The paint on these window bars is forming into a crust. The rust beneath is the harbinger of death, for it tells me the budget is down for a few more years, until the new prisoners have replaced me. I have been checking the decay of paint and polish infinitely, ever since I was a child, catching a paint-formed Karl Marx face on the walls of my grandmother's guest room, not knowing I was the seed of a stingy upper middle class. But, dear friend, I write to you as a consoler of your tragedy; a death in the family is never easy. Confined within these rotting walls, I ask not for a mirror to shave my chin. I see my reflection everyday in the morning and at night, in the faces of my jailers and inmates. If you are a man of religion, I shall not recount a prophet's progress. If you are a man of pleasures, I shall not tell you that life goes on. If you profess other grey zones in between, I shall still remain silent. From one prisoner to another, I say we are still worlds apart.