A narrow beam of moonlight steals across the cement floor, reflecting off the metal toilet and casting the cell in a dim gray pallor. Cement walls, cracked with age, feebly painted over the same dirty white as the rest of the prison, can barely mute the commotion in the next cell. The dull rhythmic thumping, punctuated now and again by fleshy slaps. You shouldn’t be able to hear labored breathing and whimpering through two feet of cinderblock. But you do.

You try to block it out, but in the darkness, there is little to distract you. Your eyes wander to the window, where silhouettes of pictures cling like old moths to the glass: a wife who divorced you a week after sentencing, a house she lives in with her new husband, and a daughter who grew up calling him Daddy instead of you.

In the bunk above, your cellie snorts loudly, choking on air for what seems like an eternity before finally settling into a different position, his thick desperate gasps giving way to a steady snore, gravelly and wet. His mattress, torn from where he hides his pills, hemorrhages mildewed bedding and from the opening pours a sour rot of a dead rodent with tiny bones that crunch like honeycomb under a boot heel whenever he shifts in his sleep.

Your mind starts to race, as it so often does late at night. You stare at the ceiling, its paint bubbling up and peeling away like decomposing skin, and focus on counting the tiles, anesthetizing yourself in a wash of numbers. In your other life, they had been a source of comfort and order. Not to mention income. Numbers had paid for the Lexus. The house in the city. The cabin in Aspen. Your daughter’s education. But you no longer find any solace in them. They have become cold and mocking; a chronicle of your downfall: failed marriages (3), years remaining on your sentence (7), victim reimbursement costs ($404,247), inmate PIN (1-414-2235), DOC number (6123529). Calculating how many years you will have to work at 42 cents an hour to pay off your legal fees is as close to accounting as you will ever get again.

A wave of shame washes over you at the thought that you no longer have a career. The days of working in a prestigious firm brokering seven-figure deals are over. Now you earn pennies clearing trays and hauling trash in monotonous five-hour shifts in a cramped, musty dish tank under the constant threat of assault and the relentless pressure from convicts higher up on the food chain to smuggle fruit and bread back to the unit for making prison wine. What seemed like serious issues – whether the maître d’ at Le Bernardin would be able to fit in a last minute reservation or whether to remodel the guest bathroom with marble flooring or glass tile– are replaced by much more practical concerns, like the fear that you will not have a pair of clean, or even dry, socks for at least another three days. You close your eyes tight until the threat of tears subsides, shuddering at the recollection of the last time you let your emotions show. The painful memories of beatings that went on for hours, harassment that went on for months, and protection payments that went on for years. A prison transfer could only interrupt the cycle for a while. The hierarchy was the same everywhere; the convict code universal. It was only a matter of time before they found you again. Rape, having been one of your greatest fears during your first years in prison, had become just one more theft of dignity to which you had become accustomed.

You have seen a side of mankind that you had no idea existed, didn’t want to know existed. And the worst part is that you cannot unsee it.

Your cellie chokes and snorts in his sleep, flopping a pale, meaty arm over the side of the bunk. Fingernails long and yellow, thumb and forefinger stained an unnatural brown from years of smoking contraband cigarettes right down to the last unfiltered clove. This, he once claimed, quiets the voices better than any medication, and for a moment you find yourself envious of him. Schizophrenia seems like it might be a blessing in prison. Lost in a world of internal stimulation, voices and visions only you can hear and see distracting you from the smoldering ruins your world has become.

You stare at the clock on the window sill. Every second that ticks by is just another opportunity to reflect on a life that is no longer yours. Each new moment is a cruel reminder that this place is your home now. Seconds add up to minutes, which give birth to hours, which spawn days, months, years. The incremental death of hope and the insidious creation of a new identity that bears no resemblance to the man you want so desperately to believe you once were. Or could be again. In the darkness, you listen to it all slip away:

Tick – softball in the park in October

Tock – barbeque on the patio in July

Tick – presents around the tree on Christmas morning

Tock – dinner and a movie on your anniversary

Tick – one more chance for a normal life gone

Tock – one more moment lost in time forever

Tick – the world moves on

Tock – without you

A figure stops at the door, blocking out the low light of the dayroom behind. A flashlight beam sweeps over you, pausing briefly on your face before surveying the rest of the cell. It winks out, leaving a bright purple afterimage that fades as the footsteps continue down the tier.

Your eyes wander over the toiletries haphazardly laid out on the edge of the sink. They come to rest on the razor, prison-issued and far past its prime. You absently touch your neck where it nicked you this morning and wonder oddly whether it had been an accident. Before you are even aware of what you are doing, your feet carry you to the sink and you watch dispassionately as your hand snatches the disposable Gillette off the porcelain. The plastic is cheap, state-issued, and you manage to pry out the blades with only modest effort.

Sidling up to the door, you look out over the tier. The lone officer is sitting at his station in the dayroom, staring idly at a computer screen. Four hours until the end of his shift. At least fifteen minutes until his next rounds. More than enough time.

Sitting on the edge your bunk, you turn over your hand and examine – perhaps for the first time – the network of veins snaking down your arm. In the dim light of the moon one stands out in bass relief, seeming to thrum in anticipation. You steal one last look at the pictures on the wall, touch the cold metal edge to your wrist, and begin your escape.

Delicate taut skin

under a determined blade

parts like the Red Sea