Down to electric chair, an ode.
The judge was a funny man for sure. The judgment felt funny. But
still, I don’t know whether to cry or to laugh. The sentence was an
electric chair and i felt like laughing. These people are talking in wide sunlight, of killing
me. What? Its funny to hear. I now exactly know my time of death. The good man, the judge told that loud. For some of these talking people, the announcement was a
part of their routine and for some it was sweet. There were laughs, shouts, siren, I was taken to the
prison. The van started slowly through the crowd and traffic and gained
speed as it moved to the uninhabited country. From outside it was just a
wall that I could see. Two towers to the sides, with the height less
than that of a two storeys. The place around was more a barren desert. All the vegetation the place had was some shrubs and some
trees that I would rather say that were once trees. I did not like
the place. I did not like the wall. I did not like the inside of the
wall. I did not like the world inside it. I did not like the cage they
put me in. All of it was suffocating. They stayed too long in the place
that their dislike for the place rather turned to hatred for everything
else. They too should have felt like me, like an alien, when they came
here. Only that most of them were brought here to live and still had the
privilege of uncertainty in their life. They were still lucky
not to know when they would die even if it be today or tomorrow or long
after. I readily understood that given a long time in there I too would
be in their state, just not interested in anything around, not in breath
or bread, not in wit or wine, not in life itself or the world that held
it. There were officers around who might have lived a long life in the
desert that their hearts were dry as the land and rock around. I
wouldn’t blame them for beating the inmates up till their bones showed,
just to pass time. But it was cruel still. I wouldn’t as well
blame them for the shitty food they gave there. That food must be the
reason we remained, rather I preferred to remain hungry in there during the first few days. At first I sat
thinking for long hours, for hours it might have been or might be even days, I don’t really know, I did not know! All I
could manage to think sitting down there in the dark was my approaching
death. The chair that was to electrocute me had started to fill my
dreams. Later I thought of why I should waste the last of the days I’ve got
‘thinking’. I thought I would rather make some productive use of my
time and leave a mark that I lived behind me. And then I started
thinking on it. Soon I would find me sobbing at my own death. That too
electricity? Being electrocuted to death? Couldn’t these people in
authority come up with something creative? What a weird way to die?
Couldn’t they make it more interesting? After all, I said to myself. How
interesting can death be anyway? That couple of words of course
couldn’t console me. Console me? They are going to kill me. They are
going to electrocute be to death. I’m going to die. Die in pain! I
planted a few plants meanwhile. They were left unattended after planting
them. I started reading some books. Great novels, poems, short stories.
I collected a lot. But in vain. All I could see in their pages was
death, darkness, vanity. I tried films thinking they
might atleast take my mind off. The prison warden was a good man, he arranged for all these. He would let me see films on his television once every week, and sometimes twice. But even the films were boring. The picture of my death was so much clearer than the screens,
that I could hardly see anything on the screen. Now, that’s a privilege
that I had. I could get a lot of things normally people in here, in a
prison wouldn’t have access to. Even they might have wanted to take my
mind off my death. Aha! Now they are offering me sympathy after
celebrating the announcement of my death. They were busy arranging
things for me just as they were busy arranging things for my killing.
Once I was inside the place no longer did my days go one after another
as it did outside, it went hour by hour, minute by minute, second by
second. Oh My God. 'Hey! Why should I call the God any longer?', I said.
'Whom else are you going to call at this time?' Again said I. Each and
every moment went by as if it were a long boring journey through the hot
scorching desert. And with every of the moment that passed, a weight
came down more on me, the heart beat harder on my chest, my blood go
thicker. And the thicker my blood went, the darker went my eyes. I tried to form statements, last statement. I simply couldn’t think of a word
other than death and electricity. I wished looking at the electric bulbs
glowing around in the alley that if at all they never invented such a
damned thing as electricity. As my Death would still stay, I was more
afraid of staying through the whole time with electricity passing
through me till I would be not feeling anything at all. They all came
fully dressed and well rehearsed. I had tried imagining their rehearsal
for my killing. Very funny Indeed. Was it like a game for them. Like a
kid would torture some insect to death. When I was a kid once I tortured
a lizard to death. I caught it with a stick and it shed its tail. I
then put it in water in which it struggled a lot before it could make it
to a side of the vessel. I poked it. Burned it at parts. Kept it in a
box. And did all sort of thing to it before it died, after which I
buried him in hole and made up a ceremony for it. Now I felt myself being that lizard. They walked me down amidst them. At this
point I Imagined myself as a VIP walking among his security personnels in
uniform. I just didn’t know if a VIP would go in such torn and dirty
rags. Anyway why in the world did my dress matter now. I could hardly
see any thing as I walked past my favorite corner and past my flower
plant and I sat down on 'the chair'. It was a hard chair, made of some
hard wood, I did not know which, parts of metal pieces, leather straps. There were points for wires to be attached. My
blood was as thick and hot as the hot liquid oozing out of a volcano. I
thought it would ooze out now. A part of me was still searching for many
answers and also was dreaming of many possible and impossible magic
that could still happen saving me. All set to kill me, the officer asked
me something, said something aloud in a tuned official tone. I didn’t
hear a word, for my ears were buzzing louder. Something started to
shake me wildly. It shook all my internal organs. Was this the electricity? There was pain. A lot of it. Starting from the head and
spreading all over my shaking body. Is this how electricity passes
through you? Well then, the darkness that came next would be what they
named death and this would be how passing electricity to death would
look like, it was dark.
Whoa. That was surreal.
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday to you indeed! =)
Fire away!!