Contentment, they say, is the absence of stress and worries, the bliss of having no fears for the morrow. That's me, I guess. My life is plotted down to the very end, so I'm in the unique position of not caring about global warming, the economy or terrorism, not even about who's going to fix the next Presidential election.

Life wasn't always like that. As an unwanted child, I was abused for much of my young years until when I was 8, a neighbour finally reported my parents to the authorities, and I was rescued from the drunken beatings, the rat infested tenements, and a succession of uncles. You'd think life would be much better for me after the shocking details of my existence were revealed, which were so harrowing that they made the judge cry. "I can assure you that you'll never again have to put up with such treatment," she declared, and I was given a special case worker to ensure that I would be henceforth treated with compassion and respect.

However, my case worker was as much use as a chocolate teapot, and a succession of foster homes, each one worse than the last, put me on a downward spiral. By the time I was 14, my innocence was long gone, victim to a loving foster father, the first of many such encounters, wanted or not.

I ran away from home on numerous occasions, and was eventually deemed to be uncontrollable, and spent time in remand homes, learning from the other inmates how to really misbehave, graduating over the next few years to fraud and petty theft to keep body and soul together.

This could have been the pattern for the rest of my life, but I had the good fortune to take a fair amount of cash from a high roller in Las Vegas. When Big Jim Cartwright discovered what I'd done, he came looking for me. Not for revenge, but because he'd fallen for me like a ton of bricks, and saw my potential as his partner in crime. Jim and I made a formidable combination, and lightened the wallets and bank balances of many a man so dazzled by my beauty that he cast all caution to the wind, and became an easy target.

Inevitably, my gratitude to Jim for taking me from the depths and giving me back some self-respect turned to love, and the day he used our latest score to buy me a diamond ring was the happiest I've ever known. Nothing could come between us now. I had met my soul mate, and the next few years made up for all the terrible years that came before Jim.

Contentment was finally mine. Or was it?

I suppose it was inevitable that eventually we'd pick the wrong target for our latest scam. Terry Warner turned out to be the infamous Giovanni Pestucci, the Mafia hit man from Miami, in town under an alias. He promptly turned his attention from his official target to go after my beloved Jim. My life fell apart when I opened the door to our apartment to find him dead on the floor, a single bullet hole between his eyes putting an end not just to Jim's life, but to mine too.

Pausing only long enough to pick up a wad of cash from the drawer, I whispered a last goodbye and gently closed the door on my beloved Jim.

Holding back my grief with a Herculean effort, I made it across town to an old acquaintance. "Just any kind of gun," I told him. "Jim taught me how to shoot, and now I intend to."

To cut a long story short, as you all know by now, I caught up with Pestucci in the lobby of his hotel, and poured the entire contents of the gun into him, then let go of my grief at last, and just stood there, howling my rage at the Universe, insane with my intense loss. I didn't resist arrest when the cops turned up to take me into custody.

The newspapers and TV networks made a real media circus of my arrest, arraignment and trial, so I don't need to tell you of the guilty verdict and the sentence. You probably don't know why I flatly refused to even consider lodging an appeal, so I'll enlighten you on that.

Jim had made a study of old religions during our so few years together, and had embraced the concept of reincarnation. He said, "One life together isn't enough for you and me, baby. We've been together in previous lives, and I know we're going to be locked together for eternity. Whichever of us goes first, I know we'll be waiting at the gate for the other to come through."

So tonight, I get to choose my last meal. I'll even joke to the prison chaplain that it looks like he's going to be getting some rain tomorrow. Then, in the morning, as the needle goes into my arm, I'll put a mile on my face, and I'll go to Jim, the only thing in this life that made sense. Maybe we can do better in the next one. Not much longer to wait, Jim baby!

Now that's contentment!

© Sandy Parkinson, 7th November, 2006. Word count: 878