Last night I dreamed I was dying. Not from illness or old age – I was going to be executed by lethal injection. It all happened so fast. One moment I was living my miserable, yet consistent seventeen years of incarceration. The next thing I knew, my number was up.
I kept telling myself it wouldn’t happen to me – that the mighty fist of God would swoop down and smote my enemies. Then I remembered that my enemies had gods also – from my predicament it seemed evident whose god was winning.
I was kept isolated in a dusky room. There were barred windows, a television set, and a steel cot to lay in my misery. I paced in circles to unwind the hands of time. I painted myself invisible with repentance. I held intimate conversations with my family, though the walls said nothing in return. I snapped in and out of trances, thinking, “Why haven’t we been called to class yet?”
Then my picture blasted onto the TV screen with the bold caption beneath: KILLER TO BE EXECUTED TONIGHT, 2 A.M. I studied the image and hardly recognized myself – my face looked worn with burden. I slid into my flip-flops and searched for my headset, anxious to hear the report of a granted stay. But it was too late. Even a stay of execution would not quiet the mess that rattled in my head.
I made a decision – I was going to kill myself. The circumstances I faced were so horrible and unreal that suicide seemed like the only remedy. I combed the room for a weapon. I felt desperate to die. I noticed the bed sheets and was reminded of my friend E-Boogie, who’d hung himself. I whispered an incantation, “I can do this,” over and over as I fumbled to tie the knots.
I could do it, couldn’t I? It seemed paradoxical to be non-suicidal while contemplating killing yourself. Yet I couldn’t shake the notion that I deserved to decide my own fate. Why should I give the state the satisfaction of terminating my life? Why would I give death penalty supporters a cause to rally in victory? These people were not loved ones of mine. They hadn’t made sacrifices for me. They’d never shed tears at night when I was late coming home or hugged me so tight that it felt electric.
The state hated me. Its mass supporters of capital punishment hated me. They believed that life was wasted on me with absolutely no chance for redemption. Well, I would show them. No longer would they draw strength from my fears. No longer would I be marked by their judgment. They would not get to congregate over coffee and scones while my body convulsed from their poisons. My life was not theirs to take – that duty was my own.
I knew that suicide was widely believed to be an unforgivable sin. Who was I kidding? I’d been labeled a murderer by all those that mattered. There’d be no more tedious claims of innocence for doubters to discredit. There’d be no salvation for people like me as long as there are people like them. And there’d be no hope of a better tomorrow when my tomorrow was upon me today.
I spotted a beam that was high up on the ceiling and hoped it would suffice. As I tied the sheets, I fashioned a noose to fit comfortably around my neck. Then I used a chair to hoist myself into my own death chamber. I was furious, terrified, and yet somehow content – there was no other way. I stepped off the ledge…
I was jarred awake in my cell on death row as my head swam with delirium. I glanced around the room and choked back sadness as every item was a reminder of the possibilities to come. I laid back, closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I was convinced that it was all a dream. But after having lived through the reality of executions past, the dream left me with a single question, “Was it?”
©Chanton
ABOUT THE WRITER. Travis Runnels, is a published author, and is currently working on his second novel. He lives on Death Row.
While watching Charlotte play with her web in search for Wilbur
Once she returns, I step in the yard and the door is closed behind me. I stoop once again to place my hands through the slot so the handcuffs can be removed. My clothes are then passed to me through the slot. I quickly begin putting them on and trying to get warm.
Angry for all the years I’ve lost,
When you first arrive off the transport van, you are interviewed by the ‘Death Row Classification Committee’, handed a rule book and told that you are expected to follow the rules and policies. Just a few days before, you were condemned to die by lethal injection because they believe you can’t be rehabilitated and are incapable of following any rules.
I read the letter from Sara first. Even though our relationship was on the rocks, I missed her terribly. Just holding her letter brought me comfort – the softness of the paper she handled and the scent she left on it. I soaked in her words like a dry sponge touching water for the very first time. Her loving words made me ache for her even more. I did not realize she was experiencing as much pain and suffering from being apart, as I was. I read her letter so fast, I had to read it again, a bit slower, to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I read it a third time, slower still, because I needed the reprieve from the darkness that had plagued me since my arrival on Death Row nearly a month earlier. I clung to her words like a drowning man clings to a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.
You have no idea what welfare tastes like or how the lump in the throat of a proud woman feels as her child gleefully laces up his used shoes.
My earliest memories are from when I was five or six, maybe younger. We had a side porch and when it was raining outside, my brother, cousins, and I would sing out at the rain, “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.” There is a smell that rain gives off, and I can’t name it, but it is the same scent I can smell when it rains where I am now.