Memoirs of Steinfink, composed in the darkness of hell. Everything stripped; all pretense. Doomed to death by calendar. Simplifies things the way violence simplifies things when uncontrolled. Me, Steinfink revealed in this dungeon of collective intolerance. Who and what am I? Questions upon brittle lips. Don't want questions. Instead, bow down before me, the prince of all men, the Lord of the Universe. My name's George Steinfink, at least, how I'm addressed at this penal institution of ill repute. The name was sent down for me by that divine angel Gabriel, for me, the one who spreads the truth that you lack. I'm Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Zoroaster and a host of others who have wandered about famously. George Steinfink is a pure man, an individual man, a quiescent man who has committed the greatest acts of violence. My violence is part of my pacifism, and pacifism is part of my violence. My reward? Steinfink, abused, forced to bleed internally while wallowing in scum-riddled filth, crashing into lifeless forms, and living with my insides turned inside out. Steinfink lying a top a broken-down, ragged spring cot while glaring at gray chipped walls and endless silver bars? A life without another person to be passionate with beside myself, excreting my wastes in a vermin infested hole for a toilette while calculating the seconds? Why, dear readers? You shameless idolaters dropped me into this pit of isolation? Afraid of the truth I spread. Call me a madman and serial killer when I'm a peaceful fellow who destroys costumes. Think about that before you slice me into millimeters and execute me in your stainless-steel gas chamber.
So George Steinfink - death-row inmate and author of Costume Parade, the prison diary - speaks.
