My Death as My Motif

My Death as My Motif

August 22, 2025

I held someone’s hand tightly. I think it was a US Marshall. I am not sure. Perhaps she held my hand as we walked through the hallway. She never tells me where I am going. She rarely says anything to me. I am now seven years old. I know that for a fact. I got a burn on my left forearm earlier in the year. It left a scar that looks like a starfish with one of the arms missing. It no longer hurts when I touch it. Today, the Marshall told me to wear a short sleeve shirt before we began our walk. My burn is always with me. My parents are never with me anymore.

She takes me to a window that looks into a room. On the other side is a full grown man without a shirt, pacing back and forth. He seems angry. I am beginning to wonder why. When he turns, I see his burn on his left forearm. His starfish is identical to mine. He stops to look at me. He looks sad. He has been crying. The Marshall pulls me and we continue our walk back to where we began. I only make it four steps before I hear the sound of a gun shot. I want to look up to ask her a question. But I don’t. Somehow, I know she would never answer it. My parents were like that before the men came to take me away. Someday, I will get big so no one has to hold my hand. Today is not that day. The Marshall returns me to the room I always begin in. I have no idea why I think that. I don’t remember being here, yet part of me thinks I have always been here.

Part of me thinks I may never leave.

The judge sentenced me to death. However, the DA offered me a deal that would let me live, but never leave. I knew he wanted to know how I did it. He thinks there is some type of machine that permits my travel. There isn’t. The DA is bluffing and I tell him so. He knows what I do, but not how I do it. The judge is clueless. Handcuffed (again), the bailiffs take me to the room. Here is where it always happens. They threatened to kill me as a child. I know there won’t. For in doing so, no one wins. I just reset and the game begins again. Maybe the DA gets lucky and puts all of the pieces together, like he did this time. Maybe he doesn’t and I am free to do what I am supposed to do. As of yet, I have not done it. The DA does not know this, but he soooo wants to. He can taste it. I tell him to perform a biological impossibility. He shows me, me. This time, he wants me to give in. I don’t want me to see me in this room. The lady Marshall understands what is going to happen. She makes me turn to avoid seeing, but keeps me close so I can hear. Eventually, the DA will have her fired, possibly executed for a crime he will create. He is power hungry. I have a 9mm pointed at my head. Both of me hear the shot.

I remember hearing the shot the last time I walked down this hallway. The female US Marshall must have called off sick. Today, I am walking to the window alone. I am seven years old today and there is no one to wish me a happy birthday. I see a shirtless man pacing in his room. He stops, but does not turn to look at me. Somehow, he places his right hand on his left forearm, just as I do when I get nervous. Through the window, I see the armed man enter and point a pistol and the shirtless man’s head. He removes his hand from his forearm. He has a burn scar just like mine, a starfish with one arm missing. I cried earlier today because no one wished me a happy birthday. When I saw the pistol man shoot the shirtless man, I understood that I was wrong. My tears were for him.

I mean me.