Costume Parade

Book excerpt: 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 men, the Lord of the Universe. Name's George Steinfink, at least, how I'm addressed at this penal institution of ill repute. 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. So George Steinfink death-row inmate and author of Costume Parade, the prison diary - speaks.