Letter #6: Prison Stories. February 2009.

Hello Friend.

There’s a familiar trope that runs through movies.There’s a prison, an inmate. Maybe wrongfully or unjustly jailed.

Maybe the inmate is remorseful for something heinous he or she’d done. They realize they might die there, alone in their stifling cell.

The time—and silence—is deafening.

The stories well up, like tears, in this person’s throat. No one listens.The inmate furiously attempts to write down his life’s work, reflecting on various minutiae, imparting meaning to events previously thought inconsequential. Assigning significance to gestures, grand and subtle.

Stories are important to us.

Were you that inmate, as the stories welled, what would you want to share?