Here is a short story from Todd. Feel free to read it if you have a few minutes to kill.

Firing Squad

by

todd c. noker

            Sentencing was less than an hour away, but the guilty were already facing the cameras—some taking the opportunity to explain their innocence of the charges brought against them, others simply sulking and remaining silent. Speaking to the cameras and letting your sometimes last words spew into the Internet was certainly not law, not yet.   But a movement was underfoot that would force the guilty to apologize to the nation in what some deemed a logically sound argument to dissuade others from committing the same crime. The studies for this were not concluded, and its effectiveness was not fully confirmed.  But for those who opted in—as some currently had done—the sharing of your crime and the full explanation of the remorse might let the council of judges consider a less strict punishment.

            Not that it was a guarantee, of course. Nothing was when the law had been so clear for so long.

            Some of the accused used the opportunity, though. If you had done something so heinous as to merit contemplation of the death penalty, you did what you could to save yourself.  Brayden Beck, seventeen and convicted of strangling his senior year world history teacher, did just that. Email from those who had followed his case from the actual event, to his capture, to his trail (video surveillance was easily available online from a myriad of sources) had suggested that he might attempt to save his life by going on the webcam to explain his erroneous ways.  Chatrooms of fans, mostly of younger females, claimed that his good looks alone might save him.

            They were right to assume this. Brayden’s high cheekbones, deep blue eyes, and perfect smile could melt almost anyone’s heart—there was no question about it. His adoring webfans had erected sites where girls fawned over his good looks and posted comments that—while not breaking a law that would get themselves into trouble—made it understood that they loved him and sought to see him fully forgiven of his crime.

            He worked it well, too. He sat under perfect lighting in front of the camera that would stream his words to the nation and to the entire world. Tears had formed in the corners of his eyes, and they would roll out at his well-timed command, streaming down his cheeks as he proclaimed that he had lost his faith in God, and had—conveniently and recently—rediscovered it.  “How I could lose my way,” he said, blinking fast, letting the tears spill, “and be served by such evil impulses is horrifying to me.”  He sniffled, pausing from his speech to wipe the tears across his perfect cheeks.

            Bonnie Oliver didn’t believe it. “Bawl your eyes out, pretty boy,” she muttered to Sterling Albrecht, who stood next to her in line.  Both were sixteen and both were accused of different crimes that each held severe castigation. Bonnie had no time for such perfectly timed contrition. Her life had been hard—the scar on her neck and the dark patches beneath her eye sockets that looked vaguely like football players’ makeup illustrated this. Bonnie had taken her knocks from early on, living in a household that wasn’t close to God at all, but was a place where the coming and going of her mother’s male friends meant anything could happen at any time for any reason. There were really no safe moments in her world.

            “He thinks he can get sympathy votes just because he’s so fucking adorable,” she muttered again.

            “Shhh,” warned Sterling.  “Don’t let them hear that,” he said.

            “Oh, what are they gonna do?” she said. “I’m pretty much fucked as is.”

            Sterling winced, knowing that she was likely making it worse for herself—and for him if the guards caught wind of her words.  But what Bonnie had suggested for herself—that she was pretty much fucked—also held true for Sterling.  The crime of the day was murder, and the punishments were usually one-dimensionally similar.

            Bonnie, Sterling, and about ten others stood in line in the same room where the camera could let them share their repentance with the world if they so elected. The accused were all under eighteen, and in the eyes of the court they had all ended a life. Some of the kids stood with blank expressions on their faces, knowing they were facing punishments that would relentlessly end their young lives.

            They were allowed to choose the method, though. The throat or the heart. That was the balance and beauty that came along with these laws that were believed to be thousands of years old and from an ultimate source. As Brayden concluded his tearful repentance, guards lifted him from his seat and escorted him into the next room where the council of judges waited. Cameras in their chamber were connected to monitors in the room where Bonnie, Sterling, and the rest of the accused waited. An opportunity to share information was not missed.

            The council of judges was made up of five men who had earned their position by serving the community and studying the letter of the law. They knew the crimes, they knew the payment options for each, and they were ready to pass along their sentences. Majority ruled, so three of five judges had the final say. It was indeed rare when dealing with such unquestioned laws that their decisions were anything but unanimous. On days like today, murder was murder. And payment for such a crime was death.

            Brayden, who so elegantly brought a nation of fans and those who simply enjoyed watching the proceedings to tears, now felt the initial finality of his situation as he entered the room where the judges would give him their sentence swiftly, without the need to explain their decision. The air conditioning in the judges’ room brushed over his sweaty, teary face, and penetrated the light cotton fibers of the jumpsuit he wore. There was a chance of forgiveness, yes. Otherwise it would have been useless to put on the show he recently concluded in the other room.  To Brayden, though, it wasn’t a show. Not entirely. He truly felt that whatever had besieged him and caused him to attack the woman who had taught his world history class was of the devil and that he had, through constant scripture study and prayer, found his true self. If anyone could be forgiven, he thought, it should be him. Plus, he felt that he could serve as a great role model to the rest of the nation’s youth who so frequently struggled with forbidden temptations.

            The council of judges didn’t wear black robes as they had done in the past. Such frocks were now considered blasphemous and were therefore banned. The men who sat along the long table simply wore suits and ties. Each man had a microphone in front of him, although most rarely spoke. The law, so simply and elegantly pure, had already spoken in its written form. Why anyone still broke it was indeed a mystery.

            The guards placed Brayden on the seat that faced the council of judges, and immediately one spoke. It was the oldest judge who sat on the right side of the table as Brayden faced him. “Brayden Beck,” said the judge. “You have been found guilty of murder. Today, despite your pleas for forgiveness, we sentence you to death.”

            Brayden whimpered when they proclaimed this, although it wasn’t entirely a surprise to him. Algorithms that considered everything from the outdoor temperature on the day of the crime to the sentencing history of the five assembled judges had already suggested that he was a goner with a less than eight percent chance of forgiveness.

            The old judge on the end of the table resumed. “As is the law, you may choose between the heart or the neck. It is written that blood must be spilled for the murderer in all circumstances.”

            Brayden, realizing that he would be dead within sixty seconds, picked the method that might prolong his fame. Through a voice that cracked from dryness, he said, “Heart.”

            “Thy will be done,” said the judge, and immediately the guards grabbed his shoulders and hauled him to the wall where an apparatus awaited to restrain him. They held him against the T-shaped rack, strapped his arms out to the side, and strapped his ankles to the base.  A younger man, wearing a suit and tie and aspiring to reach the title held by the five men at the table, approached the boy with a pair of scissors.  He cut away a square of the jumpsuit, exposing the young man’s smooth chest. The faintest hint of hair had not yet sprouted.  He then stepped aside while a cameraman and a doctor approached.  The doctor moved a large drill with the circumference of tuna can into place. The drill was mounted on a mechanical arm that looked oddly like what one might see in a dental office, and this assisted in holding its tremendous weight.  The cameraman zoomed in to get the boy’s chest in the frame, and the doctor immediately turned on the drill. The silver bit accelerated into a blur, the motor running nearly silently so as not to muffle the cries of the inmate.

            Bonnie and Sterling watched as the whirling blades sunk rapidly into his chest, first tearing away his skin, then breastbone, then—in a gush of blood that painted the remaining parts of his jumpsuit red—spirals of flesh that were his heart. It was over just like that.  Brayden barely made a sound when the blade first hit him, then he fell limp and dead.

            Another name was called out in the waiting room. “David Telos?”

            “Yes sir,” he said.

            “Do you wish to seek repentance?”

            “Yes, sir,” he said.

            “Please come to the camera.”

            Sterling watched the proceedings carefully, for he and David had committed the same crime, in the same fashion. If David could convince the council to pardon his actions, then he might be able to as well. This glimmer of hope was slim—and he knew it, too. Murder was, after all, murder. And the sentence was usually the same; in fact he and David shared the same calculated odds as did Brayden.

            “Watch this,” said Sterling.

            “Why?” said Bonnie, both of them speaking softly.

            “Because if he can do it, I can.”

            “He won’t,” she said. “And neither will you.”

            “But still,” said Sterling.

            David sat down in front of the camera. He didn’t share the same fair complexion and adoringly handsome looks as the previous inmate, but he spoke intelligently and carefully.

            “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, looking into the lens.  “I am guilty of a sin, and for that I cannot express my heartfelt sorrow. The law speaks very clearly to my situation, and I am prepared to accept the punishment as sentenced by the council. But my sin should also serve as a warning and a lesson to other young men.”

            Sterling nudged Bonnie, “He’s pretty good.”

            “Not good enough. He’ll get it in the heart,” replied Bonnie.

            “What did you do, exactly?” asked Sterling as they watched David plead into the camera’s eye.

            “Same thing you did,” she said. “Murder.”

            “Not exactly what I did,” said Sterling.

            In the next room, the dead body was removed, the vertical gurney hosed off, the water and blood carefully pushed down the drain. The next person would be up soon, and they had to be ready. The judgments and sentences had to be swift. No need to dither when it was so clearly written.

            “I was pregnant,” said Bonnie. “Raped by my mom’s boyfriend, so I threw myself down the stairs to miscarry it. Didn’t care if it killed me, either.”

            “And they found out?” asked Sterling.

            “Oh yeah. I was bruised up and cut when I went into labor. Plus, there was video evidence in the stairwell showing that I did it.”

            “And now you’re here?”

            “Yup,” Bonnie said. “Guilty of murder.”

            Sterling felt bad for her, but he felt bad for himself. He knew the law, yet he broke it, too. He in the exact way of David. This he knew, because he and David had been tried on the same day last week. Both murderers, both committed in the same selfish way.  Only David had said something to Sterling after they were both quickly found guilty.  “I’m gonna do it again,” said David. “Right in the courtroom. Make them all see another murder.”

            A guard walked over and stood next to Bonnie and Sterling saying nothing, yet clearly instructing them to keep it quiet while a repentance video was airing.  Sterling took a deep breath, and watched as David continued his plea for mercy.

            “If I have the chance,” he said to the camera, “I will never let another life be so foolishly lost. It was selfish, and I was wrong.”

            As the condemned boy spoke to the nation, Sterling noticed something that nobody else saw.  David held his hands politely in his lap while he spoke, but his right hand seemed to be moving slightly. If a guard happened to notice, he might think that the boy was possibly reaching for a weapon. Such a thought was absurd, knowing that the prisoners were thoroughly searched and kept nude in their individual cells in the brief few days between the trail and sentencing. Nobody could smuggle a gun or a knife into this room.  But still, the motion continued.

            Sterling, fearing what might come next, couldn’t believe that the boy could speak in such a focused manner while executing his final plan of showing the world his crime yet again, right in the hallowed halls of the council of judges.

            “It is for these reasons that I plead for forgiveness,” said David, leveling his eyes at the camera lens, looking directly at his audience. “Wasting my seed, killing the innocent, was a horrible transgression, but I am ready and willing to conduct myself as a role model to educate the nation’s young men that such a selfish act is murder, as is the sacred law of the land.”

            It wasn’t a bad speech, but it didn’t prevent the judges from giving him the death sentence. What happened next was both surprising and horrifying, and went on to be referred to as public mass murder. The loose jumpsuit concealed his plans when he was first brought before the judges, and when they gave him the single word, “death,” he carried out his revenge with timing that, although horrifying, was quite impressive.

            Before the guards could take him to the wall for the sentence to be carried out, the boy ripped away the loose-fitting jumpsuit, tearing a hole over what his hands had concealed.

Before anyone could stop him, and before the guards could shoot him, he quivered briefly as in just a few clumsy spasms so many lives were lost. It was mass murder, right there in the courtroom.  Judges shouted and turned away as the gruesome act played out in front of them and in front of the entire world.

            David was finished by the time his blood was added to the mixture from an explosion of gunshots by the guards. Despite the most heinous courtroom murder of so many innocent people, the day had to continue.

            As the drill approached Sterling’s heart, a smile came to his lips when he thought about what David had done.  And then nothing.

Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010
Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Graywhale Entertainment
Street: 390 North 500 West
City/Town: Bountiful, UT

Bountiful Graywhale on April 17, 1 PM to 3 PM. Please note that Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity will not be in attendance. It will only be Zack and Todd.