I'm still not really sure where my novel is going at the moment and writing has been slow this week. So last night, after a conversation with Tim about a bill recently passed in Utah that would allow prisons to use a firing squad in situations where lethal injection isn't available, I wrote what I suppose would be called a scene along the same train of thought. It was refreshing to write something that's outside my current box. I'm fairly pleased with it, as morbid as that might sound, and I thought I'd share it for my post this week. It's not at all graphic but if this topic isn't your cup of tea you might want to skip.
[I have no intention or interest in starting a debate about the death penalty or the way in which it may be carried out so please don't make this a platform for an argument.]
***
I never imagined it ending this way, my life.
I'd known the "how" for a month but I'd never really pictured it. Strapped to a chair, legs, arms, head, staring at a wall with a slit in it just big enough for the rifle barrels. I don't think it's something I'd have been able to imagine before being brought into this grey room.
There's no panic, just a sort of wonder.
I wonder about the men behind the rifles, maybe women. How many wished the prison had been able to obtain the chemicals for a lethal injection so they didn't have to be here. How many didn't care.
My lawyer had wanted me to care, to fight. In thirty years there had been unnumbered chances to fight. I bet she knows the number. But I hadn't cared when I wrecked that train. I didn't see why I should be allowed to care now. I hadn't imagined it this way, but I wouldn't argue.
173. It should have been 174 but few things end the way we expect them to. I chose this seat when I flipped that switch and pushed that lever forward. I think some part of my mind must have known that then but I didn't dwell on imagining this moment. It was supposed to be 174. Today it would be. It would be quick, but a death thirty years slower than planned.
Nothing comes out the way we plan. 174 plans, interrupted, all but one put eternally on hold. I think that's my legacy in life, ruined plans. The people behind the rifles probably had plans for today before the drug manufacturers held up their shipment.
The straps press into my skin. The chair arms are cold. How long will my arms bear the pattern of the restraints? I wonder if I'll get to see, after. I can still taste the banana pancakes I had for lunch. They put the bananas in the batter instead of just on top. That was nice. The two taste completely different.
I wonder how much longer. Maybe there's a problem. Maybe one of the riflemen got a call that his wife just went into labor. I don't mind.
How many others will sit in this chair and see this slit? Jason, Kobe, and Ben are all on the row, others must be too. Kobe's still fighting his. Jason told me to tell him how it is. Maybe they'll have the chemicals again by the time their afternoons come around.
I don't think any of them would imagine this either.
It's quieter than it's ever been in thirty years. Even at night you could always hear the other guys breathing, muttering in their sleep, crying. The steady step of the detention officer pacing the floor. There might be a shuffling behind the wall but I feel like I've pulled inward, all I can hear is my own pulse. I wonder if that really is what waves sound like. I've never been to the ocean. I was headed there once, but I never made ---
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