Yo! I have a short story I'm hoping to publish soon and I'd like some constructive criticism (if this place is still alive, that is).
I have waited the last forty years to die.
“Prisoner Five-Nine-Eight-One; stand up, turn, face the wall, and raise your hands.”
I obey without a word.
“We're coming in. If you move at all you will be shot with real bullets this time. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir!” I shout back automatically.
I spent the first ten inside for a crime I didn't commit. They thought I went out and killed some young lady celebrating her twenty-first birthday. Her family demanded my head, but the judge sentenced me to life instead. I can't remember everything about that day clearly, or even what my wife's face looks like. It's hard to remember that far back when every day ends the same and no-one ever calls you by your name, only the last four numbers of your detainee code. Despite that, there's one thing I remember about that day clearly.
As the bailiffs escorted me out in chains her family all stared at me with open hatred, the young lady's boyfriend standing a little ways away. He didn't glare or spit at me like his father did. He looked at me, smiled an smug smile, then mouthed something that would ring through my head for the next ten years.
'Thanks for the fall.'
The steel door opens and men burst through, how many I can't tell without looking and getting shot full of holes. Hands grab me around my arms, back, and legs, holding me still while they fit cuffs over my hands, bend me over, and cover my head with a suffocating black bag. The strings tighten around my neck, cutting off a last gasp of fresh air as someone presses something against my head.
“Make any moves I don't like and you won't make it to the execution field.”
Prison changes you. Before I got put away I had a wife, two young kids, and a pair of twins on the way. Some people called me a War Hero since I risked my life more times than I remember. At first my fame made me a target for the other rabble sharing my prison, but by the end of the first week I sent enough off to the hospital for them to take the hint and give me my space. Of course I got another life sentence tapped onto my first for that, for whatever good it did.
Every night for those first ten years I whispered my name to myself so I wouldn't forget. Like I said, no-one ever call you by your name- only your last four numbers. Then the day came when I saw a familiar face in the prison's cafeteria.
'Thanks for the fall.'
Ten years of bottled up rage came out and I jumped him without a thought. When security saw me they fired Less-Than-Lethal bullets and took me down, but I still knew my stuff. They hauled him off to the hospital with a shattered skull, broken neck, ruptured kidneys, and a host of other injuries that would need a page to list. Needless to say, he died soon afterward.
That charge finally convinced the judge to order my execution, and I've been waiting thirty years for this day. I don't know why he made me wait for so long, maybe in some attempt to let me live most of my life before I lost it. As the years went by I forgot the face of my wife, children, and everyone I knew and loved. Prisoners in a maximum security detention facility don't have any contact with the outside world, my children grew up never knowing me.
I shuffle through the silent hallway, the hand of security guiding my every move. We go on like that for a while, until they stuff me in a room and remove my bindings. The bag comes off my head first, allowing me to get a good look of a bland room and twenty something rifles pointed straight at me.
“We are about to remove your cuffs, don't move.”
I don't respond, playing the usual mental game of wondering how many inches I can make it before they turn me into mist. Within seconds the binds come off my wrists. Feet step away, pant legs swishing as their owners put distance between them and I.
“Sit.” one guard orders, gesturing to the table and chair with the muzzle of his rifle.
I silently obey as a man in a white kitchen staff uniform wheels in a large, silver platter. In the age of “enlightened justice”, prisoners on Death Row get two final requests: a last meal made up of anything they wanted, and a last request just before their execution. I once heard a story about this one guy that demanded he get a bus load of strippers just before they shot him, but I doubt it's real. While they put no limits on what you can get for your last meal, they deny any request that delays your execution.
The man, who looks so young I can tell he just started shaving, stops and looks at me.
“We don't have all day.” a guard comments, keeping his rifle and eye trained on me.
The kitchen boy nods, swerves to the side of the table far away from me. Without wasting any time he takes the platter off his food trolly, sets it on the table, and leaves- the door slamming shut behind him.
“Eat.”
I snort, patience growing thin, “What, I can't do jack shit without having to be ordered to?”
As always, they don't say anything back to me.
The funny thing; while they can deny certain final requests, they can't refuse a last meal no matter what its made of. So in a bitter moment I demanded the most expensive meal I could think of, a huge cube of fudge.
One hundred years post Climate Change and cocoa beans are almost extinct. That said, a single ounce of chocolate costs enough to bankrupt a country. When I made my request five years ago, just a month before my real execution date, the whole country went into an uproar. I had dozens of court hearings, hundreds of cops trying to intimidate me into changing my mind, even death threats sent in from all around what's left of the world. Five years later they finally allowed me to have my requested final meal, and Parliament immediately passed a law saying that no prisoner could request chocolate in their final meal. Funny thing, how asking for chocolate could let me live for five more years.
So here I sit, narrating my thoughts and staring at a cube so expensive that I probably set back the world's economy for a good fifty years. I reach out a finger, dragging it across the surface and sticking it in my mouth. I grimace- too sweet, far too sweet.
I look up at the twenty plus men and women, “I just learned I don't like chocolate. Who wants it?”
Silence.
I take the platter and toss the chocolate over my shoulder, “Done.” Pant legs swish behind me as I stand, my chair screeching back.
“You just wasted a fortune and five years, murderer.”
I shrug, smirking to the rest of the guards, “It's my meal, John. If I wanted to shove it down my pants I'm within my constitutional rights.”
John scoffs, jabbing me in the back with his pistol, “Whatever, just get going so I can see your brains all over the snow.”
I briefly contemplate taking that pistol and jabbing it in a very intimate place.
I quickly shrug it off, “You've waited to see me get shot full of holes for five years now and the day has finally come. Don't be such a pissant now that your dream has finally come true.”
Without waiting for his answer I raise my hands, turn, and walk out the door onto the execution field.
A cold wintery breeze blows snowflakes inside while my entourage and I leave the dining room. I endure it with an ease born of experience, refusing a coat one guard shoves my way at rifle point- I wouldn't need it soon enough. Looking around I already see about twenty people waiting to see my blood all over the snow. Most of them sit on bleachers under an Environmental Control Shroud, shielded from the snow behind a canopy of that fancy space material.
Various government dignitaries and reporters chatter almost excitedly, no doubt eager to see me die. Maybe my wife or children sit somewhere in that crowd, but I don't recognize them. The first girl's mother, now a withered old thing hobbling over a cane, and the murderous boyfriend's brother, watch my every step with steady gazes. Twenty more guards stand ready to keep the peace, with a squad of five army soldiers holding bayoneted rifles standing at rest. I examine them closely, take in their strong, disciplined stance, and nod a little to myself- still as well disciplined as I remember.
I momentarily wonder how it would feel to die at the tip of a syringe of chemicals like they used to do so long ago. Nowadays they use them for other things due to the expense. Bullets cost a lot less, after all.
“You're fifty-five minutes early.” a nearby man addresses me, clearly puzzled, “What did you do, wolf it down?”
I shrug, “Apparently I don't like chocolate.”
He blinks, then abruptly clears his throat, “Prisoner Five-Nine-Eight-One, what is your last request?”
“Wait for everyone else to get here!” someone suddenly shouts from the bleachers, “A lot of those invited don't want to miss the show!”
The dignitary half turns, “Professor Cornwall, all executions are recorded for that express purpose. Now-” his gaze returns to me, “what is your last request, prisoner?”
I spent years thinking about this. I want to see the wife and children they kept me away from for forty years, I want to get pardoned for the first murder I didn't commit, I want John over there to take care of my piss-covered corpse with bare hands. In the end, I settle on something that would make people remember my name and number for years to come.
“My last request is to stand upright and unbound as I order the firing squad through the drill.”
The dignitary only nods and leaves the field, “I'm sure you know the orders, being a former soldier yourself.”
I ignore the flashing lights, the mumbling crowd, the screams of protest from the first girl's mother, and focus on the squad.
“Soldiers! Aten- hut!”, I shout, snapping them to attention.
“Forward-march.... Detail halt!”
“Take aim! Volley fire!” I easily see the whites of their eyes from this distance. I take a moment to reflect on my life and come to the same conclusion as I always do, that I wish things happened differently.
“Fire!”
If I had been back in the army, I wouldn't mind fighting by their side- they have decent aim.
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Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 296548 times)