A/N: The story in italics is not my story!!! It is a segment from "Spoon River" by Edgar Allan Poe. The story in regular font is my own story. I just put the original because I need to fill some people in on the story.
I figured that I would post my English project on fan fic.
Mrs. Marrit
Silent before the jury,
Returning no word for the judge when he asked me
If I had aught to say against the sentence,
Only shaking my head
What could I say to the people who thought
That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
Even though she had said to him over and over,
"Go away, Elmer, go far away,
I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body
You will do something terrible thing"
And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
With which I had nothing to do, before God!
Silent for thirty years in prison!
And the iron gates of Joliet
Swung as the gray and silent trusties
Carried out my coffin.
XXX
All I could do was stare beyond the jury. 'Is this really happening,' my mind kept repeating. This all seemed like a dream. 'Is it a dream?'
The stout man in the jury box stirred me from my pensive state. "We have reached our verdict, your honor," the man said without hesitating.
"And what is your verdict for Mrs. Marrit?" the judge exclaimed.
"We, the jury, find her guilty in planning her husband's murder," the stout man announced.
"Have you anything to say to defend yourself, Mrs. Marrit?" the judge asked.
As my dry lips parted, I made an attempt to get myself out of this hellish nightmare. I hesitated as I realized no one cared what I said or did in my defense. My sentence was already etched in stone. I had no way of changing it. These people were already convinced that I, a woman of thirty-five, was at fault, when my lover of nineteen killed my husband.
I shook my head in defeat, for I had no hope.
The judge banged his gavel and dismissed the court. I was led to my cold, damp cell, by a broad shouldered man. As I stared at the moldy room that I would be spending quite some time in, the guard opened the door and nudged me into the small, decaying room.
As the bars slammed shut it echoed through my mind. I sat on the stone floor as the darkness engulfed me.
XXX
(Thirty years pass)
A whirl of pictures and voices were yelling in my head all at once. "Go away, Elmer, go far away, I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body. You will do some terrible thing" Those words replayed themselves in my head for the longest time.
'How long have I been here? Days? Months? Years?' It doesn't matter. All that matters is, that I try to stifle out these voices in my head. I search around my dank cage as if I would find the very answer here. My eyes landed on a pointed rock next to my bed. I reached out and grabbed the cold rock in my hands. I placed the tip of the rock on my wrist and watched the crimson fluid leak out of my skin. The last thing I felt was the cold, clammy hand, of death's grip.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think.