He Was in His Cell, Waiting to Be Executed
He was in his cell, waiting to be executed, and he asked as a last request for a piece of paper and a pen.
The guard hesitated.
“Ten minutes,” the guard said, sliding the items through the bars. “That’s all.”
The man nodded.
His name was Daniel Mercer, inmate #44721, convicted of the murder of his wife and daughter. The case had been simple. Too simple. The kind juries liked because it made the world feel orderly again—bad man, terrible crime, righteous punishment.
Daniel sat on the narrow bunk, paper trembling slightly in his hands. Not from fear. From weight.
He had rehearsed this moment for months, knowing that when it came, ten minutes would feel like ten heartbeats.
He didn’t waste time on greetings.
My name is Daniel Mercer. If you are reading this, then I am already dead.
He paused, staring at the words. Dead. The word looked unreal on the page, like a typo that refused to correct itself.
Outside the cell, the hallway hummed with fluorescent lights and distant footsteps. Somewhere, a man laughed. Somewhere else, a door slammed. The world was continuing in all the careless ways it always did.
They say I killed my family. I did not. And before you stop reading, please—just give me the dignity of being heard.
He thought of Emily, his wife, the way she hummed when she folded laundry, unaware she did it. He thought of Lily, their six-year-old daughter, who believed wholeheartedly that monsters hid in mirrors and that her father could fight them all.
The night they died replayed endlessly in his mind, like a broken tape.
Rain. The smell of wet asphalt. A door left unlocked.
And blood.
So much blood.
Daniel had come home late that night. Overtime. A last-minute call from his supervisor, apologetic but firm. Emily had texted him earlier:
Don’t forget Lily’s recital tomorrow. She’s nervous.
He remembered unlocking the front door, stepping into silence that felt wrong. The house was never quiet—not with Lily’s toys scattered everywhere, not with Emily’s music drifting from room to room.
He called their names.
No answer.
Then he saw the kitchen.
The overturned chair. The shattered glass. The dark red pooling on the floor, soaking into the rug Emily had insisted was “worth the money.”
He screamed until his throat tore.
The police arrived quickly. Too quickly. Neighbors watched from porches, arms crossed, eyes hungry. The story wrote itself before Daniel even understood what was happening.
Husband. Domestic dispute. Rage.
The evidence was circumstantial, but damning. No sign of forced entry. His fingerprints everywhere—of course they were, it was his home. The murder weapon? A knife from their own kitchen drawer.
The prosecution called it a crime of passion.
Continue reading…
