Notes on an Execution(58)

*

“Are you sure?” the woman asked, two hours later. “All of it?”

“All of it,” Hazel said.

She sat in a swiveling chair at the fanciest salon in Burlington. Her clothes still smelled starchy, like the hotel room—when she texted Luis that she’d be late, he replied with a photo of Alma’s gums, a bloody hole where her first baby tooth had wriggled free.

The stylist snipped, admired, held out a hunk of hair. Take a look at that. Hazel’s lank ponytail hung severed in the woman’s hand, still clumped in its rubber band. With an inch of hair left—just like Emma Watson, the stylist exclaimed—Hazel looked like a little boy. Like a nymph, or a fairy from one of Alma’s bedtime stories. A bit, yes, like Emma Watson. Transfixed by her reflection, Hazel imagined she had lived her entire life as this unrecognizable human, that she had always known this slim stranger face. Hazel lifted a hand from beneath the damp smock, to touch the teardrop freckle on her cheek. It seemed much larger than it had before. Less like a blemish, and more like a signal, the very thing that made Hazel herself. The feeling was so utterly delicious—Hazel watched, euphoric, as the twin in the mirror opened her mouth to a laugh that looked like waking, like becoming, like salvation.





2 Hours




Two hours, four minutes.

Jenny used to say that everything happens for a reason—you always teased her for the cliché. If everything happens for a reason, then what about war? What about cancer, school shootings? Jenny would only shake her head, wise and wistful, so resigned in her faith. There has to be a purpose, she would say. Pointless pain isn’t human instinct. We’ll always find meaning in it.

Optimistic, you’d say.

It’s not optimism, Jenny would tell you. Just survival.

*

There is a guard standing outside your cell. He coughs into his arm, phlegmy and wet. You know why this guard is here: the Watch Log has resumed. He will walk past your cell every few minutes to ensure that you do not kill yourself. You don’t really want to kill yourself, but you would do it if you could—this situation might have a point, if you were to control it. But you have searched, and there is nothing. No shoelace to wrap around your neck. No shard of glass to slit your wrists. No meaning to find in the long, cruel wait.

*

Ansel?

The chaplain has arrived. A red mesh bag from Polunsky is tucked beneath his arm. The bald of his head shines with sweat—from where you lie on the cot, the chaplain looks bigger than he ever has. He drags a clanking metal chair across the concrete, sits up close to the bars that separate you. The Walls Unit employs a different full-time chaplain, but you requested this man come from Polunsky—you like to picture him maneuvering an old station wagon down the highway, windows open, radio humming softly.

The warden gave me this, the chaplain says, handing you the bag. Officer Billings passed it along.

You know the shape immediately. Your Theory. It has only been two hours since you arrived at the Walls Unit, barely enough time to hand the bag off to the chaplain. Not enough time to make copies at the FedEx in Huntsville, not enough time to mail those copies out to publishers, and certainly not enough time to drop a stack at the local news station. You pull the notebooks from the bag, the truth sickening in your chest. The despair blossoms slow, a leaking sore.

Your Theory—your legacy—is not going anywhere.

Bailing on the plan was one thing. You’d half expected this of Shawna. But it seems nearly barbaric, returning the Theory to you this way. You don’t have the time or the resources to send it out yourself. Shawna knows this. It would be fruitless, anyway, without her part in the plan. The irony is sharp, acidic. What you’ve done is bad, but not bad enough to warrant the attention that was supposed to come along with your escape. You could send the Theory out, sure. But at this point, it’s useless.

No one will care.

*

Why all the writing?

Shawna asked you this once, near the beginning. You were sitting on the floor with your notebooks spread around, your hands stained black with ink.

It’s the only way to be permanent, you told her. It’s like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind.

What exactly are you trying to leave? Shawna asked.

I don’t know, you said, irritated. My thoughts. My beliefs. Don’t you think it’s important to know that something of yourself exists beyond your own body? Something that can outlive death?

Shawna only shrugged and said: I think some people have left enough already.

*

You send the chaplain away. You spread the pages of your Theory in a circle on the floor, where they grimace like missing teeth. Cross-legged in the fray, you study the proof of your brilliance—it looks so small and scrawling, spread out disorganized. Notes for something bigger, notes for something better.

So. This is it. Your Theory will disappear after you’re gone, relegated to a back office at best, a dumpster at worst. A life’s worth of thinking and writing, faded into oblivion. Your eye catches a random page, lying haphazard on the concrete. Morality is not finite, it reads. Morality is not permanent. There is always the potential for change. It seems impossible that such a basic thing—potential—can be taken away.

What about the Blue House?

You whisper it, gentle at first. The pages on the floor do not move, do not rustle, only stare up at you. So you say it louder. The words echo back, bouncing hollow off the walls.