Death Salad

"A salad? Really? You can have anything in the world you want for your final meal and you chose a salad?" the guard asked me incredulously.

I nodded silently as he set it down in front of me. Shaking his head, he left me and my salad alone. Slowly, I took a small bite. My mind struggled between the past and the future. Well, what little future was left anyway. Finally, it decided to reminisce about the past. What if that whole "your entire life flashes in front of you before you die" thing doesn't exist? I could do it myself -at least the major events.

Most people would envy the path my life took. I was an internationally famous supermodel after all. However, like everything else, it came with a price. A college roommate of mine was a model. Just local -nothing too high-scale. She didn't have a car, so I would often drop her off and pick her up at shoots. Because of my freakishly high cheekbones and naturally indigo eyes, the photographers and make-up artists began to take notice. With a little dieting, I could be a very successful model, they assured me.

They were right. Decreasing my food intake and increasing my workout time and suddenly I could call myself a model. 

A few of my pictures made it to the eyes of some prominent New York agencies who contacted me. They were interested in trying me out, but their weight requirements were even stricter. No matter how little I ate and how much I exercised, that level couldn't be achieved. That's when I turned to some dieting pills a friend hesitantly recommended. Popping a few in the morning and, eventually, a few more in the afternoon did the trick. Suddenly, I wasn't just a model. I was a very successful one who could make a living off of her work.

There was an avalanche effect. The more shoots I did, the more people became interested, the skinnier I would be required to become, the more pills I would consume. Sometimes it felt like I was made of pills. Always adventurous, I started to experiment with other kinds -not all of which were legal. But, it was my life, and I would do what I wanted with it. It was nobody else's business what I did.

Until it started to affect somebody else's life. In between shoots one day I checked my phone and saw some messages from my old roommate. Her modeling career had never gone as well as mine, but she hadn't given up. She begged for some advice on how to get to the next level. We met up and I gave her some of my diet pills -illegal ones.

People's body's react differently to things. She died. When people found out it was because of illegal "drugs" I gave her, I was charged with her death. My sentence was execution. But I didn't kill her. The industry did.

There are going to be reporters at my execution soon. I'm sure they'll take pictures. I'm not going to eat the whole salad -I want look good for the cameras. I hope that my entire life does flash in front of my eyes. I'll look amazing in the flashes.