My Creations

My name is Tom Mull and in a few hours I will be dead. In the time I have left I’ll jot down my story both to pass the time until the alarm sounds and in the hope that someone would read this story and get to know me better. Since time is the limiting factor in this recount, I’ll cut the chase and get down to the story.

I am the son of a contract between two sexually functional adults. On the one hand was my father, a filthy rich lawyer whose occupation was to singlehandedly manage an empire. All his efforts were dedicated exclusively towards cultivating the family-run activities ensuring that they escalated to new heights. He was the type of businessman who had enough financial backing to embark on new ventures without risking too much. He would control just enough shares to ensure that what he said happened. This he did through two routes: the board of directors/shareholder voting route and the sell out his entire interest and flood-the-market route. Although everyone was fully aware of the latter option and anyone who should have known that this was a potential possibility did know, my dad only played this card a couple of times. In the market he was looked upon with respect. My dad’s only failure was his inability to procreate with his first wife, Catherine. His marriage to Catherine was one based on love and mutual respect. Although dad came from a far wealthier family, they shared similar upbringing and were accustomed to the same comforts of life. They had similar tastes in the arts and how they spent their spare time. Unlike all the other couples of this world, they had their own unique method of having an argument; they agreed to disagree and would put forward their different opinions about a subject in the most civilized manner. Screaming, weeping, the slamming of doors, the throwing of porcelain and the calling in of past grudges was stuff they never reverted to. The winner of a difference would not be given the silent treatment by the losing party. If their life were to be depicted in the movies, the critics would surely have shot it down as being fabricated. The only shortcoming was the fact that Catherine could not bear children. I’m as convinced as I’ll ever be that probably she was involved in the grand scheme that my father would have an affair with my mother in order to source an offspring.

My mother was a secretary who was quickly promoted up the ranks after my father had become interested in her. She was a fitness freak who used the gym to sculpture her body to the edge of what the masses consider feminine beauty. Tight but not muscular, firm but still fragile. Regular training, a balanced diet and a generous doze of the DNA that causes people to be beautiful went into the making of my mother. She was the only daughter and youngest child in a family of four kids. She was twelve years younger than her older brother. All the family adored their little baby and showered her with love; these being the only things they could afford in any abundance. Her education was directed towards becoming a secretary, getting married and having grandbabies, nephews and nieces.

When my mother became pregnant with me it rocked her family; the unwed slut spreading out for her married manager. When they realized that her married manager was arranging to get a divorce and to legally marry her, things improved to the point that at least the kid would not be a bastard and she would not be the mother of the bastard. When they were told that the manager was considerably higher in rank and had a much higher stack of green that what they had originally anticipated, things settled down to the point of them being proud of their little girl. My father transformed my mother from the then executive secretary to a Cleopatra receiving the best treatment money could buy. Her needs and the well being of the unborn child were the things that only mattered to my father. Three months after my birth my parents married and almost a year and a half, later my brother Kenneth was born.

I was my mother’s son while Kenneth was a replica of dad. I was an active yet soft-spoken person who loved nature and the arts. On the other hand, Kenneth was a natural born leader whose desire in life was to control others for his direct or indirect benefit. At school he had the ability to attract the right people to ensure that he was both connected and protected. He would use all his influence to guarantee that he consistently scored top marks in those subjects he had an interest in. The notion of having a friend because you simply like someone was alien to him. For him a friend was a contact you mutually benefit from in the immediate future or to be kept in reserve for a future occasion. Don’t get me wrong, Kenneth was not the weird nerd depicted in movies; he was the most likable person one could think of; in fact he was probably more likable then me. The way we differed was in that while I would either like, dislike or be neutral to another person and I would communicate that information through my actions, he always kept a respectable distance from the rest of the world. I think many of the people who considered Kenneth a friend knew from the start that although he was their friend, they were simply acquaintances who were more acquainted than others.

Kenneth was a genius in Management and Business studies and he graduated top of his class. I went on to become an architect. Although my junior, Kenneth started involving himself in any part of the businesses my father would allow him into. On the other hand, similar attempts by my father to put me into a managing director’s seat backfired; I was mediocre as long as thing were OK; the moment bad news had to be communicated or tough decisions had to be taken, I would become miserable and would do my utmost to abdicate my responsibilities. This was partially because I felt I never had a sufficient depth of feeling into the business itself and, moreover, had no interest in this role or the activity the company performed. Dad then tried setting me up in a business closer to my chosen profession. He set up an architect’s firm for me. All suggestions by both Catherine and dad to run the company with an expansionary vision and to use this company as a training ground to build contacts as well as to learn how to grow into territories and eventually go global, fell on deaf ears. This was the only company completely owned by the Mull family. Dad held forty nine percent of the shares, Catherine and Kenneth held ten percent each and I, in the capacity of managing director, would take the remainder. I was a perfectionist who failed to understand that I was primarily a managing director and secondly an architect. I got involved too much in the low end jobs rather than in those company activities suggested to me. I was a perfectionist and could never master the notion that the last five percent would require ninety percent additional cost. I never appreciated that in an operational environment, issues such as deadlines and controlled costs where a reality even at the detriment of something marginally more artistic or marginally more efficient. I tended to become too attached to projects I should not have been so involved in and would forget that when a project is at a certain stage, going back a few steps to “fix” something would end up in the company losing massive amounts of money. I could not get myself to fire someone who was not up to par; the thought that these people had families and that, if given more time, they would gradually come round to becoming average was one of the primary differences between how I did things and how dad would have done them.

I was not the black sheep of my family; my mother was just the same. She zoomed out of my life when I was not even six and I did not get to see her until fourteen years later. Having given my dad the genetic insurance he so desperately required two times over, she had probably served her purpose and soon the insurmountable incompatibilities between them became evident. Their relationship was similar to that between Prince Charles and Diana; worlds apart with absolutely nothing to bring them together. At least Prince Charles and Diana could claim that both of them had royal blood and money to spare; something my folks could not say. For my father money meant nothing; for mum one of the main aspirations in life was to have money. When she married dad, this challenge dissolved and that void affected her. On the other hand, being twenty five years younger than my father, her passion, her desire to go out and sample life as well as her need to have a husband who would care for her were very important. These things conflicted with my father’s lifestyle and he could not satisfy her needs. Catherine, with whom he had a number of business interests, never completely disappeared and soon after Kenneth’s birth made her presence more obvious. Compounding the problem further was the psychological toll the two pregnancies had on mum. She became depressed and stopped looking after her person. She also started drinking excessively which helped add on the pounds which further increased her depression which…

A few weeks before my sixth birthday my mother eloped with her tennis coach. My father, being a shrewd businessman, converted the situation to his benefit by applying for a divorce from my mother and getting custody of Kenneth and I on the premise this mum was an alcohol dependent and unloving mother who had abandoned her children. Using a bus load of lawyers he convinced mum to agree to the terms amicably in exchange for a generous allowance that ensured that she would live a good life. Mum, frightened out of her wits and not wanting to go back to a state of poverty she despised signed off. She would later tell me that she had asked for my custody but father’s lawyers had convinced her that it would be a cruel thing “to take a boy with everything and anything out of [dad’s] Paradise and drop him into [her] Hell”. She had thought of engaging a lawyer but was told that if she did so, she would still lose the case but would not get a single dime. That was the last time I saw my mother until after my teens.

With mum out of the way, I was totally on my own. Catherine became a permanent resident of our mansion and became our new mum. She and Kenneth got along immensely maybe because he was so much like them and although she never really mummied him, she passed on all the qualities to make him the leader he wanted so much to be. Although older, I missed being loved and taken care of as little kids do in the movies. I rebelled but that only distanced me further from the rest of the family. I usually found solace with the servitude who would reciprocate only on those rare occasions when they were sure they would not get into trouble. Catherine and my dad would have probably fired anyone in their employ if they discovered that these people were mingling in the family affairs. Showing more care and attention to Mr. Mull’s sons would have been interpreted like that.

When I was about 8 or 9 I had pleaded with Jake, the man who took care of the gardens, to speak to Catherine or dad so that I could go spend a weekend with him at his family’s farm. At first Jake refused but after a sustained period of whimpering he saw Catherine and asked her. “No Jake, you are an employee and Tom is the employer’s son. Our relationship is based on mutual respect. If Tom were to spend time with you on your off days and would visit your family, the invisible strings that retain the level of respect we have for each other will surely be damaged. We do not want to have an uncomfortable situation in which things get to a point where we have to fire you or you are forced to seek other employment because of this event.” Tom wasn’t expecting a different reply and nodded. Catherine went on, “It is every employee’s responsibility to ensure that if Tom acts in any manner that may shift this balance of respect, his actions are instantly reported it to me”. Within the week, Catherine made it a point to brief everyone who worked for us that any interaction between them and I was to be on a employer’s son and employee basis and nothing more. When I protested with dad about the embarrassment and awkwardness that Catherine’s meetings were causing me, he replied, in his mild manner, “Tom, the largest secrets are handed out when friendships between the wrong people develop”.

I rebelled even more. It didn’t work. What I lacked, Kenneth made up tenfold. Also for dad and Catherine rebellion was not an acknowledged method of resolving problems. The way I acted only worked against me. Although Kenneth should have been my reserve, roles switched with me shadowing him. Eventually dad and Catherine found a solution for me; I was sent to live with Catherine’s parents. A couple of old people who were not related to me in any way! I once watched a movie with Dustan Hoffman and Meryl Strep about two parents fighting it out for their son. I don’t recall the exact plot but still feel the amount of love the parents had for their child. In my case no one wanted me; my mother had disappeared out of my scene with her tennis bimbo and vodka coke bottles while my maternal grandparents had never really made it into my life. My dad’s parents where older versions of my father and if asked to keep me would have assertivley refused my moving in with them. And the two people who had up to then looked after me wanted to get rid of me. So unlike that movie! Catherine’s mum and dad had a very active life of their own, but somehow got convinced to house me. Maybe they were paid to keep and feed me. They definitely did not receive compensation to show any sign of tenderness or to adjust their busy schedules. While poorer than my dad, they still could afford a live in maid who saw me as nothing but another bastard to have to clean after and cook for.

In this house I took on board all the vices that determined the rest of my life and which I am paying for with my life. Had it not been for the destructive habits so abundantly accessible to a rich yet unguided kid, I would not be sitting in this oversized cupboard hiding until the police find me. By the age of fifteen I smoked, drank and did soft drugs on a regular basis and had been diagnosed twice with a sexually transmitted disease. You might think that this can happen to anyone. Do you think that if your fifteen year old appears on the doorstep stone drunk with a lit up marijuana joint in his mouth you wouldn’t react if you loved your son? You wouldn’t be concerned if your son or daughter asked you to purchase some medication for a sexually transmitted condition? Catherine’s parents got me the stuff without asking what it was for. Although these people were old, they were not senile.

A few weeks before my eighteenth birthday I moved to my own place. I had asked dad to fork out for an apartment I had identified and a few weeks later a set of keys were handed over. Material goods were never an issue; I made the request and it would be delivered. I wrecked a car at a rate of one a year and as long as I did not ask someone to borrow theirs it would be ok. I got to a stage when the dealer would no longer check to see if the purchase had been OK’ed by Catherine or dad. I’m pretty sure that this statement will cause some of you to be envious of me. I hear you say, “An apartment and a car a year, lucky SOB, what’s he complaining out?” For the record the apartment was a luxury fully furnished one with twenty four hour doorman in the city center. The cars were a couple of notches up from base models with all the gadgets, finesse and raw power the manufacturer could pack in. I’ve paid more for a special color than the price of a small Japanese family vehicle. But do you think this gave me a sprinkle of happiness? No it did not. With my mum off the family frame, I saw dad and Catherine, on average, once every six months. Catherine would visit her parents for about four hours and dad would tag along. A meal, Catherine’s parents and a never ending barrage of phone calls (except during the meal itself) and a thirty minute walk that dad and Catherine would take after eating left me about fifteen minutes of communication time. I learnt how to prioritize what I wanted to communicate in those precious moments. An important phone call in the middle of our exchange would suffice to render the purpose it could have had null and void. Christmases, thanksgivings and all the other occasions when families come together were lonely times for me. These days were either reserved for dad’s parents or would be scheduled as his and Catherine’s time alone time. Catherine’s parents never invited me to dine with them and on the few occasions that I forced my presence on the dinner table with them, I realized that both they and I were worst off. Few people can imagine how deserted a town is on Christmas when everyone is gathered round a dining table.

When I was twelve, I asked dad and Catherine for a hug. Unlike other occasions, I hadn’t prepared a list of things to ask for. Only one item was on the agenda: a thirty second family hug. It was fool proof; a caller would stay on the line for its duration and the request was short and sweet and direct. The chance of it being mucked up was absolutely zero. Although today I don’t recall what had brought about this weird need, I presume it was induced from some family TV show that was being aired at the time. All I wanted was a cuddle from a parent. I was really emotional about this whole affair and as I write these lines I feel a resurgence of those emotions. When the appropriate moment came, I made my request, opened my arms and moved closer. “We don’t show our emotions in this family, Tom”, replied my father. Catherine smiled in a very kind manner and added, “We respect each other immensely and if we have a problem, need or grudge we say it and analyze the most efficient way to address it”. There was not even any malice in their answer; they practiced what they were preaching. No one was mocking me or laughing at me and the replies were what I like to call appropriate. The phone than rang and life proceeded as it had always done.

Kenneth would rarely be with them. In the eight years I slept at Catherine’s mum and dad I spoke to Kenneth 4 or 5 times. I got to know about his achievements from the local news and from school. Although we attended the same institution we never had occasion to meet. Top of the list was that we took different academic studies and so our schedules would never naturally overlap. A second reason was that we lived in different houses. The third and probably most important explanation was that we frequented different circles; he was wealthy by birth and wealthy in action, I was only wealthy by birth. He lived in a mansion and would be chauffeured to and from school while I lived in a nice house in a very nice area and took the bus like almost fifty percent of the people who attended our school. Kenneth and I did not even enter and leave the premises through the same gate; chauffeured-driven kids had one entrance, parent-driven had another, while the bus-takers had a third. The formal reason given for these entrances was safety and efficiency. I can only say that often, people of a similar entrance had a greater affinity to stick together. After high school, our paths never crossed and we lost each other’s phone number.

University was a relatively happy period for me. There I started experimenting with hard drugs. I first started doing LSD with a few friends but graduated to amphetamines. With money it was easy to get a doctor to source me the medication. Amphetamines resulted in increased energy levels, concentration, and motivation, and proved useful in both work and play. While under its effect one can study or go clubbing for longer. With money never being an issue I could pay for the stuff as well as any damage to property I caused when under its influence. As time progressed, dependence on the drug increased and I started taking the drug intravenously rather than orally. The kick was quicker and harder. With higher highs came deeper lows. It is crazy how dependent I am on drugs and looking at the ugly and horrendous wound in my legs where I inject the stuff I wonder how insane a person can get. When the need strikes you simply do not think. The pledges to yourself that you will stop disintegrate when withdrawal symptoms kick in or a new problem manifests itself. The disgust and shame of looking at yourself and realizing that you are nothing but a scumbag and a worthless piece of shit only cease for the few minutes after injecting the drugs. Although I only glimpsed it in movies, my wound makes me think of someone with leprosy.

Back to the story; time may run out at any instant. Dad and Catherine officially became aware of my situation when I badly injured a girl who was a passenger as well as an occasional sex and drug buddy. We were both under the influence of an alcohol and drug cocktail. I vaguely recall that I had a bout of paranoia that resulted in us going head on into the side of a house. Dad somehow got to know and was the first person at the hospital. The story never became news and the girl was flown to a state of the art hospital in Germany. After the best medical, surgical and financial treatment my dad could buy, she probably lives a happy and complete life. By the time I was discharged, an identical car to the one I had was waiting outside.

As soon as I could drive, Dad called me to his office. “It cost us a hefty amount, especially to keep the Mull name out of the press. You have no idea about the damage your action could have had on us.” This was the first sentence he uttered. I imagine an underpaid reporter who got hold of the story being given the holiday of a life time, upgraded a notch or two up the society ladder and provided with a college fund for his two kids in return for not writing the story and propagating it up the news ladder. Dad suggested I get myself sorted out and gave me a number I should call. He also informed me that until Catherine, Kenneth and he were assured that I had straightened myself out, the family would legally and economically distance themselves from me. He gave me a bunch of documents to sign. I started writing down my name wherever he rested his finger. When all was done, he gave me a check of one million and a set of keys to a house valued at an equal amount. He informed me that the family had reduced their interest in the architect’s firm to eight percent. I now owned ninety two percent of that company. As I was walking out of the office his final words were, “When you think it is in your better interest to become one of us, get in touch”. That was the last time we spoke.

In less than four years I was penniless. When the employees discovered that the other Mulls had dwindled their combined shareholding to eight percent, they took it as a bad omen. I, the lesser-known Mull was now the defacto owner. My past performance lacked to be desired. As time progressed my visits to the company had become less frequent and on a number of occasions I would be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Dad and Kenneth took the unofficial role of keeping the company afloat. The good staff left almost immediately. Those who remained either cost more than they were worth or spent more than they should. To cut a long story short, at the end the company went bankrupt. When I called dad to “explain the situation”, I was directed by his secretary to one of his legal team who took over setting up and filing the necessary papers. He dropped by my apartment once to have me sign off some paperwork and sometime later I received a letter to inform me that the existing shareholders had settled all dues, the books had been correctly balanced and that the company was no longer.

I became a cocaine junky. I sniffed and injected hundreds of dollars worth of that stuff on a daily basis. Always having a constant supply of money, I never learnt what money management meant. It struck home like lightening. The first time my credit cards failed, I tried calling Catherine and dad but they were never available. Although by later standards the initial crunch was still heaven, I panicked and tried showing up at the mansion and at his office. No one would know me or recognize me and orders were orders. The sharks moved in and in a matter of weeks I had practically given anything of value at a ridiculous fraction of its true price. The banks moved in and the apartment was seized. You can’t imagine how good these financial institutions are a playing the hyena. Each little silver, gold and platinum card constituted one of the pack.

On TV and radio, especially around Christmas, we listen to the public service adverts about a dog being for life and not only for Christmas. I was that dog, a cocaine addict without a penny to my name, utterly unemployable in any above-board job and who had been pampered all his life. I felt like that poor mutt; a puppy brought into a protected environment with a fenced back yard suddenly being dropped on a six lane highway one hundred and twenty miles from home. It was a matter of weeks before I got arrested on a count of aggravated theft. This time round the Mull name was going to make the headline, but dad had prepared a team to manage the matter and to distance the rest of the family from me. The team had a documents signed by me that said that I had asked for and had been granted the sum of two million in cash and assets plus shares in an architect’s firm in exchange for all the shares I had in other companies owned by them. Another signed document demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that I wanted to break all business ties with the other Mull members. If that wasn’t bad enough, a third set of papers made it explicitly clear that I would sue my father or anyone who tried to assist me for interference. It worked. The sensation died before it started.

Since I could not afford to pay for legal council, a court-appointed attorney was assigned to my case. The person was much more interested in getting my case over and done with rather than offer a defense. He didn’t even try to convince me to get help from the family. It wouldn’t have worked, but any legal defense worth the title, would have suggested that route for starters. He had already judged me from the moment we met. When he eventually learnt that I had technically disinherited my family, he sympathized with them rather than with his client. He did not even try to get my sentence turned into one in which I would spend time in rehab. The fact that this was the first time I got into trouble was not emphasized either. He even suggested that I take the bench; and I did. It turned out to be a very bad suggestion. Why didn’t I change attorney? I was messed up, afraid and had no idea what was going in until I received a two year sentence.

My experience in jail was horrific. I was not the type of person meant to be in jail. You might laugh at such a statement, but it is true that not everyone is capable of existing in jail. I was molested and abused and any attempts to seek protection by the system proved futile. There are too many times and places in a prison that belong to the prisoners. Besides guards are normally of three types: those who know that some of the prisoners will walk the street soon; those who look upon all prisoners as scumbags and the last type being those who are only interested in ensuring that the place appears to be running well irrespective of whether it does so in reality. Being the son of a wealthy billionaire, one of the Prison leaders got me under his wing, not because the particularly cared for me but because he always wanted the “daughter of a rich pimp” and because I had a “breeding unique to this joint”. I was heavily abused both sexually and physically. No one realized that I had been disowned by my dad and did not have a penny to my name. Initially I was seen as the rich man’s kid with truck loads of money. Unless you have experienced a prison, these places tend to consist of a large number of people squashed into a structure that shouldn’t be holding so many beings in it. These poor souls have ample time on their hands but nothing to occupy it with. As a result they must pass the time with gossip and gang wars and ways to beat the system. Gossip knows its origin in fact, but gets seriously distorted and exaggerated in such places. A hierarchy of leadership exists within each gang and although gangs co-exist comfortably for long stretches of time one of the main fixations of each gang is how to outwit the others and gain or infiltrate prison territories. Workshops, kitchens as well as friendships with the guards are all examples of territory. When gang wars take place they are bloody. Rudimentary arms made out of plastic, metal scraps, glass and anything that can be sharpened and made into a point is turned into a weapon. I have a scar on my bottom to remind me of the effectiveness of these tools. I hadn’t been more than a couple of weeks when someone wanted to send a message to the leader who showed an interest in me. I never deciphered the message.

The gang someone decided I was part of, was one of the biggest. During my stay and for being the prima-donna of the leader I had access to drugs and other commodities not generally available, in the same quality and abundance, to the lower ranks. For example cigarettes, a commodity many inmates would use as currency was not a problem for me and I could smoke as many as I wanted to. In a weird twist of faith, destiny had just played me into the arms of a person who was a prison magnate. First there was dad, now there was the gang leader. In their own weird way, these two environments were pretty much alike.

On the day I was released I vouched never to go back to prison. Almost a year since I have been out, every conscious minute I have been haunted by the horrors and abuse I had to put up with. The constant supply of drugs whilst locked up, meant that I left the prison premises more of a drug addict than when I had entered. With no one to protect me, no family of sorts to fall on and no money I did what any one in my shoes would have done; I took on a life of crime. I started committing petty crimes to source money for drugs. I started off working parking lots. The gloomy and rainy days resulted in the most abundant loot because vehicle occupants would be in a hurry to shift from their vehicle to their indoor destination and would not be as preoccupied to clear out their car seats of valuable goods. Also on these days less people would be on the streets. Laptops, cell phones, MP3 players, briefcases, gift bags and the occasional bonus such as wallets were the things I would be interested in. As in any occupation, practice makes perfect. Coupled with a little bit of common sense, I would clear out thirty to sixty vehicles in a day. In well under a minute, I would break in, collect the visible goods, go through the various compartments into which people store things they did not want to be visible and move on. It is really stupid that some people hide a hundred dollar bill in a compartment yet leave a four hundred dollar camera case on the back seat. In this line of business nothing beats cash. I made less than one fifth of what the items were worth. On items that would be considered difficult to clear the payment would be even less. I never had a say in what was difficult to clear and what wasn’t, although my impression is that as time progressed more and more stuff was becoming “difficult to clear”.

The more I became efficient, the more I got noticed by other criminals. Areas I was able to operate in became owned and therefore out of bounds unless the owners got a cut. I couldn’t go to the police and tell them, “I’m breaking into cars but am being hassled by other crooks. Can you please protect me?” I joined up with a few other loners and we setup our own little band. I don’t want to boast but the group was a pretty good one. I was the brains, primary strategist and accountant. Other members provided the muscles, couriers, lookouts, as well as the wheelers and dealers. Initially everyone did everything, but as we became more organized, roles became focused. We started recruiting more members to fill in the lower ranks with the occasional deflection of a higher ranking individual from some other operation. We grew at a phenomenal rate. Rather than make one fifth of what an item was worth we were seeing almost fifty percent. Buying police protection, keeping the gang going, paying gang members and a thinner layer of middle men still had to be factored in. With more hands on deck, a larger quantity of goods was shifted and this further improved the bottom line. With an operation this size violence and the perception of potential violence became an important tool. I killed twice in the line of duty and within the relevant circles I started getting the respect the gang needed.

What dad and Catherine did not attain, hard drugs succeeded with flying colors. The need to guarantee an adequate supply of good quality coke made me into a business man I always resisted being when still a member of the Mull family. I headed a gang that started small but which had grown and diversified into new ventures. The difference between this organization and the architect’s firm was that my current venture operated on the other side of the law, did not have a name, shareholders and a board of directors that were registered with the IRS and the Company Registrar. The sad thing is that in my current occupation I could only earn the respect of others if I beat it out of them, frightened them to do it or if I paid for it. I would never be like dad who was looked upon by many decent folk. He had his fair share of trade and envy enemies but even the most ardent of the lot probably respected him from some angle and would definitely not mind sharing a table at a charity banquet or round a business lunch.

The police are here; it’s time for me to conclude my story and upload it to the web space I registered some time ago. I have about five minutes before I will commit suicide and it will probably take the coppers another thirty before they will discover my then surely lifeless corpse. I am stashed in a hidden room the size of a walk-in cupboard. Have you read the Chronicles of Narnia? This office is somewhat like the cupboard in that story, only the other side is hidden and the room itself doesn’t open into another world but into a tiny space with a desk, a fridge and a notebook that is connected wirelessly and securely to the internet. The notebook serves the purpose of TV, music player, games console, newspaper and web browser. Although within the house I have my own internet connection, in this room the internet comes from an internet café the group protects. I designed this space with the single purpose it is serving today. I always knew, deep down that I would find my final solace in it.

The police are looking for me to charge me with the death of a hooker, carrying illegal firearms, carrying illicit drugs as well as driving under the influence of drugs. To this will be added the most grueling accusation; that of shooting and killing a police officer. These are the charges I can think of, imagine the list the district attorney is capable of manufacturing. When something as bad as this happens in the upside down world of crime, all those who stuck by you will want to distance themselves and those who hated your guts will want your head. Thanks to the contributions of third parties, to list will be added extortion, selling drugs, prostitution, theft and maybe a murder or two. The police, who have been watching me quite regularly ever since I became a somebody in the underground world, will hand over to the DA their dossier with photos, phone recordings and other information. It will be useless to plead that I shot the officer under the influence of drugs and that I did not know what I was doing. Even with the best money in the world, I’ll probably get half a dozen life sentences. I said before that I will never go back to prison. I might be wiser, more connected or what not, but the prospect of reliving the experience of incarceration for the rest of my days is too much. Because I killed a police officer, rather than being molested only by the other inmates I can expect to be regularly beaten up by the officers as well. I prefer to quit life and these little pills will see to that.

I seek forgiveness of the family of the police officer I shot dead; I’ll be joining your husband, father, son long before your read this. I’m very sorry; should have pointed the gun to my head and saved everyone the trouble. Not forgiving me gains you nothing. I want to give my love to my mother. Hope you’re more sober than the last time we met and that you’ll get a opportunity to find the inner peace and tranquility drugs and alcohol will never afford you. We could have probably helped each other immeasurably had destiny kept us together. To anyone reading this, I hope you enjoyed the story and maybe it helps you somewhere down the line.

If you put your mind to it you will achieve.