To Live and to Die by the Law

They say that you should count your blessings if you can sleep peacefully at night, in total silence, with no disturbances. Rare phenomenon indeed, but I am quite certain that they mean “external disturbances”, noises like cars or motorbikes, or even the occasional drunk passerby outside of their house in the middle of the night. What about internal disturbances, though? Those little voices inside your head, replaying the stories of your past like a short film in a broken camera, on repeat, again, and again, an endless loop of the mistakes you wish you never made because you can’t undo them. The mistakes that cost, and that maybe you were forced to make. They’re there when you lay in bed and close your eyes, pressing down on your chest as you pray for forgiveness. And they’re there when you finally fall asleep, in your dreams, flashing images of horrific memories. Those invisible enemies of man of a forgotten realm, the Furies. They never stop.

   Tonight, I woke in silence. I must have fallen asleep on my chair, it’s been a long week. The walls start closing in and I’m feeling claustrophobic as I realize that I am still there, sitting on the same desk, in the same room, with the same deafening silence that flooded it for the past couple of days, and I curse myself for that. I stood up from Charon’s Chair - that’s what I call it - and took a stroll down the corridor, on my right and left the bars, rusty, but silent. I often wonder what they’d say if they could tell their stories. 

   As I walk, images of the past drift before me. The how many times I’ve walked that distance I cannot begin to remember, knowing that this uniform entitled me to be the one that can return. On my right I heard the trembling voice of a man that feared the unknown, and in my hands I held another’s shaking arm that carried his hesitant steps through the distance. Not everyone that is sent to me is scared of what’s to come nor remorseful for what they’ve done, in fact, some are especially set in their ways. And it makes you wonder.

“Time is closing in, isn’t it?”

   My eyes turned away from the marble floor I had been staring for, it seemed, more than I had realized as I spun around to face the voice that was calling me from aback. I took a peek at the round clock above my desk, its rusty hands turned at twenty-to-five. “Yes, Rupert”, my voice softened as I approached a man, sitting in the cold, wet, prison cell that was bound to be his last sight of the world. I stood a few meters away from the bars to observe. As much as I knew I shouldn’t, I couldn’t resist the impulse. A man like any other that has ever been sent here. Just a uniform and a name, a sack of bones and flesh that was waiting to be completely debilitated. A walking deadman, since the moment of his conviction. And an empty vessel, deprived of all things mental, emotionless, gray. A man like all the others, that had already been punished for what he’s done. Right?

   To be completely truthful, I had spent an awful lot of time observing him, not just this moment. Oftentimes you’d see him crouched at the side of his bed, his knees close to his chest, arms close to his body with the fingers laced, resting onto his legs. A few times you’d see him mumble some words, like a prayer, no sound, just a little movement of his lips, but generally he was silent. As the time started to close in, he became silent. We have had a few conversations over the past weeks, when he liked to speculate about what follows. Yet, only last night, he said he did not want to have a priest pray with him beforehand. And then he went silent again.

“Can I ask you something?”,  his voice was hesitant, like a frightened child that had come into your room to tell you they had a nightmare. 

   With slow, quiet steps, I move a little closer to the bars. I know I’m not supposed to stand too close, so I sit on my heels and look at him. His eyes were a bit watery, but flooded with confusion. He wasn’t making eye contact with me, just glancing back and forth from the floor to the corners of his cell. I needed not answer him.

“Do you, um- D-”, his voice cracked in an attempt to choke a sob. With a deep inhale he continued.

“Do you think someone can be forgiven, even at the last minute?”

For the first time that day, he turned to look at me, his eyes desperate for a positive answer, something that would keep him hoping for something. But then, I turned my gaze away. I did not have an answer for that, as much as I would want to.

“I want to believe so”, I said and he just nodded at me.

   Looking around the now empty room, I heard this conversation in my head. Tears began to form in my eyes as the memories sat on my chest, nearly pinning me to the ground. My trembling legs started to give up on me as I crossed the door and kept walking.

   I somehow managed to drag my steps into The Room. There, where it all happened. There, where man becomes judge and God, and decides what the fate of another must be, where justice is served and everybody gets what they deserve. Or that’s what they say. And that’s where She sits, old and dusty and moth eaten. Always ready, all strapped, waiting for Her prey. When a man sits on Her, below sit the Attendants, proud to be ‘cleaning up the society of its monsters’. We serve the good of the society, they say, but why does it feel so monstrous? Then the words play in my head:

Electricity will now pass through you until you are dead.

These words I had to say.

But She sits there, silent, empty. I wonder what she’d say if she could tell her stories.

   Sometimes, if you listen to the silence very closely, you’d say these rooms are mourning, not just the passing of the dead, but the rotten justice system of ours. 

How do you kill a monster without becoming one?

You can’t.

   My name is Life, and I’ve been called to witness Death.

   And I curse myself for that.