ROR Episode 137: Religion

Hey, I made a comment over a year ago back in May of 2023 to randy. I’m from the United Kingdom and was describing my time working in Cambridgeshire in the fenlands as I drove across farmers fields on my way to work.

Im very glad that Randy was able to see the message and know that, despite everything that has happened, it is still possible to be remembered from corners far outside of the world he lives in.

It is a very strange experience to communicate to a prisoner such as randy. In that in every objective sense he is a murderer and what he has done is no doubt an incredibly evil act. In many ways some may argue that there is no forgiveness for such an action. So it does feel strange to wish to communicate with such a person. I wonder what motivates me to attempt to connect to a man like randy. Perhaps his sense of regret and remorse is appealing to me, in that is reinforces the idea that a western justice system is capable of producing such thoughts in people convicted of his crimes. In other ways I think that my own experiences in life are often solitary, despite my freedom, and much like randy and any other prisoner, I spend my days sat in my room thinking about the world around me as opposed to experiencing it.

In a strange way I do relate to his experience in its most basic form, that despite my abilities to go meet friends and travel at my own pleasure, on many occasions I am a prisoner inside my room. Staring at the ceiling and reflecting on life and the thoughts that plague me.

I wanted to write this message to provide some updates to randy about my life if only so that it may provide some thoughts for him about the outside world. A reprieve from the mundanity of his solitary, repetitive, and isolating experiences inside of prison.

Since the time when I last sent a message I have moved away from Cambridgeshire.

I do miss those days and the travel to and from my place of work. I was a static security guard at a closed down elderly care home. I was the only person in the entire building, a place that had been open for over 30 years, with plenty of memories of all the elderly folks who had come for their final resting days and passed away in the very building I was tasked with occupying.

It was a small village, hardly even a town, with nothing but farms along it’s roads and several houses that occupied each street. Infront of the care home was a field of farmland that overlooked something that reminded me of a valley. As I sat in the parking lot empty of any cars and signs of life, I was truly alone.

I would spend my days walking inside an empty building. In each room there were reminders of the activities that used to take place. Old Christmas cards, board games, and pictures of fun times with the patients who came through the place.

During the sun sets I would leave the building and head out into the front car park. The street was a cosy little borough, as mentioned, with several houses on each side along a single winding road, opposite an immense piece of farmland. I would watch the sunset in the distance, a hew of orange across the grains of yellow wheat as the day turned into night.

It was peace that I have never felt before. In the hustle and bustle of the busy streets of London and Manchester, where shops and businesses and buses and cars and all manner of urban things plagued the world…this was a small single road with a farm and a few houses. And I was able to sit in solace knowing that despite being a paid security guard, nobody was my boss. No one could tell me what to do. I was free. At any point during my 12 hour shifts I could leave the site and nobody would know. And many times I did.

I remember one time I left to visit a camping area about 2 miles away. There was nothing but countryside and a few caravans. I stayed for hours before deciding to head back to my worksite.

As bad as it sounds I would sometimes bring an alcoholic drink with me. Other times I would bring weed and get high whilst I sat in the courtyard infront of the parking space. A courtyard that was its own little garden where i could simply be in solace.

I sometimes still wish that I was back in that place. The only time in my life I felt as if I was being paid to be free.

I only describe this because I do hope randy is able to conceptualise my experience. Maybe to imagine and reminisce in the times of someone who lived far away from the trouble of the United States and his incarceration. In the countryside of England.

Since then I have moved back into London and am getting married in a few months. Much has changed and I do look forward to the future and the opportunities I will have. But I will always remember that one time where I was alone and free. A creature left to their own devices able to experience the world of natural beauty in a solitary existence that brought me a peace I have never known.

Hope things are going well for you Randy.

Much love, from the United Kingdom.

– Seyyed