Regret

Prologue

The heavy cuffs bite into his skin. Their cold embrace reeling him back to reality. Soft evening sunrays were streaming in from the small window. He sat there waiting on that plastic chair, it's hardness had become a norm for him, so much so that its uncomforting coldness did not bother him anymore.
He looked on, at the looming metal door with an emotionless expression. His mind was numb with no thoughts. You could hear birds chirping in the distance with a soft melody as they headed back to their nests. There was a slight hum of incoherent murmuring, but to him it was just silence. His thoughts had left him long ago, it was a good thing he concurred. They did no good. To him or anyone near him.

Perhaps it was natural for this. Whatever you would call this feeling of nothingness. It had already been 5 years since that regretfully night.
Regretful? No he didn't regret anything.
He shook his head.
'I regret nothing.'
The squeaking of the old metal door shook him out of his bubble. It's hinges screeched, making the most nerve grating noises he had ever heard.  But it had become part of his now mundane life. He had spent his every evening, for the past five years, sitting on this plastic chair, waiting for the monotonous tick tok of the clock to creep up to 4. Then the old metal door would screech and squeak, letting through the same old wrinkly face inside.

His expressions would be just as bored as his own were. The doctor had no interest in him, he did not believe in things like change or regret, not that he would find any in his appointed patient. He just believed in cashing his cheque that he would get after doing one hour of daily therapy with his disgruntled self.
The doctor followed his routine of coming in, asking him about his day as if there was anything new to do in the four walled hell he was grounded to, and then sit back for the rest of the section waiting for him to answer. It was just time pass at this point. They both knew there was nothing coming out of this. The doctor had stopped trying long ago. These past few days he had started bringing a folder with him. He would sit back on his padded chair and just read from it. It was just a formality now.
      He could have protested, refused to attend these, but it's not like he was doing anything better. If not here, he would be sitting back at his cell, looking it the peeling roof trying to find something new there. He was doing nothing here, he would be doing nothing there. It just simply didn't matter. So he waited everyday, to walk here and then back back to his cell, so that he had something to do. That's what he used to think God knows how much time ago. Now he had even memorised the stale smell of this room. Each step from his cell felt practiced, like something he had done for eons.
There was nothing.
The food tasted bland on his tongue, the rancid smell of the toilets didn't make him gag anymore there wasn't any vibrancy in his life. He was so ready. To be done with this therapy , with this day, this year, this life. He just wished for the peaceful embrace of death now. He knew there would be nothing peaceful about it because for it will give way for hell. His sins were too grave for heaven, he knew. But he still regretted nothing.

So he sat up straight, relaxing his hand from the death grip he had on his trousers, and waited again for this to be over.