text: Each death row inmate at Westborto got the chair, there wasn’t any way around it. They say there was no real way to ever know the pain of those shocks unless you were the one being fried. But it wasn’t too hard to imagine the pain just from the screams that sounded across the prison on execution days. In theory, the electricity was supposed to kill the inmate instantly--no pain. That was a lie. Whether the chair was intentionally faulty to make the prisoners rue the day they had ever committed a crime, or whether its “instantaneous-killing” was simply a white lie told to the prisoners so they wouldn’t make too much of a fuss while being dragged to the chair, no one knew for a certainty. But Kevin thought a few of the guards (Buffet, for one) certainly enjoyed seeing the prisoners burn, their bodies shaking violently, their eyes squeezing out of their faces like pudding. Buffet would have gladly killed the prisoners himself as soon as they got to the prison (Why should they get time to come to terms with their inevitable deaths?). He was a man who liked to get his hands dirty, to make sure it hurt and was messy. Maybe that’s why he had accepted the job, to see the criminals pay for their crimes. He was the world’s own punisher, and he did his job proudly. But some thought it was a dirty business, especially Billy, who deemed the electric chair ungodly. He was new and had joined for nothing more than a good paycheck. Yet, as of recently, death row inmates scheduled for the chair were dropping like files, each one with a clean cut on the back of their heads that went in deep all the way to their foreheads. Some were found in their cells with smiles on their faces. They seemed at peace. The inmates in the prison were saying it was a blessing, that God had given them the gift of mercy, a clean and painless death. Kevin was still scared, though. After all, he was to be sent to the chair in two days. Would he be spared? Or would he burn and burn and burn? He was a murderer, and that was unforgivable no matter how much you repented. The next day came quicker than he would have believed possible. It had been a stressful period full of fear and anxiety. He had even been afraid to sleep, thinking that as long as he stayed up, the next day would be far, far away. But time is as merciless as they say, and soon it was the night before his execution, and he could not think of anything else. He lay on his cot. There was a lightning storm outside, quite the unfortunate coincidence. The noise was unbelievably unnerving, and he began imagining himself sitting in the electric chair. “See you on the other side, Kevin, though you’ll have to do a bit of climbing to reach me once I’m dead,” said Buffet. He reached for the switch and pulled. Kevin saw himself burning, eyes and mouth wide-open but nothing coming out. His clothing began to smoke and soon holes burned through it. His skin blacked like burning meat, then the blood came bubbling out, boiling. Footsteps outside of his cell brought him back to his senses, and he stood up to see who was coming. A shadowed figure appeared. “Do you want to be saved? A quick death or the chair? Your choice.” “Who are you?” “Don’t you recognize my voice?” A flashlight turned on, illuminating Billy’s face. “Billy! Are you him? Have you been killing the inmates?” “Yes. They don’t deserve to die like that. It’s ungodly. Do you want mercy?” He pulled out a butcher’s knife from his pocket. “Press the back of your head against the bars, and the knife will go straight through the brain. Easy. Quick. Painless. You’ll never feel a thing.” Kevin took one last look at his cell, pressed his head against the bars, and closed his eyes.