VIII

Each time I think this day could not improve, it tenfold proves me wrong. 

An Execution! 

The word is honey sweet and fills my mouth with dazzling reverberations of transcendent glory and a wondrous love, almost lust, for my great triumphant city. Bearing witness to the consummation of justice and thus rebaptised in the communal cheer of my fellow witness compatriots! 

What a spiritual and pulchritudinous delight! A waltz between witness and condemned, wherein the act of seeing engenders the actualization of righteousness and moral equilibrium, but a second dance too spills out into existence. Witness not only seeing the passion of civil domination, but also seeing and being seen by his fellow witnesses in a concursive series of ocular transgressions that affirm both the self and its ecstatic union with the mob. 

The last dance is a return to the condemned. In the fleeting moments as the light leaves his eyes he can see the pseudo-ecclesiastic congregation that he has birthed, and then a climax occurs in the form of cathartical release for all parties. 

I have just enough time to attend before my shift starts and I plan to do my civil duty. I will walk up to the dying man and spit onto his failing body. My timing is mercifully perfect. Judging from the uproarious state of the crowd I suspect the final dance is drawing near. I begin to push my way into the throng. 

I don’t see the stage from among the rabble, but I know what awaits me on the other side. The man will be naked and hanged upside down by his ankles with a corporate memo stapled to his chest to designate his crimes. They will be vile crimes. He will be a vile and wicked degenerate who defies the good nature of god and corporation alike. 

Execution is a vindication reserved for the most odious felons–filthy godless worms. In addition to the memo he will also have a fig leaf stapled in place to obscure the more vulgar elements of his anatomy. A rope will be tied from each of his wrists to a pair of stakes in the ground forcing his arms into a permanently activated state. This will cause much discomfort, but will also signify his embracement of the earth. There his body will rot and change from a defiant apostate into good clean malleable soil…this is the best redemption that can be hoped for after a life filled with such misdeeds. The condemned man is left hanging there until he dies, usually by dehydration.

It is such a merry festivity that in the crowd a drunken man sings full throatedly:

“Hanged by the ankle and turned on the rack

Salting his wounds after whipping his back

Redemption is bloody they say with a laugh

But a drink in the end makes a good epitaph”

I push past him and he spills cheap beer onto my uniform, but he doesn’t stop singing…and it is at that moment that I finally see the condemned man, and my smile falters… I know that man…His name is Chafic LaRochelle … I have known him for many years… I have worked next to him on the factory floor…Seen sweat poor down his face...A good family man for whom goodness and labor have always been synonymous, and who has excelled at both…

He is not a dissident, but a father… I have seen his child laugh…There must be some mistake.. But there can be no mistake… The magistrates are never wrong in matters of such import…

On his chest a bloody sign with only the word “treason” etched out onto it next to the company letterhead…He is an enemy of the state and I walk towards him ready to do my civil duty… but my mouth is dry and I cannot spit…

I look down and see the familiar sorrow in his eyes… and his cracked dry lips… he looks so thirsty… I don’t know how much time he has left—in that moment there is a non-consensual concatenation of the concepts of friend and enemy—combining and mixing together against my will… and I cannot do my duty…

There must be some mistake… The magistrates do not make mistakes, but they have–NO…That’s a treasonous thought…The magistrates must be correct, but the administrators are not infallible… It must be an issue with the transcription of sentencing! That is the only possible answer, and so it must be true! surely on a perfect day like this I can plead this case to the magistrates…

after my shift I will approach them…

Certainly I can plead the case of such a hardworking and pious man… but will he make it that long? His cracked lips lips tremble from dehydration… the look of weakness in his eyes…No, I cannot spit on him, but I must do my duty in some form or I may be accused of treason myself… Maybe there is one thing I can do.

I walk towards him. I stand just over his limply hanging head. I slowly unzip my pants and remove my member. His eyes widen. I hope they are widening in understanding and not just in fear. I release a stream of golden liquid over his face. Please survive. Please get enough hydration to survive until the end of the shift. I can’t see his face from this angle. I hope enough is reaching his lips to pull him through…some has certainly gotten into his nose and I can hear him sputtering…hopefully some made it to his lips… hopefully he will make it—I zip up my fly. He stares up at me with a thankful look (or possibly just a glare.) 

No one else seems to have noticed my miscarriage of justice. 

I walk away and rush towards the factory in hopes that I will be quick enough on my return. As a leave the singing man repeats a variation of the same verse of the same song with an even more drunken slur:

“Hanged by the ankle and turned on the rack

Salting his wounds after whipping his back

Redemption is bloody they say with a laugh

But a piss in the end makes a good epitaph”