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The Room with the Little Door

Chapter 39: CHAPTER XIX Impressions—Dawn in the Death-Chamber
By Roland Burnham Molineux
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About This Book

A former prisoner recounts life inside the Death-Chamber at Sing Sing, portraying a corridor of barred cells, constant surveillance, and a small door through which condemned men pass to execution. Through episodic sketches he conveys the monotony of waiting, restricted visits, a library of books, and the strange intimacy produced by shared confinement under bright lights. Vignettes range from tragicomic incidents—a man who befriends and ultimately preserves a dead mouse—to evenings of communal singing, friendships, and private reflections. Later pieces examine psychological experiments, interrogation practices, and contemplations about how individuals maintain dignity, hope, or indifference when facing imminent death.

CHAPTER XIX
 
Impressions—Dawn in the Death-Chamber

I listened for the shrieking whistle of the milk train. It has come and gone, and the echoes have died away among the hills of Ossining, those beautiful hills, just—outside. The little family of sparrows who live in the skylight of the dead-house—I know each one by name—awake and angrily pipe their protest at the disturbance. Some of them fly down into the stale, tobacco-laden air and hop on the floor looking for crumbs.

I can hear Shorty, at the other end of the corridor, in the last cell of all, talking to himself, or to God. Others are mumbling while they doze. Larry shrieked twice during the night. And I? I received a visit yesterday and have lain awake thinking over the incident and of what the future means to me.

I am morbid!

I have made the story of the little dead mouse—it is all imaginary, but it is what I have resolved to do myself if----

All these are signs not to be disregarded; I know something is about to happen; I lie in bed and watch for it. Outside, I know that nature is cool and gray—delightful. I wait; it comes. The fierce yellow light begins to fade from out the electric globes; and finally, as it becomes less intense, each little red wire is visible; which fades into pink and disappears. The fearful light, the cruel, torturing, piercing light is gone. And that is how dawn comes to us in the Death-Chamber.