Regrets from the bad behaviors of your younger years, now that you’re, behind bars, you’d had a whole lot of time, to introspect, and you’d, come to realize, that you shouldn’t have, joined in the gangs, but, it’s too late, because you can go back in time, to change the murders you’d, committed! Translated…
The screech of the tires on the pavement, it’d, awakened the silence of the night, following, a series of gunshots, then, following, came, a massacre. It’d happened, so suddenly, and, ended, just as quick too, with only the streetlamps as the silent witnesses close to dusk.
The black sedan that was ambushed lay limp by the side of the road, the M16 left countless number of bullet holes on the doors, and, the blood and guts that were spilled out inside the car, was what Cannon couldn’t erase out of his memories, for over six months’ time.
Cannon told me, that he’d just felt, a bit, emotionally off, with the smallest movements from his fingers, then, he’d, terminated two lives. Seeing how three families were broken because of it, plus receiving a twenty-year sentence in jail, it’d, made Cannon regain his own senses, started thinking of his involvement in the gangs, how he was so selfish, and without a conscience, if time can go back, he wouldn’t want any of this.
The country gave Cannon a place where he could regain his own conscience back, that, was where I’d, met up with him. Cannon now became, Yo, he’d always looked like a Buddha, had his fellow inmates not reminded me, I couldn’t tell, that before me, was this man, who had his hands, stained by other people’s blood.
Yo became a Christian in prison, and slowly, walked out, of the shadows, he was grateful, that in his twenty-years of gang-related involvements, he’d not become, a ghost under someone else’s guns, and felt blessed, that he’d found religion, and started feeling the gratitude for everything around him. But, Yo had times when he couldn’t squeeze out a smile, every time as his son took his three-year-old grandson to visit him in jail, as the visiting hours are over, the grandson would always ask, “Why is pappy always staying in there? Why can’t pappy come home with us?”, and because of this innocence inquiry, Yo would, lost his appetite for days on end.
It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival, and it’d been many, many years since, I’d paid a visit home too, by the time I get released, I’ll be, the age of my own grandfather. Oh, how I’d wanted to tell the younger generations who are running with the wrong crowds, “Youth is very long, it’s also, too short, as you’d lost it, it can end, at any second, and, by the time you’d regained your freedom, you’d be, an elderly.”
“Why can’t grandpa come home?”
I know, because he’d once thought, that the drifter can live forever like so, too long, that he’d, turned into, a white-haired, elderly man, and still received the title of “brother”. And yet, at the very end, he’d turned into this, brotherless, freedom-less, grandpa who couldn’t, make it home.
So, this, is how it ended, you’d committed murder, and now, you’re, serving your time, and, you’d, finally realized, that you were too young and too wild when it happened, and, would trade just about any and everything, to have the past back, so you can, make a different decision, that had, led you where you are right now, but, it’s too late, you’d done the crime, and now, you’ll be, doing the time, until your debt’s paid up to society!