Page 63 - Contrast1988Spring

TRIAL HAS BEEN CONDUCTED AND A JURY OF YOUR
PEERS HAS FOUND YOU GUILTY. YOU HAVE BEEN
SENTENCED TO DEATH." Again his expression became
communicative and in a series of facial charades he defended
the seemingly harsh sentence. "Well, normally we wouldn't be
so severe in punishing your particular crime, whatever it was,
but you know, and we know, and your peers know, you
became an outlaw as some sort of weird suicidal criminal
protectionist experiment and, well, you know, this is a free
land and all, and if as part of your freedom you want to kill
yourself to show the criminal's inherent lack of freedom, well,

we're glad to help."
"SO IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR

SUGGESTIONS, INFORM ME OF THEM AND I WILL
FILE THEM IN THE ARCmVES FOR POSTERITY. IF
YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, YOUR
PUNISHMENT WILL BE EXACTED PRESENTLY." The
officer-executioner had finished his official remarks and now
his expression took on a more conversational tone. "Boy,
these suicide executions really make my job easy. You know,
no arguments from the subjects--resistance can be such a pain
in the __" Our young heroine, annoyed at the officer's delay
in ending the wait, interrupted the officer with her rightful plea

for a speedy execution. She mumbled, as urgently as
mumbling will allow, "Please don't make me walt any longer,
can we just get this thing over with?" The officer nodded
consent. Her final words were the officially appropriate "I
HAVE NO QUESTIONS, OFFICER." With that he raised his

official issue Colt, blew her brains out and the wait was over.
At the schoolhouse, the academic's argument concerning the

mysteries of a criminal proper masking continued.

Dan Mills

.. Contrast Spring 1988 59