The Story of The First Day

The First Day is the story of a woman confined in a solitary prison cell for an unidentified crime in an unknown place and time. Upon waking one morning a letter is passed under the door of her cell that states the date of her execution. She has been imprisoned and cut off from the outside world for so long, however, that she no longer knows the present date, or even the month or year. She frantically searches her cell for sensory cues that might reveal even what season it may be. The woman sniffs the air in an attempt to smell spring flowers and listens to the sounds of the guards' boots in the corridor to hear if they're tracking snow behind them. She finds only glimpses of the world that she once knew however, and discovers nothing of import. The realization that she will never know the amount of time until her inevitable death leads the woman to an incredible transformation. Her final act is to make a single mark, which signifies the first day, on the wall of her cell. Over the course of a single day a metamorphosis occurs within our heroine that leads her on a journey from despair to fear to acceptance to a renewed and tragic appreciation of life.