The News From Poughkeepsie - Day 82

July 29th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

JR Blackwell is an inspiration again. Thanks, JR.

Settings Tuesdays

True sorrow comes from knowing joy, and vice versa. There is a prison that has more mental punishment than physical. You are brought to the prison and kept in a cell. After a certain number of weeks, you get a “day off.” During the day off, you are allowed to go outside, to eat delicious food. Prostitutes are brought in for carnal urges. Or you can just nap in the sunlight. You are told that in a couple of months, you’ll get another day off.

But it never comes. Others will get days off, but they’re spaced out in such a confusing way that prisoners don’t realize that you truly only ever get one, and you live with the bitter hope that another one may come.

Or is it worse to have that one day off and then you know you’ll never experience it again? I’m not sure. Still, explore.

The News From Poughkeepsie is a daily blog post featuring an idea for you to take and do with what you will. Read more about it here. This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can take this idea, change it, make something new, and even make money off of it. All I ask is if you create something - anything! - that this post inspired you to make, please link back here.

There Are 3 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by J.R. Blackwell on 29 July 2008:

    I am? Fantastic!

    This idea is wonderfully dark. I hope someone writes it into reality.

  2. Comment by Timothy on 30 July 2008:

    This actually reminds me of a personal piece I wrote several years ago. It’s not a piece I’ve shared with others but it involves my family. Growing up, my brother and I were a year apart and shared the same room, so we were at times best friends and sometimes not depending on the situation, but we always had each other’s ultimate best interest in mind. We knew we could always count on each other when the chips were down. We shared a lot of common interests and would push each other towards excellence in whatever we did, sports like wrestling, I read fantasy and he read sci-fi and we’d swap books. It was a unique experience to have grown up with him.

    When he was 21, he traveled by train to New York for a summer job just to experience life outside of California. I stayed behind to complete some summer courses in mathematics. After a few weeks in the city with a steady paycheck from the summer job, a good place to live and a few dates with a nice girl, he was walking with his date coming back from an Ethiopian restaurant that he’d wanted to try just because he’d never had Ethiopian food. Three 15 year old kids held them up at gunpoint and as he was handing over his wallet they shot him in the head. He did not survive.

    That was 14 years ago. I can’t even write it without getting choked up. It truly feels like a part of me is gone forever.

    Today I’m married with 2 children who are incredibly precious to me. Each day with my family is a treasure and I try to find joy in life wherever I can for the both of us. But I still live with the pain of loss every day

    I wonder if I would have the same drive to appreciate how amazing and beautiful life is if my brother had not been murdered by those three teenagers looking for a quick buck. Would I have met my wife? Had my children? If I could go back and save him, knowing I would lose my family - could I do it? What if I could go further back and stop the teenagers, or even further back and keep them from ever being born? What would my life be like today? How many lives would be touched?

    There have been a couple of movies on this theme - Butterfly Effect and Closing Doors are two that come to mind. Ultimately we can’t go back and change the past, but we can live for the future. And having known great sorrow - I find each grain of joy and treasure it because you never know what the future will hold.

  3. Comment by Jeff Hite on 30 July 2008:

    Ask and you shall receive. Watch http://GreatHites.blogspot.com I will try to have this one up there in the next few days. I am not going to try for one a day any more. I got really burned out in just over a week, and my family was suffering. Maybe I can pick one a week. I will have to make it PG. No, “Prostitutes are brought in for carnal urges” in my version.

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