Notes From the Basement: A tribute to Fyodor Dostoevsky
PAGE 1
"This Is My Story." By Idel Nubel, Inmate #650212. Cell Block E, New Kansas Federal Penitentiary.
I write this from a prison cell with rusted bars and peeling paint, the stench of old sweat and disinfectant in the air. Men groan in their sleep. Some scream. But I've never been more at peace.
I'm locked up for life for the murder of my own brother.
And I would do it again.
The funny thing is, everyone thinks this is punishment. A cage. A curse. But the truth is, the moment I pulled the trigger, I wasn't imprisoned I was freed.
Because living under his shadow was the real sentence. The manipulation, the lies, the way he twisted my world until I couldn't recognize myself in it. He broke me in slow motion, and everyone clapped while it happened.
Now the world calls me a killer. Maybe I am. But they never saw the blood he spilled in silence. They never saw me scream behind my smiles.
I am IDEL, and this is my story. My brother was the worst person I ever knew.
I am the second son of Gaiter Nubel and Martha Nubel. My brother Samson was their first tall, charming, golden-skinned, smooth-talking Samson. He had the kind of smile that made teachers lean in and bullies back off. From the moment he could form a sentence, he mastered the one thing I never could: performance.
He was the first person to make me bleed. He was also the first person to make me question if I was insane.
I was eight when he held my arm over a candle flame in the basement. I was crying, screaming even, but he said it was a game "a test of manhood." I still have the scar, lower left forearm, shaped like a comma. When my parents saw it, I told them the truth.
Samson told them I did it to myself. That I was disturbed. He looked right into my mother's eyes and said,
"I think he needs help. He keeps doing weird things to himself."
And they believed him.
They always believed him. Because when Samson lied, it sounded like poetry.
He made sure I was alone, even when I was surrounded.
Samson had the face of an angel but he was the devil. He may have deceived all of them but I saw him for what he was.
At school, it was no different.
I was the weird kid with the notebooks. I wrote raps, my grades were average. I drew monsters. I talked about wanting to design cities that floated. The other boys didn't like that. They cornered me during recess, slapped my head, cracked my iPod, called me "Tandoor" because I was always sweating, twitching, burning with nervous energy.
Samson on the other hand was the life of the party, adored by teachers and worshipped by the ladies. His grades were excellent and he had his way with the hearts of men.
They said I was like an Indian oven. Always on fire.
Samson saw it. He stood nearby, leaning against the gym wall with his friends, girls giggling under his arm. He could've stopped it with one word. He could've walked over and said, "He's my brother."
Instead, he joined in.
He laughed the loudest and said,
"Yo, did you ask them to roast you, or is this part of your freak therapy?"
They all burst out laughing, instead of coming to my aid my evil brother led my tormentors.
I stopped writing for three months after that.
He was a knife disguised as a brother.
But writing always came back. Like rot. Like sin.
By sixteen, I had verses again. Heavy ones. I wasn't trying to be famous I just needed somewhere to throw all this weight. I rapped into my busted speaker in the garage, spitting lines about betrayal, about being invisible, about ghosts who lived in golden skin.
One night, I was deep into a piece I called "Rot Gospel." I thought I was alone.
Samson stepped out of the shadows, sipping a kale smoothie, smirking.
"That's the worst shit I've ever heard," he said. "If I ever hear you rap in public, I'll pretend I don't know you."
And just like that, I believed him. I stopped writing again.
Then came the family reunion.
Everyone was there. Even the uncles with bad knees and the cousins with fresh face tattoos. There was a mic, a speaker, a cheap stage. My cousin Jaylen found a verse I'd scribbled into her yearbook years ago.
"You gotta perform this," she said. "It gave me chills."
I told her no. Then I told her maybe.
Then I stepped up, and I did it. One verse. The Rot Gospel. The realest thing I ever wrote.
And for the first time in my life, people saw me. Heard me.
Grandpa wiped a tear. Aunt Nessa said she felt the Holy Ghost. Even my dad gave me that slow, heavy nod.
I thought for one stupid, naïve second that maybe things were changing.
Three weeks later, Samson went viral.
Same verse. Word for word. On Jimmy Fallon. He said he wrote it in a dream. Called it "Dream Gospel."
He never even looked my way. Never messaged. Never joked. He gave interviews about his "creative process" and "inner child" and "channeling pain."
My words.
His face.
Their applause.
I remember the sound of the claps echoing in my head. It sounded like thunder. Or gunshots.
This is how it begins, you see. Not with a murder. Not with a scandal.
But with slow burns. Candles held to skin. Lies repeated until they replace memory. Years of quiet violence no one ever punishes.
Until the day a man breaks.
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I went on with my life.
Because what else was there to do?
I became an accountant. Yeah. An accountant. The job you pick when your dreams are too bruised to walk and all that's left is math. Gray walls. Grey ties. Grey faces. Ten years of filing other people's wealth into spreadsheets while my own life stayed in the red.
Meanwhile, Samson? Billboards. World tours. Collabs with ghosts, Dilla, Ye, Sade holograms. He had access to the best producers, the tightest penmen, the hungriest publicists.
And Samson was a manipulator. A shape-shifter. You give him a door and he becomes the key.
When people asked about Dream Gospel, he'd laugh and say,
"I guess pain just speaks louder in your sleep."
I watched his interviews sometimes, half-drunk and full of silence. He always looked so clean. So sincere. I kept thinking: They don't know him.
Family didn't help.
"Maybe he's changed." "Maybe there's a spot on the team." "Just talk to him, IDEL. For mom's sake."
But I knew my brother.
I knew the glint in his eye when he wanted something from you. I knew the grin he wore just before he burned you.
Eventually I gave in. Not because I forgave him. But because I was tired of hearing my name called like it was a synonym for bitterness. My cousin Jaylen especially kept begging me to reach out.
Jaylen had always been my biggest supporter. She was the first to recognize my musical talent the only one who called it a gift rather than a phase. Even when I gave up rapping because of what my brother said, she kept my notebooks, memorized my verses, whispered them back to me like scripture.
When Samson stole my pain and made it into a hit, she was the only one who didn't clap. She saw through it. His charm didn't work on her. She used to say, "He wears your wounds like jewelry, and they applaud the shine."
Jaylen tried to speak up for me once, at a family barbecue. Samson tore into her. He was sharp-tongued and cruel, and Jaylen chubby, walking with a limp was his easiest target. He called her a "crossbreed between a penguin and a panda," and the other cousins laughed. I didn't. I couldn't.
That was the day we became more than cousins we became exiles. Bound together by humiliation, and a shared ache that Samson had always been allowed to cause pain without consequence.
I reached out.
He responded with open arms. Publicly.
"Always had love for my lil bro," he tweeted. "Time to cook. Family over everything."
Private messages were less poetic.
Just:
"Meet me in Atlanta. Studio 9th floor. Bring your best."
I flew out. Paid my own ticket. Slept in a shared Airbnb with two Ukrainian crypto bros who snored like tractors.
I came with verses.
Real verses. Not that glossy TikTok word salad. Truth. Dirt. Blood.
We met.
He hugged me like cameras were watching.
Said,
"Let's hear what the ghost of the garage's got."
I spit a verse. The room was quiet.
Then Samson looked at the engineer and said,
"Yo, this the part where we clap or cry?"
Everyone laughed.
Even the ones who didn't know what was going on. Even the intern. Even the cleaning lady, maybe.
And me?
I didn't laugh. But I smiled. Because that's what you do when humiliation is familiar. When you've been trained since childhood to doubt your own scream.
He said,
"Not bad, bro. But it's got that... accountant aftertaste, you know?"
I nodded. Said,
"Yeah. I guess I'm not for everyone."
I went back to my life. But I didn't go back whole.
I started waking up angry. Dreaming of candlelight again. Dreaming of applause that didn't belong to me.
I stopped eating. Started collecting headlines about Samson's next big hit each one a grave marker for something he stole from me.
The next betrayal would be worse.
You want to know about Selena?
Oh, I'll tell you.
I'll tell you what happens when the only thing left to take from a man is his heart
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I was doing better.
Not great. Not healed. Just... better.
I got some certifications. The kind of framed lies you hang on office walls so people assume you're fine. Promotions came too, slow and stiff like mercy in a cruel church. Middle management. A corner office. The occasional glass of wine that didn't taste like regret.
Then Selena.
God, Selena.
She wasn't perfect. That's not what love is. She was real. Soft voice, hard truths. She asked me once if I'd ever been hurt so bad it changed my handwriting. I married her in that moment.
The ceremony was modest. Garden. Dusk. Strings playing something close to joy.
I only invited my parents out of formality. Samson? Never. Not even a whisper of an invitation.
But he came anyway.
Like an infection that ignores the closed door.
He arrived late because of course he did.
In a white limo with a convoy of black SUVs like some post-apocalyptic pope. The paparazzi poured in behind him like ants. Flashes. Screams. The smell of narcissism in cologne form.
People gasped. Phones came out. Some cousins tried to act surprised, like they hadn't texted him the venue behind my back.
He walked up the aisle not towards me, but through me. In that way only truly evil people can do. He smiled. Wide. White teeth. No warmth.
He hugged me.
Said,
"Little bro finally grew up. I'm proud."
The hug lasted just one second too long. The kind of hug that felt like a knife covered in silk.
Then he saw her.
Selena.
And in that moment I swear on the God I'm still unsure exists his whole posture changed.
His smile tightened. His head tilted slightly, like a child inspecting a toy behind a glass case.
He looked at her like something he forgot to steal. Like something he thought he already owned. He could have any woman he wanted, he had dated models, actresses and other musicians, women far more glamourous than my wife. Knowing who he was it was obvious he wanted to prove a point to me, perhaps he wanted to show me that I did not deserve to be happy and that he could take my happiness at any given moment. I was his prisoner and he was free to torment me at will.
And I knew.
The whole night he lingered. Dancing with strangers. Laughing louder than necessary. Making everyone else feel like he was the bride.
Selena said he was "charming." I said he was a cobra in suede.
But the thing about Samson was... he never took something quickly. No he studied it first. Learned how it worked. Where it was fragile.
What came next was slower. Sicker.
He planted seeds that day. And like the devil he is, he waited patiently for them to grow.
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You see, Selena had a voice that made people listen. She was a public speaker, motivational, intelligent, and warm in ways I didn't know how to be. When she spoke on stage, she filled a room. But at that particular event, she didn't fill it alone.
Samson came.
He wasn't invited. He just showed up. That's the Samson way.
And just like always, the world bent its neck for him.
He stole the spotlight before she even touched the mic.
Strutted into the auditorium in that long brown coat like he invented wind. Sat in the front row like a talent scout, arms folded, smile like a loaded weapon.
Selena finished her talk to a standing ovation, but it was his words they were quoting by the end of the night. They circled, they joked, they laughed. I watched her smile stretch to places she didn't know existed when I told her I loved her.
That night, in the car, she said:
"Your brother is... interesting."
And I felt a coldness that had nothing to do with the A/C.
Then came the appearances.
Little ones. Coincidences that weren't.
He'd show up at her seminars. Send her books. Flowers signed anonymously (but always with his exact cologne). The man who once mocked my dreams now pursued my wife like a campaign.
I began to notice:
Her chuckling quietly at her phone. Her screen always tilted away. The new dresses. The longer showers.
I asked her once, directly:
"Are you talking to him?"
She didn't lie. Not exactly.
She said,
"You're being paranoid. He's just nice to me. You know how insecure you get."
And that... that was the bullet dipped in honey.
Then came the worst Tuesday of my life.
A long, brutal day at the office. A presentation that felt like a funeral. Rain. No umbrella. Flat tire. The universe pushing me just an inch closer to the edge.
But nothing not one goddamned thing could have prepared me for what I walked into.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Our bedroom door ajar.
And then I saw it.
My brother.
Samson.
Scrambling from my bed. Shirtless. Laughing. Half-buttoning his pants like it was a joke.
And there Selena.
Lying beneath the sheets.
Not shocked. Not screaming. Just... staring at me.
Like I had walked into the wrong story.
She didn't say a word. Neither did he.
I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I just turned around and walked out the door.
The way a man walks out of a burning building he built himself.
Because that's what hell is.
The divorce wasn't just brutal it was biblical.
Selena cheated on me with my brother Samson. I caught them. I saw them. And still, somehow, I ended up the one on trial financially, emotionally and socially.
She hired the best lawyers paid for, of course, by Samson himself. The irony wasn't lost on me: the same man who broke my life was now funding the clean-up crew.
They came for everything. The car. The couch. Even the dog we rescued together, the one that used to curl up at my feet when I wrote songs.
At the negotiation table, Selena sat there like marble. Cold. Polished. Unfeeling. The warmth I used to love was gone. It had been replaced by something synthetic. Something Samson-shaped.
She won. Of course, she did.
I lost the house. Had to move into a place where the locks are more symbolic than secure. An apartment where the walls are thin and the fear is thick.
Around here, sirens don't mean help is coming. They mean someone's night just got worse.
I bought a gun not because I wanted to, but because you don't survive long here without one.
Samson stole my music, my muse, and my marriage.
Sometimes I wonder what sort of divine joke this is what kind of God gifts a man a brother like that.
And yet... Jaylen still believed in me.
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The final confession from the underground, written with blood beneath the fingernails.
You want to know how I got here? Herein this metal cube of regret and silence?
It wasn't just the betrayal. It wasn't the humiliation. It wasn't even the sheets, or the scent of him that lingered in my house like spoiled wine.
It was everything. It was all of it. It was Samson.
After I caught them after that day I left. Vanished. Didn't say a word. Let them think what they wanted.
Weeks passed. I moved into a studio apartment that smelled like peeled paint and wet socks. Got quieter. Drank more. Ate less.
But Samson wasn't done.
He called. He texted. He showed up at the worst possible time. The video for Dream Gospel-my pain dressed in his voice-was playing on my TV. I don't know who gave him my address. Maybe God. Maybe the Devil. He strolled in like he owned the place-like he always did. Same air of superiority. Same eyes that saw through people but never into them. Same old smirk, like he knew the script and everyone else was just playing catch-up.
No bodyguards. No entourage. Just him and his poisoned charm.
"Hey brother... still enjoying my song, I see." He chuckled. The same way he used to after stealing my rhymes as a kid and making everyone laugh like he had written them. Like pain was a punchline and he was the only one allowed to deliver it.
For a brief moment, my eyes flicked to the drawer. The gun was there. Loaded. Cold. Familiar. I could just reach for it. End it. Boom. His brains on my carpet. His smirk erased from existence.
Oh, the satisfaction it would give me. But how could I kill my own brother? That's not the kind of man I am... right?
I dismissed the thought. Or at least I thought I did.
"You know," he said, slinking in like smoke, "maybe it was fate. Maybe she and I were always meant to find each other. Maybe you needed to learn a little resilience. Maybe that's what all this has been about."
I stared at him.
He walked through my mess like it was a hotel lobby. He poured himself a drink like he still owned my life. Then he sat across from me and said:
"Come on, IDEL. You were always the thinker. The brooding one. The writer. That was your lane. I had to be the star. It was survival, man. It was love, in a way."
Love.
That word, from that mouth.
He tried to reframe it all. The candle burns. The bullying. The theft of my words. The mockery. The wife.
He called it "pressure." He called it "brotherhood."
I called it hell.
And then, something in me just... collapsed inward.
Not rage. Not revenge. Just clarity.
Like watching the final puzzle piece click into place and realizing the picture was always a noose.
I stood. Walked to the drawer. Opened it.
My hand moved before my mind could catch up. It wasn't premeditated. I hadn't planned to kill him. But in that moment... it felt like the only thing left to do.
He looked up from the couch, still talking. Something smug about forgiveness. About us healing. About how he still cared.
I didn't hear all of it. The ringing in my ears had already begun.
And dare I say it God help me it felt right. The only right thing I had done in a very long time.
He didn't flinch when he saw the gun. He leaned back, smug, even chuckled a little.
"Come on, man... really? Drama? Is this what we're doing now?"
He said it like it was a movie. Like he was untouchable. Like every moment in my life had just been a prelude to this one, where he'd walk away again, somehow winning.
But not this time.
Not this time.
I raised the revolver. He stood up, hands out, all theater now.
"Let's talk. Just talk."
But I'd already heard enough.
Bang.
One shot. Clean. He dropped like a suit with no bones.
And the silence that followed?
It was the first peace I'd ever known.
They asked me later, at the trial, if I regretted it.
I told them this:
"The only way I could be free from my brother... was to go to prison."
So here I am. Finally free. Behind bars.
And for once in my life... I sleep well.
PAGE 6
The confession continues
I didn't run. I didn't try to wipe the prints off the gun. I didn't even close his eyes.
I just stood there, revolver still warm in my hand, blood blooming into the cheap carpet like wine from a cracked bottle. And I dialed 911.
Calm voice. No panic. I gave them the address, told them exactly what happened.
"I just killed my brother," I said. "He was a monster. And no one else was going to stop him."
When the police arrived, I didn't resist. I opened the door. Hands up. No theatrics.
I had already done what I came to do.
It wasn't a crime of passion. It wasn't a moment of insanity. It was a lifetime of clarity delivered in a single bullet.
They kept asking me if I was remorseful.
What for?
For not doing it sooner?
For letting Samson live long enough to destroy everything I had?
I told them the truth.
"I feel free."
My parents came to visit me a week later.
Martha and Gaiter Nubel.
They walked into that prison visitation room like they still lived in denial. Like I was the broken one. Like Samson was the tragedy.
My mother wept. My father sat there, stiffer than usual, his eyes scanning me like I was a puzzle missing half the pieces.
"Why, IDEL?" she asked. "Why would you do this to your own blood?"
I looked her dead in the eyes and said:
"Because you never saw what he was. You refused to see. You called it charisma. You called it leadership. But I saw the devil."
I looked at my father.
"And you let him get away with everything. Every lie. Every torment. You told me to be more like him. Even when he set my back on fire with a candle, you asked what I had done to provoke it."
My mother flinched. My father looked away.
"So, no," I said. "I'm not sorry. He didn't die that day. He just finally stopped pretending to be alive."
They never came back. I think they finally believed me. Or maybe they just couldn't bear to look at the truth with skin on.
I sit here now in my cell.
No visits. No calls. No regrets.
The only photograph I keep is one from childhood.
The three of us :Samson, me, and a dog I barely remember. He had his arm around my shoulder, smiling at the camera.
And even in that old picture, I can see it.
That smile didn't reach his eyes.
OUTRO
They sentenced me to life. Said I'd never walk free again. They locked the door, threw away the key, and whispered, "Now he'll rot."
But they don't know what I know.
I've never felt more unchained.
The police said they found a check in his pocket.
Ten million dollars.
Written to me.
He had come to my house to give it to me. A peace offering maybe. A guilt-soaked bribe wrapped in pity.
But I have no regrets about what went down.
You don't buy back a stolen life. You don't erase betrayal with numbers on paper.
All the money in the world couldn't buy my pain back, couldn't bring my soul out of pawn.
He should've kept the check. Should've choked on it.
Out there, I carried my prison in my bones cell bars made of childhood scars, echoes of my brother's laughter as he lit the flame, as he took what was mine, again and again. Out there, I was cuffed by memory, gagged by silence, suffocating under a mask of survival.
Now? Now I've buried the warden of my soul.
They call it a sentence.
I call it a release.
Let the world call me a killer. Let the headlines rot. This isn't a confession.
It's a eulogy. A rebirth. A note from the basement.
They think I've been trapped for life.
But this is the first day I've ever breathed.