Saturday, July 20, 2013

Cool Hand Luke's Last Diary Entry


Death faces me in every direction. I can choose livin' or I can choose dyin' or I can choose nothin', but death it'll be for me. What an idiot. I thought I could beat them. I thought I could fly right outta these chains. But they got the world all figured out and rigged just how they want it. Hell, nobody cares what goes on in a backwoods Louisiana swamp. Folks just as soon not know.

Never been so low in my life. What a mess I got myself in. Don't care how they act or what they say, they like it when ya fight back. That way they can put more chains on ya like in the proper world. Them bosses got chains on them too. Insides, they all locked up good, never gettin' out. I feel like I'm walking aroun' outside showin' their inside. Them some mighty bad folks lockin' up other folks.

The social lady says I'm supposed to repent. I guess I gotta apologize for wanting to be free. Nothing changed about that! But I don't see none o' them repentin' or sayin' they's sorry for what they do to us or how they've been monsters cuz they know folks don't care how they treat us. Maybe all the folks on the outside is in chains too.

So maybe there ain't no place for me to run to. But I still gotta run! It's the only time I feel alive. Since when is feeling alive a crime? Like I said, this whole world got everything figured out but that doesn't mean they figured right. Them necks is stiff like a board and them ears is closed to hearin' nothin' they don't want to hear. I thought maybe I yell loud enough they'd hear me.



They can break you but you can't break them. That was somethin' I sure didn't want to know. Thought I could carry the whole world on my back. But they put so much weight on ya ya back snaps. That's somethin' they know lot about, puttin' weights on. Now I know they can do that, I don't know how I can ever fight back. That real death.

I feel my days comin' to an end. I can't be who I want to be and I can't be who they want me to be. Maybe that's why I cut all them parking meter heads off. Made perfect sense at the time. You gotta fight back! I thought I was fightin' for somethin' but maybe there's nothin' to fight for, just like when I was in the war. There was somethin' to fight for til I got over there then didn't find a damn thing that made sense.

What would anyone think of me if they saw me now? Would they say I'm a bad man? I feel guilty but I don't feel a bad man. I just know I gotta find a place where I can breathe. But how did I end up in a place where I breathe the least?

When I think back to Annette, I think back to the runnin' away like I did. Ran all the way til I got here. I can see that now. Tried runnin' again here too and that made things worse, just like when it got worse runnin' away from her caring. Is this the price for doin' that? Losin' everything? Sure does seem harsh! You hear me, Big Guy? You one hard sonofabitch! You're not takin' my life for a few parking meters, are ya??



It dangerous imaginin' to be free. I'd sure like to do somethin', tho! Some last final laugh to get them riled up but good. Wouldn't that be a smile! Get 'em so angry they get blood in their eye, only it ain't me doin' it. It's them doin' it to themselves, thinkin' 'bout their own damn chains I'm a rattlin' right in their face! Wouldn't that be somethin' to see? Just one moment o' pure freedom an' justice on this here prison planet.

Wonder what they'd do then!


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