My Cardboard Balcony

Dead Man Walking by Belinda Roddie Sitting in my personal electric chair, I wait for the sponge to soak up all the sins that inflame my poor brain. The executioner is beautiful. She keeps her curls under a gray cap and won't look me in the eye. I can't remember the trial or the verdict. I only know the beginning and the end. I know that Tesla's hand will be placed atop my head, a high voltage crown sending me up to Mount Olympus, where I will be made the new god of thunder, and Zeus shall remain imprisoned in my tiny barred cell. The center of my nervous breakdown, An homage to my fractured humanity.

The president of the student body felt that everyone ought to be held accountable for the death of Charlie Hind-Louis, who had been found in their bedroom, having overdosed on pills. At least, that's what my fellow science teacher told me. I had been too busy crying and hyperventilating in the bathroom during the assembly, trying to fend off a rather agonizing panic attack. Charlie had looked a lot like me. Same hair, same eyes, same smile.