text: ‘We now present the execution of Dexter Maron, convicted of murdering two victims; Maria Schiano and Helen Liston. The sentence will be carried out via electric chair in 10 minutes. Please stand by.’ Maron, pressed up against the bars of his tiny window to hear the announcement, slumped back down onto his bed. So this was it. Five years of appeals, desperate pleas to avoid the ultimate punishment, had failed. In approximately 10 minutes and oh, 30 seconds or so, he’d be dead. Gone. Out of this world, and into what lay beyond. Assuming there was anything there. He had been thinking about that a lot lately, whether there was something on the other side. He’d had a lot of time to think, after all; there isn’t much to do in a cell not much larger than your average garden shed which contains only a toilet, a sink, and a bed. He’d had even more time to think recently. He hadn’t slept in going on 80 hours. Hard to sleep when your death is so close. Back to the topic at hand. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted an afterlife. On the one hand, permanent nothingness seemed a little depressing; he wanted to have something else after these 10 minutes and... actually more like 9 minutes now. But on the other hand, sinners were supposed to be punished, weren’t they? Maron wasn’t entirely sure, he’d never paid much attention in church. But he definitely remembered that bad people went to hell. And there was no doubt he was a bad person. All you had to do was listen to the announcements to work that out. Two murders, of two innocent women. That’s about as sinful as it gets. He was the worst of the worst, the scum of the earth. Only people like that kill others. And yet he had done exactly that. 6 years, 4 months and 26 days ago he had shot Schiano in the chest, Liston in the stomach, raided their shop and left them bleeding on the floor to die a long and agonising death. Originally he had justified his actions. His family would starve if he didn’t get food. The women were going to call the police, they had to be stopped. It wasn’t his fault, he was just in a bad situation. But he’d stopped doing that now. What was the point? Maybe he’d been unlucky. Maybe if he’d been born into a better family, maybe if he hadn’t lost his job, maybe if the American government gave a shit about the poor people littered across the American Midwest who struggle to feed their families and keep their loved ones alive. But however much blame he could spread around other people, the majority of the blame had to fall on him. He, after all, had pulled the trigger. He had loaded the gun and walked into the roadside shop knowing there was a good chance that he would be leaving corpses behind. And yet he still went through with it. For his own benefit, he had stolen away two people’s lives. It was only fair that he was sitting here, 5 minutes from his own demise. Ironically, the government gave you a small amount of freedom when it came to your death, after keeping you locked up and away from society for years and years. He had been allowed to choose his final meal (lasagne; Italian food had always been his favourite), he’d been permitted to see any relatives he felt like in the days before his death (although only Mum bothered coming anymore, the rest of his family had given up on him); hell, he was even allowed to choose between lethal injection and the electric chair for his method of death (he chose the chair; needles had always creeped him out). Giving prisoners a small amount of freedom a few hours before their demise didn’t really matter, he guessed. There wasn’t much they could do now. ‘One minute before the execution of Dexter Maron...’ Maron didn’t even bother listening this time, he knew what it was going to say. The guards would be here any minute; in fact, he could hear them marching along the cold, hard concrete floor of the cell block. A key turned in the cell door and light streamed into the room. Guards dragged him upright and pulled him along with them on their journey to the chair. Maron spotted the sun through a distant window; the last time he would see it, he presumed. That made him sad. Sadder than the idea of dying really, the knowledge that he would never see nature again. The beauty of the outside world would forever be denied to him now, the rivers, the trees, the birds, never to be seen again. Wind would never again brush his face, rain- his train of thought was cut off as the guards stopped. Maron looked down, and saw it. There it was. The chair. Dark and metallic, designed to send volts coursing through his veins and remove him from the world. The guards strapped him into it; he didn’t bother resisting. He could see the executioner through a window. According to the guards who had taunted him the day before, he went by the name of Jon Stukel. Was he ready? Could he accept that in mere seconds he would be met by the cold embrace of death? Realistically, the answer was no. He wanted to be free again, he wanted to escape this prison and experience life anew! Finally, as the first volts of electricity ran through him, he began to struggle to escape. But he knew it was too late. He strained against the straps, but then the switch was flicked. Excruciating pain coursed through him. Then blackness. Jon Stukel flicked the switch and watched Maron squirm in anguish before slumping down, dead. Another piece of shit, removed from the earth. He smiled, dusted off his hands, and walked out.