this is somethin i’ve been toying with since last summer. any feedback would be sincerely appreciated, even if you think it’s crap.
[size=150]Chapter 1[/size]
In college, we were taught that there are 5 mental stages every executioner goes through. I laughed when I first heard this. Now that I kill people for a living, the humor is lost on me. As many times as I have done this, the stages that I scoffed at so long ago keep coming back in the same manner everytime. I have not been able to control this as of yet.
The bright sheen of the tools seems to beckon with the soft hum of unseen electricity. It’s a kind of morbid exultation of finally being useful after sitting alone in the dark drawer, achingly clean for so long. If the tools could talk, they’d tell you that a week in the drawer is like an eternity. No amount of lying anxiously in the velvety drawer can quench the blood lust. Their desire for torture and blood is vampiric in nature and it’s frightening to see them in action, drinking lustily in the moment. Once gleaming, the tools dull with a shade of maroon only moments into the feeding. This is the moment they live for. This is the time where the tools become part of the man and sometimes, the man becomes part of the tools, losing himself in their gluttonous ventures.
FURY -
1.) Violent anger; rage. See Synonyms at .
2.) Violent, uncontrolled action; turbulence. Furies Greek & Roman Mythology.
3. The three terrible winged goddesses with serpentine hair, Alecto, Megaera,
and Tisiphone, who pursue and punish doers of unavenged crimes.
4. A woman regarded as angry or spiteful.
At one point or another, we’ve all felt this baser instinct. It’s a wave of red that scrambles the brain while allowing you to remember every sordid detail. Your body shakes imperceptibly and every muscle tenses, ready to react to anything. The adrenaline pumps viciously, trying to take your common sense, if only briefly while a thick white noise fills your ears, making you impervious to outside sound. The body flushes, heats up…it’s a wonder anyone can do this job under these conditions. You read over their case files, you know their history, you know almost everything they do about how to torture, maim and kill with as much pain as possible and your first instinct is to take them out immediately. Society as we know it now does not frown upon that, but leave that to the actual killers and murderers. I’m considered an artist at what I do and people fear me, not because of who I am or what I do, but because I do it for a living. It comes easy to people like me. Well…to a point anyway.
There is something cold and unfeeling about the tools. It’s not that they’re made of solid steel or that they’ve been surgically sterilized (well, in most cases they have). These are not ordinary tools. You can’t pick these up at any hardware store. They serve no purpose other than to cause intense pain and suffering upon a human life. There are men, men of intense genius and wicked evilness who’ve made these, used them, proved them to be the tried and true way of doling out pain to those they feel deserve it.
They are the bastardization of the gardening world, the surgical world, and the cutlery world, all rolled together to form a hand held monstrosity. Monstrosities made only to make men scream at the sound of their own flesh being rolled back and organs toyed with, moved around like we were the Creator, unsatisfied with this model in particular. What the tools don’t drink up themselves, the drains beneath the bench lap up gladly, drinking on the screams at the same time. Drainage pipes carry the sound of someone knowing his time has come; a warning to the rest of the masses, agonizingly awaiting their time alone with the tools. The pipes (crudely constructed and even more crudely intentioned) reach every cell in one way or another. Every prisoner below the surface experiences the sound of his or her own death numerous times before it ever actually happens.
There is a strange sense of overwhelming power when my fingers curl around the spine of the tool, palm resting comfortably where it should. I can feel the tool’s greed to take over the execution rise up through my arm slowly. It is with hard won resolve that this does not happen.
They tell you during your education that serial killers never look into their victim’s eyes. This prevents a sort of weird connection between the killer and the victim, a dissociation of sorts. When the killer is able to put up that boundary between predator and prey, it becomes easier to get the job done without a moral objection popping up unexpectedly to change their mind.
We, as young and budding executioners are told to do the same. One slip, one faulty incision and the execution can go wrong.
The lucky prisoner today was convicted on 8 separate charges of child molestation and 11 counts of murder in the first degree for the parents he killed after forcing them to watch him defile their children. It’s hard to not get emotional knowing these facts of a case. Children are the innocents, the purist parts of our society. What power gives these men and women the right, the mental seed that grows and grows to take away something that hasn’t even had a chance to blossom yet?
He is tied to the metal gurney, back to the ceiling. He is naked and shivering. The gag in his mouth prevents him from saying anything. His IV of Nobyproxil keeps him awake throughout the entire process and puts his synapses in orbit. He feels everything I do to him, but cannot struggle. The muscles are shut down but the mind is wide-awake, remembering everything. This is one of the few times I don’t want everyone else to hear the dying scream. The silence is deafening in its own right as his eyes open wide as we both experience first blood simultaneously. Flesh gives way to a crimson flow that finds it’s own path along the metal gurney and down to the drainage pipes. The sweat on his brow tells me he is in intense pain. This is good.
First blood is always the hardest, second blood being easier, third being even easier than that, and so on. “Easier†being the nice way to put it. That sounds absurd, I know, but the difference between a good execution and a bad execution is a fine line that many have trampled across in their haste. The knife slips, goes the wrong way, tears the wrong artery or vein and the guilty die a quick death. Not painless, just faster than we want. Faster than what is just and right in the eyes of the law. Faster than what they deserve. This child molester did not die quickly. My knife did not slip.
Satisfaction -
- a.)The fulfillment or gratification of a desire, need, or appetite.
b.)Pleasure or contentment derived from such gratification.
c.) A source or means of gratification. - a.)Compensation for injury or loss; reparation.
b.)The opportunity to avenge a wrong; vindication. - Assurance beyond doubt or question; complete conviction.
This particular emotion coincides with the death gasp of the accused. The final exhalation rings like the soft tones above ground, signaling the end of the workday. The job is done and you can put your tools away. There is a sense of justice that comes with the last breath. Before you lies an arrested, tried, and convicted corpse, the mental madness now seeping into the air, hurting no one any longer. There is a swelling of morbid pride that you’ve done something good, something right, something moral. Somehow, you’ve given back something to the community by making the accused feel every slice, every effect, every nuance of their vicious slaughter of some law-abiding citizen. They call it “eye for an eye†but this is much, much more than that. Everything that the accused did to their victim occurs during their own execution.
There is a smile at this sometimes, depending on the brutality of the crime. The more brutal the offense, the more satisfaction one typically feels at the end of an execution. But this begs the question…is society as a whole the true monster? We never used to mete out punishment in this way. It’s sanctioned and even honored to be evil in return now. We are paid well to clean the streets of these child molesters, serial rapists, and what have you, but does it make us any better because the government gives us a paycheck for it?
Calm -
1.) An absence or cessation of motion; stillness.
2.) Serenity; tranquillity; peace.
The tools no longer gleam. They are bloodied, appetites sated, waiting now only to be cleaned and put back to sleep in their drawer, the soft velvety lining putting them to sleep until their hunger awakens them again. The cool water is almost a baptism for them, cleansing them of the fires of anguish and mortal screams. Unfortunately, a shower does no such thing for me. Bloodstains on skin come out with enough scrubbing, but the memories cement themselves to your psyche. I would imagine that my nightmares will stop the day I die.
I find that the time I spend cleaning the execution room is the best time. It’s not a whistling time or a humming time, but the screams and muffled moans have stopped. The blood has stopped dripping from the table and no longer drops down the drain. It’s quiet again. The tools no longer tempt me to hold them, to wield them, digging them deep into flesh or to rip organs apart slowly. They’ve been cleaned and put away. The body lies in front of me, still and motionless, the last breath long since been exhaled. The smell of death permeates the room, but that never really leaves. No amount of scrubbing or cleaning will ever take the angel of death out of the tile in the walls. She is always there, watching over. But now she, like the tools, no longer goads me into painful retributions.
An execution could take less than an hour or more than five, depending on the severity of the offense, but regardless of how long it takes, your body takes a beating. It’s really more of a mental thing, but the adrenaline racing out of your body, thinning out in the blood speeds it along. Your limbs become heavy, matching your eyelids and the fans in the room turn on, buzzing and thunking loudly as they cool the sweat off your skin, now goosebumping itself up to your shoulders. This is not an easy job.
The cleaning helps. It is a weird catharsis to be sure. Sometimes I imagine the adrenaline flowing out of my pores and down the drain along with the deep maroon of dead life. I take a look around the room, check the tools again, check the table, and turn out the lights, locking the pristine room up behind me. The body will lie there until morning when the non-violent offenders come to take the corpse to the catacombs. Upper management says this task psychologically steers them clear of violent offenses once they get out.
I’ve seen hundreds of NV’s (non-violents) go pale while carting these bodies away. It’s not unusual. Most of the times, the executions are so brutal, I’m surprised I don’t retch when I’m done. Regardless, most NV’s don’t ever come back when they’ve been released, and I would assume this small task is probably why.
I recall one NV asked me after a particularly messy execution whether or not the guy felt it. “Every cut, every slice, every bone crush, everything. Yes. He didn’t die until I let him,†I answered. The NV promptly excused himself and I could hear him retch halfway down the hall. I should be able to chuckle at that, but like I said, I’m slowly losing the humor in all this.
Insanity -
1.) Persistent mental disorder or derangement. No longer in scientific use.
2.)Law.
a.) Unsoundness of mind sufficient in the judgment of a civil court to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.
b.) In most criminal jurisdictions, a degree of mental malfunctioning sufficient to relieve the accused of legal responsibility for the act committed.
3.)
a.) Extreme foolishness; folly.
b.) Something that is extremely foolish.
I’ve seen coworkers be completely normal in the morning and by End of Day, they’ve completely lost it. Throwing chairs around the office, pounding on walls, cowering in dark corners of the hallways to avoid any and all contact with another living soul. This job is difficult and unfortunately, we are the only employees throughout any city that are forced to take our work home with us. It’s not paperwork or physical labor, but the mental fortitude needed for this job is high. I feel like I could break after every execution. I’m not weak but it’s getting harder and harder to walk home and feel like I’ve done something good sometimes. I kill people for a living. I should be given a straight jacket and a prison sentence for doing the things I’ve done beneath the surface of the prison, behind the thick walls of the execution rooms. The straight jacket would be a “personal affect.†I’d ask for it just so I wouldn’t lash out at someone.
The job wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have to go to the surface to get home every day. The prison is a mile deep underground. It’s cool only because of an elaborate ventilation system constantly pushing new, cool air throughout. It’s a constant 71 degrees and there’s a breeze that rides the walls smoothly, bumping into us workers from time to time as if on cue exactly when we need it.
There are no windows or pictures allowed. The current administration says posters or depictions of “beautiful scenery†would distract us, keep us from staying focused on the task at hand. They ban the pictures of family because of the NV’s that don’t stay on the straight and narrow once they get out. If they know enough about an executioner or another member of the prison staff’s family, it’s easy to commit a more grievous crime. Especially since we don’t treat the NV’s with any more respect than (what we half jokingly call) the Deathwatch Crew. These are the violent offenders waiting painstakingly slowly for their day in my execution room to come.
Melancholy -
Sadness or depression of the spirits; gloom: “There is melancholy in the wind and sorrow in the grass†(Charles Kuralt).
Pensive reflection or contemplation.
Archaic.
Black bile.
An emotional state characterized by sullenness and outbreaks of violent anger, believed to arise from black bile.
The night after an execution is probably the worst, far worse than the night preceding an execution. You have an idea of what’s to come the night before, but the night after, the scene replays itself in your mind; the mental needle on a traumatic record, over and over showing you the brutality that lies not only in the mind of a murderer, but the executioner as well. During the execution you will yourself to just do the job, the blood on your hands akin to motor oil on a mechanic’s hands and uniform. The blood is just another extension of the current project you’re working on. It has no life even though in some cases it flows freely, pumping quickly out of veins and arteries as if scared to be in the host body and looking for sanctuary in the drain below.
You go home at night knowing you just did your job. You know that what you do is benefiting society as a whole. We are the ultimate refuse collectors taking care of the trash that decides to make itself a burden to those who wish to be unburdened. Nightmares come easily and don’t go away for awhile. As such, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I started this job. I sit up most nights, whisky in hand, staring out my window trying to enjoy the night since I never get to experience the day. The sun is a thing I remember from my youth. I haven’t seen it for years.
The cases that are the toughest to deal with are the ones where music is played.
Serial killers as of late have become fans of classical music. Perhaps this is some way to calm them down while they do their deeds; when I expedite them to their deaths, I have to play the same music in the background. It’s almost Pavlovian in nature; the vision of a scalpel slicing open thigh tissue while Beethoven plays in the background. I’ve had to rid myself of my music collection just in case someone decides they have the same taste as I do. I can’t listen to music anymore simply because there are too many sounds, too many instruments that bring up the mental images you try to forget at the end of the day. It’s becoming increasingly harder to deal with as I love music, but this was the path I chose. This is the path I’ll continue to walk until it runs out.
[size=150]Chapter 2[/size]
For some, insomnia is a problem. For me, it’s a choice. Why waste time on dreams when you could be doing something? You can’t control your dreams, but rather, they control you. At worst, they’re a six to eight hour video of bits and pieces of your subconscious, and quite honestly, some of that shit is repressed for a reason. Why regurgitate it at night only to have it fuck with you during the day? I used to enjoy sleeping. The prospects of seeing your hopes come to fruition, if even for a short, fleeting while was fantastic. The dream world was a beautiful escape. Now when it happens, I wake up from nightmares I can’t stop, drowning in my sheets. They stick to me like the smell of sweat and fear and only serve to frustrate me further. Perhaps it’s because there’s no one there to comfort me anymore.
I was never very good at dating to begin with, but when you find someone good and, in your eyes, perfect, sometimes you just have to know they’re going to leave you sooner than later, so you stop trying and you learn to be independent. There’s no one there to help you in the bad times and no one there to enjoy the good times with. You don’t have to worry about whether you’re doing something right or wrong or whether they give a shit about you, you just do your own thing and try to find contentment in that. Eventually, you realize that no matter how many shrinks you go to, no matter how many pills you pop to regulate yourself, whatever…we’re all just pawns in someone else’s game.
Strike that.
Not pawns really, as a pawn conjures up images of sameness. All the pieces of the “big board†are different. It’s like chess, but with different ways to move, different ways to hurt, different ways to win or lose. Some pieces choose to move out of the way of danger, extending their playing time on the board. Others face the danger head on, daring the inevitable to take them sooner. Then there are those that do it faster than others, but that can be messy and often affects a larger number of pieces than one would’ve first thought. Regardless, there are two malevolent players keeping the pieces in good working fashion, having no connection to them save the brief moment the player finger encompasses the unpawn-like pawn and pushes it ever so slightly towards its final square on the board.
Which brings me to another aspect of our chessboard existence. When occupying a square, more than one piece typically resides there. The squares are so large that “x†amount of pieces can, and typically do, interact with each other. Sometimes they exist with no pieces being “taken†by another. The taking of pieces we’ll call “murder†or “slighting†and the coexistence of pieces we’ll call “interaction,†meaning anything from a casual conversation at a bus stop to a long lasting relationship ending in a long life and grandkids, the transaction between buyer and seller or the effect of a CEO’s decision on someone several thousand miles away. It’s all connected on this board of infinite squares and it’s fucking fascinating to watch these interactions unfold.
My square stays pretty empty most of the time. I’m one of the pieces that like to move further and further away from the others. Not so much because I’m afraid of being “taken†from the board, but the time spent sharing a square is fleeting and sometimes stifling, even though the squares are of infinite size, just like the board itself.
Actually, boards. Plural.
Let’s say we, as interacting pieces exist on an infinite number of boards. The one above us is “Future,†the one below “Past,†and obviously, the one we currently find ourselves is “Present.†Each board has an infinite number of interactions with an infinite number of pieces, so on and so forth. Some of the pieces move up with us, others stay on the board we were just on, staying in our past and never moving from that part of our own separate existence. Again, the fleeting aspect of the interaction between pieces. There is no day, there is no night, only interaction and the moving pieces from the “Present†to the “Future†which of course becomes the new “Present†once we get there, etc. etc. The titles and the boards are constantly changing, but the pieces remain in play until they are “taken†from the board.
If this seems confusing, I’m sorry. I tend to ramble the later it gets. It’s also the reason I prefer watching over interacting. It’s absolutely enthralling to watch the other pieces, to see the outcomes of their decisions before they do. What makes them move to a certain square, what is their reasoning or motivation? Why do some pieces interact more than others? What do the malevolent players know that the pieces don’t? That’s what I’m really waiting for when I stay awake at night. I’m hoping for an answer. When your thoughts move a million miles a minute, you can’t decipher them all, and certainly not while you’re asleep, so sifting through them while I’m awake seems to make the most sense. I sit awake, deciphering, watching, and waiting for that mental switch to be flipped and have my “aha!†moment. I’m waiting for a malevolent player to take me or push me into another square because quite frankly, I’ve lost the desire to do it myself.
And if you walk in on me flailing in my sleep, I’m not waving, but drowning.
[size=150]Chapter 3[/size]
I like my apartment pitch black at all hours. It’s very womb-like and while I’m sure Freud would have something to say about that, he’s dead and I couldn’t really care less. The dark is nice…it envelops, surrounds and doesn’t pass judgment. It just is what it is. Some people are afraid of it, but I have come to embrace it over the years.
It’s not that I hate the sun, but a person’s true personality shows itself when they’re surrounded by the dark. It’s like wearing a mask in a room full of people wearing masks as well. You tend to act differently when you have that small barrier between you and the rest of the world. For some reason, the more the mask covers physically, the more you reveal internally, the good and the bad.
Dreams are the same way. The tighter we shut our eyes, the more illuminated our thoughts become. It is introspection at its worst because our brain unlocks every file cabinet full of thoughts, past and present, and sends the papers flying. You spend the entire next day subconsciously re-filing, re-organizing, and regaining composure. The way we deal with this process shows itself in the first hour of being awake and it affects the rest of the day’s events more than we’d like to admit often times. One file misplaced can ruin more than the day. It leads to a slip of the tongue, a wrong conversation with the right person and the next thing you know, a bridge is burned because your system of re-filing needs a serious overhaul and you didn’t realize it until it was too late. This is why it’s easier to not get attached too quickly to too many people. You keep yourself distant enough that your filing system whittles itself down and file cabinets stop having a use because most of them are empty or getting there. This helps the small things to stay small and the profundity of the big things is exactly how it should be and not exaggerated.
For years I had problems with my filing system. I knew too many people and too many people knew me. The crossover of relationships was astounding and the amount of information was almost too much. It led to a complete shutdown for a long time. I didn’t even bother re-filing, I just let the papers lie there in the Hall of Thought and stepped back, locked the door to the hall and swallowed the key. The mess wasn’t going anywhere and I could always come back and clean it if I wanted to. That was a long time ago and I’ve since found a separate hall to file thoughts in after bricking over the entrance to the old one.
I still don’t sleep well, regardless of how trimmed down my thought processes. Most nights, I wake up in a cold sweat, reaching out for someone that’s not there, someone I don’t even know, but I tear the sheets apart looking for them in that 15 second window of sleep/non-sleep when you’re not sure what’s real and what’s not when your eyes open. An hour of sleep is about normal anymore, and then I just lay there, listening to the “whit-whit-whit” of the ceiling fan, hypnotizing me into a clear mind-state. The nothingness of synapses not firing is very comforting. It helps to bring a blank mind in the face of emotional chaos.
I bring this up only because I’ve been thinking about my parents lately. They died when I was 17 and I went through some severe changes. I thought puberty had been bad, but this was much, much worse. My temper was short; I read into things too deeply, overanalyzed and thought the world was against me. It was only when I was truly old enough to realize exactly what it was I’d lost that my moment of clarity had come. That always seems to be the way, hm? Hindsight and such.
So, the only thing you can do is move on because the anger and the pain and the hurt don’t bring your parents back, they just consume you and force you to dwell on the things you need to let go of. It’s harder to do than it sounds, but when you realize the futility of trying to change the inevitable, your mind goes blank and you begin to start over from scratch, hoping you never go back to that place again. You never fully forgive the situation, and you definitely don’t forget it, but you push past it and move up on the emotional chain of consciousness. Balance.
My parents died during a robbery. My father owned a small little electronics store downtown and my mother did the books. She kept him honest. Not that he wasn’t, but he had a tendency to skim off the top sometimes so that he could steal me away for a weekend and spoil me. The bike when I was 12, the guys’ weekend at the beach when I was 16 (also, consequently, when he gave me “the talk” about the female gender). He was a funny guy. Most kids dread that talk with their parents, but my father made it pretty amusing and easy to deal with.
“Son…women are the devil’s way of making us men do stupid things. They do things to our bodies that are just plain mean, yet we eat up the experience like candy. Just remember to try not to think with your dick all the time. Believe me, I know, every thirty seconds you’re wondering what’s underneath that girl’s skirt who’s three desks away in class, but trust me son…they all look the same, save for the landscaping.” And then he chuckled.
I nodded like I knew what he was talking about, but I’m pretty sure the confused look on my face was evident. “Don’t worry son. You’ll have plenty of time to find out what I mean,” he laughed.
We came home that Sunday night, beet red from the sun and smiling so hard our faces hurt. Mom, on the other hand, was beet red from fuming at the fact that dad had borrowed money from the store account again. I still find this bizarre, as it was essentially his money to begin with, but I suppose I’ll still let mom win the argument, as she was the one actually dealing with the money. I stood there waiting for it, her glare piercing the good mood. I turned to head to my room and she let out a string of swear words that would’ve made Lucifer himself blush. I turned back towards her and watched as my father walked up to her. He put his hands on her hips, kissed her forehead, pulled his billfold out and explained that he borrowed it in case there was an emergency. He gave her the money, apologized and somehow that was that. He rode the storm of marital discontent like a rodeo champ and always came out on top. It was nothing short of fantastic to watch.
My mother was a pretty woman, but slightly severe. Tight-lipped and rarely smiling, you really had to know her to like her. She watched the books like a hawk and showed my father a great deal of love. Not much of a cook though. Needless to say, I learned how to cook a hot dog or order a pizza at a pretty early age. When she wasn’t handling my father’s money (or disappearance thereof), mom would sit up late, crocheting or knitting. Both of which she was pretty terrible at too, and admitted frequently, but it relaxed her. Even if my sweaters typically had a second neckhole.
One year, shortly after the Christmas season had passed, they were both up working late. I was home alone, watching the box and enjoying my new gifts. It got to be around eleven ‘o’ clock and I’d fallen asleep on the couch. I awoke to my Uncle Walter practically breaking down the door. I could hear him yelling for me through the thick oak and ran across the foyer. I opened the door and (to this day the image still lingers) saw him, red-eyed and sobbing. There were four officers behind him in their work uniforms, gold badges blazing in the winter night, visible exhalations showing themselves slowly. I had goosebumped all over, but I knew it wasn’t from the cold. Something had happened. The Great Hall in my head started to slowly shut down and lock up because I knew it was serious and it was something that wasn’t going to be fixable.
Mom had taken some trash out back while dad cleaned up the showroom. The police said they could see the footprints in the snow and that mom had fought hard with whoever it was that accosted her. They wouldn’t tell me anything other than that.
Dad was found, body limp and broken in several places, his head laying inside the now empty safe. Again, the wouldn’t tell me anything other than that.
I spent most of the night numb. I didn’t cry because I think I was just too confused to know what to do. The house felt truly empty that night as I lay in bed. The silence was deafening so I tried to fall asleep to some music, but my brain couldn’t keep up with all the thoughts that came racing through it. I wasn’t bricking up the Great Hall fast enough and I could feel myself clutching at my blankets, hoping to find some kind of solace or answer within them. I gazed out my window, open and letting in the moon’s overly bright stare down into my room. I felt dirty and cheated and promptly closed the curtains. The room felt instantly warmer, the dark holding me, comforting me.
Five minutes later I was asleep.
I slept most of the next few days. My uncle didn’t bother me, except to bring me food and make sure I was okay, but mostly he left me alone because I think he was probably lost in his own confusion and hurt as well. What could we possibly say to each other to make the other feel better? What sort of comfort comes from verbalizing a pain that feels awkward and silly when put into words? The only thing you can do is cry into your pillow until you’re so tired, you can’t cry anymore. Your fleeting, momentary catharsis.
[size=150]Chapter 4[/size]
It’s five minutes until quitting time and I’ve spaced off. The brick wall has become the most interesting thing to stare at and I’m at that point where I’m trying to forget the day’s events. Today has dragged terribly and I can’t wait to get home.
There is an incomprehensible scream.
Papers in white and yellow are flying all around me and instead of drinking my coffee, I am now wearing it. I’m out of my chair faster than I’m out of my daze and the sound of laughter comes from across the office. Dammit.
“Ho-lee jeezus that was funny, Brein. You were WAY out there that time!” the warden says, wheezing and laughing at the same time. I give him a weak grin.
“Yeah, it’s been kind of a shitty day.”
The entire office howls in laughter, most of the guys doubled over and pounding their fists on the desks, faces bright red. The joke is over my head until I realize why it’s so funny. Today’s execution soiled himself before I even got started. The warden swaggers his way over to me. He’s one of those guys who holds all the extra fat in his belly, so his legs overcompensate by bowing out. “Sorry Brein, I didn’t mean to hit your coffee. I was just trying to distract you. Take this file home with you tonight,” he said, collecting the papers from the desk and the surrounding floor, “because I need you to look it over carefully. Let me know by the end of next week if you want it or not.” The grin on his face had disappeared, replaced by a thin, tightlipped line.
In fact, nobody was laughing anymore. I scanned the room only to find averted looks and nervous shoe gazing. The room was deathly silent save for the slow drip of coffee onto the floor beneath my desk. “Yeah, okay. I’ll take a look at it. Why the stigma attached to it though?” I asked.
He looked back, halfway over his shoulder as if looking for some advice from the other guys, but they had already started filing out of the office quickly, apparently not wanting any part of the conversation. The End of Day tone had begun too, so all the other guards were on their way out as well. “I just thought you’d like the option to take this one or leave it. Makes no difference to me or the guys and nobody’ll think differently of you if you choose not to take it, but look it over, let me know.”
I was still holding onto the same folder, worn and tattered from the setting in of age from years of hibernation within the file cabinet. It wasn’t thick, but it immediately felt heavier than normal. Psychologically, I think it’s safe to say this was due to the immediate cessation of levity within the office at its being spotlighted.
“Got any plans for the weekend?” the warden queried, changing the topic quickly.
“Not really,” I replied, sopping up the rest of the coffee on my desk. Thankfully nothing important got tainted, but I’m now staying late to clean. “I was thinkin I might head out to the country for a day or two. I’ve been kinda…’off’ lately. Haven’t really been sleepin too well.”
He chuckled. “Well, it’s not like you’ve got the most stress free job in the world, ya know. If you need an extra day or so, ya know, ta get yer head right or ta just get some rest, lemme know.”
“I appreciate that, thanks.” I tossed the first of the soaked paper towels into the trash can. The can was empty, echoing a loud ‘thud.’ It was almost satisfying. “You know I won’t need the extra day though, right?”
“Yeah, go home. I’ll get the rest of this,” he said with a grin. “My mess, I’ll clean it up.”
“She’s all yours boss, I’ll see you on Monday.”
As I left the office, I could hear the sound of rustling papers, more coffee splashing to the floor and a string of swear words that would’ve made my father blush.
But only because he hadn’t said them himself.
About 15 years ago, the politicians (in their vast and mighty intelligence) created the platform of Aesthetics. Aestheticians believed heavily in the out of sight, out of mind philosophy. For years they lobbied to put all prisons below ground. Their arguments included (but were not limited to) unsightly prisons moved below the general populace, the increased difficulty of escapes and the total communistic nature of the prison surviving on its own, aside from using tax payer dollars to pay the salaries of the executioners and the warden. It looked good to the majority, so here I am, walking through the stone hallways, 2 miles underground and a cool seventy-five degrees in temperature. It’s dark stone illuminated by bright halogen lighting. The halls are four feet wide and, for the most part, are all lengthy. Not much escapes our attention and the cameras are few and far between due to the space issues. It is actually safer than the prisons I saw on television when I was younger.
Maximum security and minimum security are now archaic terms. Non-violent offenders are the maids or clean up crew of the system. They cook, they clean, they take care of the general upkeep of the prison. In order to discern them from the Violents or the few visitors we receive, a phosphorous implant is put into the top of their hands. This lets us determine who gets to go where within the confines of the system and who is actually a non-violent offender. Once non-violents (or NV’s) are released, the chip is taken out and 85% of the time, we never see them again. The other 15% either end up back in here on several occasions or they become Violents.
Don’t get me wrong, A lot of the NV’s are actually okay. You put a desperate man in a bad situation and more than likely, he’ll make a bad decision. Most of them serve their time and leave, never to come back. I like to think that what I do here is part of the reason for that. See, the Aestheticians had convinced everyone that there needed to be harsher punishments against the beauty of what society had become. Next thing I know, I’m whisked away from my high school and put into an accelerated learning program, paid for by the state. My father had tipped them off to my intelligence.
‘Them’ being the prison and state officials looking to make the underground prison dream a true, working reality. With the prisons moving underground and becoming more brutal in meting out punishment, the state offerred free tuition to students of well above average IQ’s so that they could become executioners. Not only was I put through some severe studying, but I was also being observed (along with all the other students) as to how morally flexible I could be. Obviously, I got the job, so you can deduce my moral fiber from that. I’m not morally delinquent, in fact, quite the opposite…but when faced with the issue of killing a man for breaking the law, I typically have no qualms. Especially since most of the people I kill are here because they killed, mutilated, raped, and/or tortured their victims.
Over the years, the prison system literally went “out of mind.” We’re still paid well, but it’s a chore getting supplies. Think what you want about the prison system now and back then, it’s still a business and we don’t get light bulbs for free. Half of the ones we’ve got burned out long ago and the ones that flicker now are close to dying. Prison supply closets don’t exist. Unless you’re talking about super toxic anti-bacterial sprays used after executions. It’s almost as if the state is saying “Thanks for all the hard work, but don’t expect us to kiss your ass for it.”
“Hey Brein! Headed home already?”
“Heya Charlie…yeah. My room is cleaned and nothing else on my to do list, so, time to have a drink and relax.”
“Sounds like a plan, my friend. Want a drinkin buddy tonite? I’ve got nothin’ to do and I get off in about an hour. Whaddya say?”
I grinned. Charlie was always a hoot to drink with. Not only was he my cousin but he’d typically drink four times more than me and I’d still be the one acting hammered. “Yeah. 7ish? The usual drinkin hole?”
“You betcha. First round’s on you!” he chuckled. I gave him my key card and he swiped it, elevator doors opening up ready to transport me above ground. I walked to the back, leaning against it as he poked his head between the doors. "So I heard you got “the file…” He said the last part with emphasis. I’m sure I looked confused until Charlie nodded at the file in my hand.
“Oh. Uh…sure. I haven’t looked at it yet, so I have no idea what it’s about.”
“Well, look at it before you come to the bar. We’ll have to discuss it.”
The elevator doors shut, ending the conversation for me. I looked down at the file, now thoroughly curious. ‘It can wait,’ I thought to myself. ‘I’ll shower first.’