of town. Nothing fancy but it suited us well. I think we were 23 at the time, maybe 24? Shit, I ca n't remember exactly. We were both doing better back then, back when things were good. She had a great job, I had a decent one, it had finally seemed like any trouble from our past might finally be able to actually stay there, in the past. This was right around the time that those fancy pillows came out, ya know the USB ones that replay your dreams? Well I'm not sure if you remember but they were basically the Iphone of that year, everyone had to have one, Kathryn included. They were n't cheap of course, so I saved up nearly all year, and come Christmas time I waited out for 2 nights, 2 fucking nights man, to get that damned pillow for her. And ya know what? I fucking got it. Fast forward a couple months and we're continuing the daily american worker grind. It was n't glamorous, but we were happy. In April of that year, she told me she was pregnant. If I had known then what I know now, I would have driven her to the store and made her eat all the Plan B they had in stock. Shit I'd take her to some back alley doctor if it meant I could keep my ignorance, and what was left of my innocence.'' 
 
 The guard came with the trays of food. What they called food. The guard could n't even be bother to bend over and place the trays on the floor, instead he would take each one and drop it from standing height to outside the cell. Clanking to the ground and sloshing the `` meat'' in a spray pattern around the tray. I looked back at the speck of dust, reminding myself that there's beauty left in the world. 
 
 `` Kathryn started having real bad nightmares around then. Bad man, I did n't think adults could have nightmares like that. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but looking back, she had had bags under her eyes for awhile. She was tough, probably had been having those nightmares for awhile and just hid it from me. Man she was tough. Anyways, I try asking her about it and each time she would get more and more distant about the topic. Eventually I got the hint and stopped asking, but that left my curiosity unsatisfied. She was a nurse and had to work morning shifts on Mondays and Tuesdays, which happened to be my days off.'' 
 
 The sun was going down now, at least beyond the view of my window, confining me to this cell without any indication of the existence of an outside world. My speck of dust was no longer dancing in front of me. Instead, the spot I had been fixated on was now just a cold gray concrete wall. 
 
 `` It was a typical day from what I remember. She had woken up in a hurry, quickly unplugging her pillow and running to the bathroom for her daily morning sickness ritual. As she was in there, I reached over and unplugged the pillows USB, tucking it into the pocket of my pajama pants. Couple hours later we kiss goodbye, and she's out the door. I felt guilty about it, I really did, snooping and all, but I had to know what these dreams were about and why she would n't talk to me about them. I soon found out why. When I plugged in the USB the standard menu comes up, prompting you which date you'd like to recap. I selected the most recent night where she had woken up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and tears. The screen went black and then color flashed and it was in the middle of the dream ( or at the beginning, it's always funny how dreams never have beginnings or endings, they always seem to be like walking into the middle of a movie in passing. ) I do n't know if I'll ever forget the feeling then, as I saw from her point of view out the passenger window of a car, my parents house getting closer and closer as she approached. She looked over and the man driving was unrecognizable. In those pillow dream video's or whatever they're called they show exactly what the person sees, which I'm sure you've had dreams before, you can never really make out the face of the people in them, but you always just *know* who they are. I knew who he was even though this was n't my dream, I could never forget the hulking body of my father.'' 
 
 I trailed off here, staring at the concrete wall that was just previously the background to my own personal show put on by the specks of dust that live with me here. My eyes never moved or blinked while I thought about how to say the next part. I was n't really thinking though, my mind was just kind of blank, unable to put words to a thought. A shrink would probably say its a defense mechanism to traumatic events, and he'd probably be right, but I say it's too fucked up of a thing to say out loud. It's the type of thing you leave to fester in the back recesses of your mind, only to come out when shoved to the forefront of thought, often with the assistance of a gentleman named Jim Bean. 
 
 `` So yeah, it was my father in the car with her. They pulled into my driveway, got out and went in. I'm not going to give a sick fuck like you more material for that felonious spank bank of yours, but I think you get where I'm going. They walked in through the front door, Kathryn in front and my father behind her, shoving her forward each step of the way. As they walk in, from Kathryn's eyes, I see my Mother sitting there on the couch. She must not have known Kathryn was coming because she just sat there in shock, or was it horror, I'm not sure, it does n't really matter. What matters is all she did was get up and go into the kitchen to turn on her fucking soaps, while my father walked my wife into his room and did what only pieces of shit like you would think of. I lost it. That day, while my wife was at work, I went over to their house and killed them both. When I was done, still covered in blood, I sat on the couch, turned on the TV and watched Seinfeld until the cops came. Apparently those pillow dream footage videos are n't admissible in court, and despite my wife's testimony of what had happened to her, there was no getting out of what I did. Not that I was trying. So here I am.''
