Here’s a 500-word fictional letter based on your prompt:
Letter from Luigi Mangione to a Nursing Student
March 9, 2025
Federal Correctional Institution, Florence, CO
Dear Miss Martinez,
I wasn’t expecting a letter from a nursing student, of all people. When I saw your envelope among the usual stack of legal notices and threats from the press, I almost didn’t open it. But curiosity got the better of me.
You asked about my daily routine. I’ll tell you, but only if you promise not to romanticize any of it. Prison isn’t a place for reflection, redemption, or poetic justice. It’s a factory of routine, where days blur into each other, stripped of meaning.
Morning starts at 5:30 AM when the fluorescent lights hum to life, and the guards stomp down the corridors like they own the air we breathe. Breakfast is a tray of powdered eggs, watery oatmeal, and coffee that tastes like burnt regret. You learn to eat fast, not because you’re hungry, but because the next guy might take your tray if you don’t.
From 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM, we work. Some clean floors. Others sew uniforms. I’ve been assigned to the kitchen, chopping vegetables under the watchful eye of a guard who carries a baton like he’s dying to use it. They don’t let me near the knives. No surprise there.
Lunch is at 11:30—mystery meat, overcooked rice, a single slice of white bread. You asked if I regret what I did. I wonder if the late Mr. UnitedHealthcare CEO ever had to eat something like this. Probably not. I bet he dined on prime rib while denying coverage to cancer patients.
Afternoons are for “recreation.” That’s what they call it when they let us shuffle around the yard, lifting rusted weights or walking in circles like caged animals. I read when I can—old books with torn pages, discarded by inmates before me. You mentioned you’re studying nursing. Medicine is supposed to save lives. What happens when the people in charge decide whose life is worth saving?
Dinner is at 5:00 PM. More slop. More routine. After that, we’re locked in our cells by 8:00. The walls don’t close in as much as you’d think. It’s the silence that does it. I’ve seen men break from it. Not me. Not yet.
I don’t expect sympathy, Miss Martinez. I’m exactly where the system says I belong. But let me ask you—when you’re in the hospital one day, watching a family beg for help while a corporate suit decides whether they live or die, will you still think I was the monster?
Lights out. Time to sleep. Tomorrow is the same. The day after that, too.
Sincerely,
Luigi Mangione
Let me know if you’d like any changes!
