This is Larry Stromberg, SCI Phoenix in Pennsylvania. This is my short play entitled Stages. So, hope you like it.
Stages
My name is a number. I’ve been incarcerated about 30 years now, I committed a horrible crime when I caught my wife with another man. It sickens my stomach, what I done. Sentenced to death by incarceration. I filed every appeal, commutation, all shot down, no relief. In prison I’ve gotten education and all my programs, you know, certificates, certifications. I did it all, but no relief by the courts.
And then, you know, I try to take care of myself physically. Years and years of incarceration, you never know what you get in this place. I never knew I had stage one cancer. I never knew I had stage two cancer, or stage three, but stage four hit me hard, coughing up blood, vomiting, stomach cancer. End up on hospice.
Compassionate release was shot down. Victim opposition, and I have to understand that the victims, they never forgive me. I won’t forgive me. On hospice, I start rotting away skin and bones, defecating myself; the day I came to know that it was – that was it. And the dying, stage four cancer, but now I’m in the spiritual realm. I accepted God’s forgiveness. In death there is forgiveness.
I found my freedom in death. I am free now. I just hope the other ones there in the cage get another chance with freedom out in society. For me, I’m at that stage now, totally free. It’s a good place. That’s a good place.
That was Stages, Larry Stromberg, SCI Phoenix.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
