The women in the shadows

The last few moments before death are the most significant, those are the ones I choose to steal. Every morning I wake up, go to work and type and type and type, the pitter-pattering of keys and the desperate pleas of criminals are constant of my daily life. After work I walk home surrounded by the honking of horns and the collective understanding of the need to get home. I eat my dinner and then I write about anything really, my hopes, my dreams or quite often the daily activities of my cat, Velma. When, exactly thirty-one days ago, I developed writers block as some would say the only way to escape writers block is to try something new so I tried killing.

Don’t worry, the people I kill are anything but innocent. So that leads me up to today, it's funny how my adult life is confined into these small books, I suppose its shows how little life I've lived. Well, I woke up this morning late, ten minutes to be exact, what an egregious start to the day, egregious, that’s my word of the day. I walked to work this morning in a completely different atmosphere no horns honking no people anywhere, the only thing I noticed was large screen projecting the words “Senator Greene brutally murdered days after verdict.”, my latest murder went very smoothly, I hit him with the barrel of my gun and he was out, almost begging for me to release the trigger, well that’s what I tell myself, unfortunately my conscious continues to weigh me down.

As I got into work, I was approached my supervisor, his thick untamed eyebrows furrowed and his large hairy hands formed fists, he was angry. 

“Where have you been, Kate?” he hissed, while gesturing his hands violently.

“I'm sorry” I mumbled; you see Mr Morrison was quite a scary person and personally seeing him angry made me want to plant my feet into the ground and stay there for eternity but at that time that wasn’t a choice. 

“Get into court 11, they are waiting for you” he ordered while pointing down the hall.

I doubt they are waiting for me, I'm not a judge, lawyer or defendant. I'm just a lowly, underpaid court stenographer forced to listen to and document what could only be described as waffling. Originally this job was temporary, a steppingstone to journalism, well it's been five years. I like to blame others for my lack of success, but I am the only one to blame, never confident at interviews and never confident enough to display my writing.

As I entered the court, I felt multiple eyes staring, a feeling that made me uncomfortable regularly. I took my seat swiftly and the judge began, pitter patter pitter patter.

“I plead not guilty” the defendant announced just like the one before him and the one before him, always so predictable.Although, I suppose I shouldn’t be so complacent, especially when I would do the exact same in that situation.

When I got home, I commenced the usual routine, eat, sleep and write but all I could think about was the dark, a common accessory to my murders. The sun sets at 8:51 [I looked it up] its 8:30 now so I reckoned I should get ready. 

I walked down the street with my hood covering my face and my head titled to the ground in a lazy attempt to conceal my identity. An unnecessary attempt at that, who would notice me a five foot two, average looking, twenty-five-year-old girl who was drowning in her clothes. As I reached Abernathy Street, I ducked into an alley and crouched behind a rubbish bin, a mixture of grotesque scents swirled around me. This is where he was going to meet me, well he didn’t know it is me and it's going to stay that way. As he turned the corner, I noticed his large, wide shadow etching the tarmac, I did not see a man, no, I saw a criminal.

“He deserves it” I whispered to myself, careful not to attract any attention, for a phrase meant to reassure me it had quite the opposite effect. My stomach began to churn, and my head began to ache.

I had a knife in my hand, and I was about to kill this man, no not a man a criminal, I reminded myself. I could already visualise the plunging of the knife and the rapid flow of blood, an Image I could usually banish from my head. As I began to rise, he noticed me for the first time, no, not me, my knife. He cowered backwards, not caring where his feet fell, and he slipped almost making what I'm about to do too easy.

“Who are you” he stammered while still trying to shuffle backwards. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaping, almost like he hadn't done this himself.

“The person who's going to give you what you deserve” I proclaimed, sounding a little too self-righteous, for my liking.

“I didn’t do it, surely you’ve saw the verdict?" He bargained, making no effort to withhold the little dignity he had left. I instantly noticed when he began looking for an escape and I knew what I had to do. As the knife plunged into what I guessed was his abdomen, his breath hitched and our eyes locked. I was feeling sorry for a murderer. No, I am a murderer.

As I exited the alleyway, I was withholding tears, tears of joy or tears of sorrow? I don’t know. Then I was awoken out of my daze by a shoulder.

“s-sorry” the boy muttered, almost inaudibly. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, brown curly locks blocked his sea green eyes, as I turned the corner I heard him screech, almost like a New-born child. He had found the body.

I stood there for a moment, contemplating my few options. Run, pretend he never saw you or kill him. The latter was too much for me to handle so I ran, considering the last time I ran was high school PE, I thought I was fast enough. I was wrong.

Now as I sit here awaiting the stomping of a guard's government issued boots, I've accepted my fate, I can almost hear the thrum of electricity, I can almost feel it running through my body. The truth is I will die strapped to a cold metal chair, I didn’t have much of a choice, it was either that or hanging but with hanging it takes almost seven minutes to die. So, you see I will not let my last and most significant moments be taken by an executioner instead I will be, now and forever, liberated by sparks.

Adapted from the infamous serial killer, Kate Woods long-lasting diary days before her execution by Tara Trainor