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At zero we
opened the cell door and came in. X sat
in the corner, her legs crossed and her head bowed. The head guard put his hand on top of her
head and snapped it back. “Ready to be
shot?” he asked with a wide grin. “Yes,”
she said very quietly. The head guard
said, “What, no jokes?”
“No.”
The head
guard squatted down and peered into her face.
X just stared ahead with a calm expression. It appeared to me that she had accepted her
fate.
We made her
stand up and then we took off her chains and handcuffs. Then the head guard ordered her to take off
her clothes. They weren’t much, just the
usual shorts, chest strap, and panties but her firing squad uniform was more
minimal still. It was a small
bikini. The firing squad needed
precision aiming for this task; no dress or robes to obscure their targeted
places on her body. Of course it’s color
was black, the only appropriate color for such an event. She stood in the middle of the cell. Her bikini bottom covered only her pubic area
and the crack in her butt. As small as
her breasts were, her bikini top was so thin that for the first time I saw
cleavage while she was clothed. I
reflected that these two items of cloth was the only things she wore. She had no jewelry, no piercings for her
earrings, nothing for her hair, no shoes, nothing at all. This was the poorest woman on earth.
Once she
was properly suited up, we hobbled her legs, blindfolded her and led her
outside. We left her hands free so that
she could take a potty break on the open toilet just outside the special
cell. We stood around it and carefully
watched her as she used her hands to remove her bottom and maneuver on it. When she was done, she stood up, wiped
herself, put her bottom back up, and stretched her hands groping blindly for
the sink. When she found it, she
splashed water on her face and on her hair.
She started using her finger nails to try to comb her hair. “Uh, uh,” the head guard said, “no messing
with your blindfold.” The prisoner
sighed, dropped her hands to her sides, and turned her back to the sink to face
us. “Take two steps forward,” the head
guard commanded. She did. “Okay, let’s finish her up, boys.” We put her arms behind her back, crossed her
wrists, and secured them with the handcuffs.
She stood
there staring into space with blind eyes, not knowing what else we were doing.
I grabbed
one of her arms in the regulation grab; another guard did the same to her other
arm. We marched her to the execution
field. Along the way we heard a loud
crack. It sounded like multiple rifles
going off at once. “The firing squad
must be practicing,” I thought.
We came
through the gate and approached the scene.
For the first time since I had been employed here, I was truly struck
with horror. A large wooden post was
planted in the dirt. Another prisoner
was tied to it. I recognized her as one of
the condemned murderers from death row.
Some terrorist something or another, I couldn’t remember what. I really hadn’t been paying attention to
anything else since I had been assigned to the X detail. My mind was edging over into hysteria.
The head
guard guffawed and pushed the three of us, prisoner and us two guards holding
her arms, forward to the post. He snatched
the blindfold from X’s head. X blinked
her eyes, looked at the prisoner tied to the post, glanced towards the firing
squad and screamed. She wrenched her
body and started running away. I don’t
know about the guard holding her other arm but I was so astonished, I actually
let go! She took about two steps before
she tripped over her leg chains and fell to the dirt. The head guard was laughing uproariously; the
six men in the firing squad stood there grinning. Me and the other guard took hold of X, got
the proper grips on her arms and put her back into position facing the prisoner
tied to the post.
That
prisoner was quite dead. That execution
had been for real, oh yeah, very real.
From her shoulders to her knees, the bullets had torn huge holes in her
body. We could see her organs, glands,
and other guts. Some of them were
spilling down her legs and onto the ground.
The dirt was crawling with blood and guts. Then I saw creepy insects; they were the
reason the dirt seemed to crawl. For
them, this was a feast.
There is
nothing sexy or erotic about a real execution.
Special
guards were assigned to the execution area.
They cut the cords holding the body to the post with machetes. It fell to the ground.
X screamed and gasped and then screamed some
more. She struggled in our arms, trying
to break free. She was pretty hysterical
but I must admit that I wasn’t too far behind her myself. The guards loaded the body onto a
wheelbarrow. They hacked off one
snakelike piece of gut that was oozing out from beneath the body’s belly and
left it on the ground. Then they wheeled
the body away.
We obeyed
the head guard’s orders and pushed X into the middle of the mess. We had our boots on; she had nothing but her
bare feet. We removed the handcuffs but
tightly held her arms. The execution
field special guards took over. We let
go of her and got out of the way. “Step
back to the post.” X stepped back. The guards commanded her to put her feet
together. “Back your heals against the
post.” They made her stand straight, so
that her feet, legs, butt, back, and head solidly abutted the post. X had lapsed into a trancelike state. Her breaths came in quick gasps. Her chest heaved; her stomach rippled; her
jaw quivered. “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no .
. .” she repeated over and over. Then
the guards began to tie her to the post.
They made
her put her arms around the post with hands touching each other in back. Because of the size of the post, she could
only touch her finger tips. The guards
tied her hands together in that position.
They then put rope across her chest and around the post. X turned her face towards me and asked,
“Please do something!” Her eyes were
pleading. Her mouth was stretched in
that shape that comes when people beg for something from the bottom of their
heart. I shook my head. “I can’t.”
I admit
that I had had ideas of eventually using the firing squad as a cover for my own
murder plan. My thoughts had angled
towards sneaking special ammunition in the firing squads’ guns. I abandoned that idea right then and there.
Another set
of ropes secured her legs to the post just above her knees. Rope tied her ankles together. More rope around the post tied them to it. Behind the post, U shaped nails were driven
over the rope and pounded into the wood.
This kept the rope from moving.
This was done to all three sets of rope binding the prisoner to the
post: the one around her chest; the one
around her knees; and the one around her feet.
Finally, these nails were driven over the rope between her hands and
into the wood. X was now completely
secured to the post. Unable to bend her legs, the prisoner lost her ability to
move her body downwards. Multiple
restraints prevented her from moving her body sideways around the post. Her feet were tied together so there was no
help from there either. Ropes around her
chest prevented movement of her upper body.
The ropes around her hands and knees served as backup to sideways
restraint. With a minimal amount of
ropework, her body had been effectively immobilized.
“What about
the blindfold?” The head guard chuckled.
He twirled the blindfold in his hand and grinned at X. “Naw, you don’t want to miss anything,” he
laughed. As worried about my job as I
have been, I was so disgusted that I went over and snatched the blindfold out
the head guard’s hand. “Hey!” I ignored him. I went over to the post. As I began to press the blindfold down over
her hair, I couldn’t help but notice that X’s face was messy with tears and
snot coming from her nose, and drool from her mouth. Down below a few drops of urine had come down
her leg. She was a mess. I took a rag and cleaned her up as best as I
could. Then I put the rag over her nose
and told her to blow. She tried but
everything had already come out. She
looked up at me and said, “Thank you.” I
lowered the blindfold over her eyes.
“You’ll get through this,” I said.
She whispered back, “I know.”
The head
guard said, “Now get away from her, you prissy prick.” I did.
He glared at me. I realized that
I had made a powerful enemy and I despaired.
The
sergeant of the guards marched up to the prisoner. “It is customary for the condemned to have a
last smoke,” he said. “Please don’t,”
Maria (I was back to thinking of her as Maria again) said. She pleaded.
“Isn’t this bad enough? I don’t
smoke; I’ve never smoked. The only time
was the last time you executed me.”
“Well, now
that you’re experienced, how about a nice big cigar this time?” The sergeant pulled out a jumbo Max Hoggie.
He bit off an end, struck a match on the post beside Maria’s ear and lit the
cigar up. He held it under Maria’s
nose. The cigar was so strong, I smelled
it all the way from where I stood.
“Ready?”
the sergeant challenged. He was already
pinching her nose shut with the fingers of one hand while pressing the cigar to
her mouth with the other. “Please no,”
was all she could get out.
Maria was
coughing and screwing her head around to avoid the smoke. With the fingers pinching such a tender part
of the body as the nose, she could move her head very little. Color drained from her cheeks. One could not look at the part of her face
that was visible under the blindfold without thinking of such words as torment,
suffering, agony, and anguish. The
other guards stood there stone silent.
Then I remembered that the main event had not even begun.
“Hey,
doesn’t the condemned prisoner get a last request?” This came from me. I had already jumped over the cliff with the
blindfold/facewipe thing. Still, I was
surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth. The head guard regarded me with astonishment,
then with outright loathing. “What are
you, her lawyer?” I can’t remember if
this came from the sergeant or my head guard.
Either way, I was screwed. I
might as well kiss my job goodbye.
“Well, uh,”
I stammered, “aren’t we doing enough? I
mean as it is, I mean. And,” I
sighed. Oh, well, might as well say it. “If we are going to follow customs, the
prisoner is entitled to a last request.
And she did request that you not make her smoke.”
The
sergeant glared at me.
Maria
continued to choke and cough. Suddenly,
the sergeant withdrew the cigar. “Our
team observes the customs.” He
straightened to posture of defiance. He
said to me, “Nobody can ever say otherwise.”
He turned to somebody sitting on the side, I assume some kind of
clerk. He said, “Let the record show
that the prisoner’s last request was that she not smoke.”
There was a
short pause. The sergeant started to
walk to the side of his firing squad.
“No it was
not.” Maria was still coughing, but
those words had definitely come from her.
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