Lex Talionis (Part III) - Chapter One

"The face of the enemy frightens me only when I see how much it resembles mine."

- Stanislaw J. Lec

Chapter One:

Many years ago, a poor German tailor had twelve children. When the thirteenth was born, he ran out of the house and waited by the roadside in search of someone to be the boy's godfather. As it was the godfather's duty to help the godchild in any way, this was the only way the family could be taken care of. The first person to walk by was God, whom the tailor immediately rejected. "He takes from the poor and gives to the rich. I shall wait for another."     

The day went on and the tailor saw another figure walking along the road in front of his house. This happened to be the Devil. The tailor laughed. "He lies and cheats and leads good men onto the wrong path. I shall wait for another."

Finally at the end of the day, Death walked down the road. "Rich or poor, Death treats all men equally," the tailor exclaimed. "That is how I want my son to be raised!"

The tailor ran to Death and explained his situation. Having never been given an opportunity like this before, Death immediately agreed. He provided the entire family with food and drink for all their days while the youngest child grew into manhood. Finally, when it was time, Death called to his godson and explained that he was to become the finest physician across the land.

"Take this magical herb with you. Should you be called to a patient's bed and I stand at the headboard, give them some of the herb and they will live. Should I be at the footboard, you must let them know it is their time to die. Your diagnosis will always be right and you will be revered as such."

For years the godson practiced medicine and was indeed revered across the countryside. One day, the King fell ill and the tailor's son was summoned to his bedside. Seeing Godfather Death at the footboard, the godson had the King's men switch the bed around and prescribed him the herb, healing him completely but angering Death.

"You should never cheat me or it will be revisited on your head." The godson apologized and continued to practice medicine until the King's daughter fell seriously ill.

"Make her well and I shall give you her hand in marriage," said the King, and the tailor said he would. But again, Death stood at the footboard of the bed and warned his godson not to cross him again. The godson, half in love already, had the bed turned and gave the Princess the prescribed herb so that she might live.

The Princess was healed immediately, but Death grabbed his godson and said "You will take her place then," and Death took him to a cave filled with burning candles of different heights. "These candles are people's lives. Once they burn down, their life must end. That is how it has been and must always be."

"Where is mine?" the godson asked.

"Here," said Death, pointing to a candle that had almost flickered out.

"Please godfather, give me another candle. I've done your bidding for so many years, let me have a little longer."

And with that, the candle sputtered out and the godson fell dead at Death's feet. "You cannot cheat me a third time, godson. I am sorry..."

This room had always been a larger filament woven within the prison legend tapestry. NV's had whispered to others about the end results they had seen, but could only guess about the goings on within. Most listeners had scoffed away the stories - who could believe such a thing existed anyway? It seemed too cruel and too willing on the part of human nature to reach over to the darker side of torture. The original designer of the prison jokingly called this room Charon's Dock while building it, but never smiled when the name later crossed his mind or lips. He assumed it was to be a shower room of sorts with all the piping and drainage leading into and out of the room, but an overeager prison official had scribbled "execution room" in black ink across the blueprint and stained the designer's mind with speculations he had never been able to shake.

There were no windows and the only other people allowed in at any other time were other executioners. The NV's could only guess at what kind of soul manipulation occurred within the room as they carted bodies, precisely mutilated and efficiently cleaned, from this part of the prison like they were the devil's own henchmen. The room reeked of sweet decay and control and some NV's even imagined that they could still hear the screams reverberating off the walls hours after the procedures had finished. There was a strange, creepy

(green?)

mean energy around the door and legs seemed to move quicker past it when one found themselves in that general area.

One rumor had it that the drain was for the blood (true) and that it was all siphoned into a large vat a mile below the room, filtered for impurities and then somehow distributed back into the water and food of the prison system (false). Another spoke of an unholy power the executioners possessed that helped them during the execution (false) and that the punished bodies were thrown into a great incinerator somewhere on the far side of the prison (true as most of the NV's doing this work had to take them there and saw them firsthand). The most pervasive story, however, was the one that said the walls cried during each killing (false, but condensation would, in fact, collect on the walls during the more unruly executions) because the executioner would eat the soul of the prisoner and never let it go.

To an extent, this part was true.

The air around the two men, one in naked slumber and the other watchful, was unmoving and dry. Two circular lights hung low from the ceiling, bathing the middle of the room in a warm off-white while the walls cowered in the shadows just out of the light's reach. The larger of the two, the watchful one, sat on a stool with arms crossed against his chest and a patient look on his face. The imperceptible rise of his chest made one immediately conjure up images of stone gargoyles on building tops standing guard over hush-dark city skylines.

After the first hour of the prisoner's sleep, he had removed the heavy brown apron and slung it onto the far counter before taking up residence on the stool. The first hour had been spent cleaning and polishing the tools on the velvet cushion even though they had been cleaned previously. The cleaning was a way to focus, a way to pinpoint all the chaotic thoughts into one singular controllable bead. The rolling tray had been moved away from the gurney in case the sleeping elder awoke earlier. He would be disoriented and groggy and this was okay because he would still be strapped down. But always err on caution, his teachers had engrained in him. Always err on caution – it could mean the difference between another day of work or a week spent in the med unit, or worse, a lifetime in the ground.

There was a short echoing knock on the metal door from fingers hesitant to bother while he worked. Brein rose up off the stool and unlocked the heavy door, letting it swing open as another guard pushed his way into the room meekly, running his eyes over the sleeping prisoner in the middle of the room. "Is that him?" he asked, whispering.

"You don't have to whisper," he replied curtly. "But yes."

The visitor walked in and circled the gurney, examining the body from every angle. "He's so…so frail," he sputtered, looking up at Brein with surprised eyes. He stared back down into the thinning white hair of the prisoner and then down to the ears which held their own batch of follicles growing weed-like from the inside. There were liver spots just below the jawline and his skin seemed stretched taut and saggy at the same time with severe right angles from the tendons and muscles jutting through the dermis.

His throat croaked as if stuck in a voiceless nightmare and the visitor jumped back, startled. The larger of the two gave a joyless grin and sat back down on his stool. Towalski still had an hour left under the thick fog of medicated sleep. Brein had over-measured the dose himself. This one would require extra time and he wanted to be perfect for it. He had to be perfect for it.

"Alright, Simmons, you got your look. I've gotta get to work now," Brein said. "And make sure no one else comes to bother me. I'm serious about this. His body rejected the sedative the first time, so I've already lost an hour." His voice made Simmons think of distant thunder three horizons away and quickly nodded, scampering out of the cell not wanting to be caught in the storm. The door clanged shut loudly and Brein locked it back up, feeling more than hearing the mechanisms click back in place loudly.

What happened to man when the Angel of Death came to him? What could Death be? The body became decayed. And the soul? Yes, what was the soul? What became of it? Where did it go? "To the life eternal," the comforting voice of religion said. But what was the transition? Where did one dwell, and how? "In heaven above," said the pious people; "it is there we go." "Above?" repeated the Wise Man, and gazed up at the moon and stars. "Up there?"

From the earthly globe he saw that "above" and "below" could be one and the same, depending upon where one stood on the revolving earth. And if he ascended as high as the earth's loftiest mountains rear their peaks, there in the air that we below call clear and transparent – "the pure heaven" – would be a black darkness, spread over all like a cloth, and the sun would have a coppery glow without giving forth rays, and our earth would lie wrapped in an orange mist. How narrow were the limits of the mortal eye, and how little could be seen by the eye of the soul! Even the wisest knew little of that which is the most important of all to us…

Another half hour passed and Brein hadn't moved an inch since perching on the stool after Simmons' departure. He prepped everything the night before due to a sleepless night: vials with proper dosages, alcohol swabs, syringes. He had even gone so far as to deep clean the grating on the floor, ridding it of any blockages that might have accumulated since its last deep clean.

He was still sleeping like shit, but the previous night had him staring wide-eyed at the ceiling until finally he had resigned the fight and come to the prison before the sun had even thought of waking. Any other day and he would've just taken his lumps and worked through the exhaustion, but after a thorough room cleaning and tool sharpening, he went home for a much needed nap. An unsteady hand was a dangerous thing to be today.

'You've done this before,' he thought. 'This is nothing new and he is nothing different.' He got up and walked to the rolling tray. Another vial, another syringe. The slight sucking of green fluid up into the chamber was the only other noise in the room and Brein laid the full syringe back on the tray and waited. The tools were ready, the room was locked, and his hands were steady.

A row of blue filled syringes sparkled like sapphires on the far counter. He slid the rolling tray over and placed them all on its silver surface, then rolled it back over to the prisoner. He took one syringe and inserted the needle into Towalski's ankle and a slight tremor overtook the foot. He had told the prisoner that the blue shot was the paralytic, but he'd never know the difference. In twenty minutes, the prisoner would be awake and aware and only then would he be able to know. He would need to work fast.

He started with the left ankle, then the right. He moved quickly and quietly, sticking the areas below both kneecaps, then the upper part of both thighs, tossing each expended needle onto the tray beside him as he dragged it along. Next came the stomach area, both pectoral areas, the top of the shoulders. Eleven needles down and four left to go.

He stuck both of the upper forearms in their sweet fleshy hinge and moved to the wrists were he finished with the last needle. He rolled the tray over to the biohazard chute and dropped the needles one by one down the hole, hearing them tumble and clink their way to the incinerator far below. The body stirred and Brein slipped the heavy brown apron around his neck, waiting.

Ancient Egyptians had elaborate rites for their dead and dying. Preserving the body was just the first step. This mummification process was supposed to allow the traveling soul an identity in the afterlife, a sort of umbilical cord to the human world should the soul ever want to return.

Aside from the heart, which was left in place, all of the body's organs were removed and placed in separate jars. The heart was left alone because it was said to be the home of the soul and would thus function as a kind of beacon to the afterlife. The body would then be covered with resin, inside and out, and wrapped in bandages. Oftentimes religious artifacts and jewelry accompanied the mummification. On average, this process took seventy days.

Embalming was originally designated for the richer, more select members of Egyptian society, but eventually was available to more people. Animals were also found to be mummified in later cultures. While some were in fact family pets, most were representational of the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. From approximately 305 B.C. to 30 B.C., animals were bred purely for this sacrificial offering of sorts…

Towalski groaned as his eyes adjusted to the light above. Shapes above burned themselves onto his retinas and instinctively he tried to blind his eyes, but remembered the straps holding him down tight. He tried to wiggle his fingers and found that he couldn't feel anything. He tried his toes and found the same. He felt completely naked on the gurney, but couldn't lift his head to check and a thirst came rising up from inside him. "…water…" his voice creaked. He heard footsteps to his right, but could only strain his eyes to the very corners of their sockets. The light above blinded him as a metal cup, from which he drank greedily, was tipped to his lips. The cool liquid rand down his face and tickled his neck as he drank. The thirst had been overwhelming.

"That's enough for now," a voice said from the shadows, taking the cup away. The light above dimmed and the guard from before stood above him with eyes darting across the naked skin on the table. Towalski relaxed, recalling the shots of paralytic before he passed out.

"That's some strong stuff you administer," he said, trying to keep the calm from leaving his voice.

Brein gave a non-committal grunt. "It helps in case someone feels feistier than they let ..hand. If they're passed out and I think they might become a problem, I can add more of these," he said, tapping the straps on Towalski's wrists.

The two men stared at each other, neither flinching. "So this is how it ends, is that right? Me, completely helpless to even move a finger while I'm dissected like a biology exam?" Towalski asked, breaking the long silence in a voice stronger than he felt.

"Sort of," said Brein, pulling a stool up to the side of the gurney. "This will be different for me as well."

"Oh God," Towalski moaned. "This is your first time."

Brein grinned from above. "Not hardly. I've been doing this almost as long as you've been here. I'd say you're in good hands, but that's probably a poor choice of wording."

A nervous laugh passed Towalski's lips. "Little bit, yeah."

Brein turned around to the rolling tray and picked up a small marker. He placed his hands on the naked stomach and began tracing dashed lines across the skin. Towalski had little to no body hair and this had made Brein's job easier. Of all the things about the job to hate, shaving a prisoner's body hair curiously triggered his gag reflex the fastest.

"Are you already cutting me up?" Towalski asked, horrified.

Brein stopped and held the marker up to Towalski's face. "Just making a few markings is all. You'll know when I start," he said matter-of-factly as if only discussing the weather. He bent his head and went back to creating hash marks on the body canvas and Towalski sent his eyes roving in every direction he could, drinking in the room and its trappings. He could barely see the surrounding walls as they seemed to gorge themselves on what little light shone in the room.

"I was never very good at art in school," he started nervously. "Could never stay in the lines."

"I wouldn't worry about that either. My skills at art were always pretty good," the voice near his midsection replied.

Brein worked in silence covering the entire length of the body in dark purple hash marks. Lengthy purple lines dotted the rectus abdominus and intersected with the pectoralis majors, splitting off to meet the biceps brachii on either side. Next came the lliopsoas of the upper thighs which ran parallel to the adductor longus of the inner thighs, themselves neighbors of the gacilis. Towalski had become the Vitruvian man drawn and sculpted with a children's tool.

Towalski cleared his throat. "So, uh. You've been doing this for a long time then?

"Mm-hmm."

"One doesn't just fall into this line of work I suppose?"

"Nope," Brein said quietly, continuing the deep purple marks down to the ankles on the right leg. He fumbled the area around the tibialis anterior and licked his thumb to wipe it away and start again. The back of the leg had always been easier than the front for him, a more obvious demarcation of musculature lines. He stood up and moved to the other side of the table and started at the base of the left leg, making his way up quickly having found his rhythm now.

"So are the marks where you plan to, you know, cut me?" Towalski asked, gulping louder than he had anticipated.

"Not necessarily. This is just part of my process. Mistakes can be made in the heat of the moment and this is my way of keeping myself on track. The human body is a miraculous machine on every level. Each part is so interwoven and interconnected with every other part that one has to be careful not to cause a negative reaction somewhere else." Brein stopped and nodded, pleased with his monologue.

"Was this something you chose to do or…?" Towalski let the question die on his lips.

Brein stopped, scooted the stool up to the bare midsection and looked at Towalski. "It is something I choose to do now."

Towalski fell silent, choosing to stare past the dim lights directly at the ceiling. Knowing how far up the guard had marked would likely send his mind spinning. Better to focus elsewhere for the time being.

"You know, other people I've worked on tend to try to buy their way out of this situation. Some cry, others offer large amounts of money in what I imagine are made-up bank accounts, and others threaten my life, which I've always found a little funny in a weird sort of way," Brein started, scooting the stool out of the way and placing the marker back on the rolling tray. "You seem more interested in passing the time conversing rather than pleading. I find that interesting."

"Why's that?" Towalski asked, focusing harder on a singular crack in the ceiling.

"I think a man's worth is found in the character he exemplifies while looking death directly in the face. You're not crying, but I think you've got the fear of God in you. You're not pleading, which means you're not desperate and you haven't offered me some kind of payment, which means you're either broke, guilty, or just resigned to your fate. Which is it?" he asked without a trace of accusation in his voice.

Towalski flipped the question over and over in his head before answering. "I don't fear God and I'm not desperate, just ready to take what's given to me. Nothing more, nothing less," he replied in a strong, even voice that surprised even him.

"Don't you believe in God?" Brein asked conversationally.

"I didn't believe in anything until I came here," he sputtered, feeling his throat itch.

"What changed your mind?" Brein's voice asked from the other side of the room as he cleared off the rolling tray and tossed the contents onto a far counter. The room held a weird echo despite its small size, muffling and expanding his voice at the same time.

Towalski licked his dry lips. "Could I get some more water, please?" Seconds later, the cup appeared, water dribbling slowly over the side in the big man's grasp. Towalski drank slowly this time, letting the water coat his insides and then cleared his throat. He could feel his head clearing as each minute passed. "My first year here, I knew no one. I had no one to really eat with in the caf and no one to talk to in the common room. The fear I carried with me was tangible and I think the other inmates could smell the stink of it on me as I walked past them."

"Yeah. Some can do that. Makes an unfortunate situation worse if you don't play it right."

"Yeah, well, I tried my hand at the library instead. At least the books never passed judgment and I could just stay in my cell with them. I came across the religion books and thought the ones on Buddhism had a nice balance of rationality and faith that was lacking in some of the others. I read as many of them as I could and eventually stopped letting the fear eat away at me. I learned to cope by not caring. No, that's the wrong phrase," he said, correcting himself. "I just became ambivalent towards the others around me and focused on my internal needs first. Selfish, but it worked."

Brein had pulled the stool back up to the gurney, sitting on Towalski's right side. "So you're a Buddhist, then?"

"Not a good one, but that was my intention, yes."

Brein squinted at Towalski, chewing the inside of his lip while mentally measuring the prisoner up. He placed his hand on Towalski's chest, feeling his heart thump normally. "The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal," he whispered, half to himself.

"Twain?"

Brein nodded with the glimmer of a smile peeking at the corners of his mouth. "Humor me for a moment. Think of it as a game."

Towalski laughed hopelessly. "What do I win?"

"Truth. And the knowledge that two people know it instead of just the one," Brein replied calmly. Towalski's lips parted as if to speak and then thought better of it. "Do you know anything about the ancient Egyptians?" Brein asked, still leaning over the gurney.

"Not really, no."

"Then this may be a history lesson of sorts as well. The Egyptians believed that when a person dies, their heart would be weighed in the hall of judgment in the underworld which they called Duat. Anubis, the god of mummification, would escort the soul to a scale. One side of the scale would be empty while the other held a feather."

"Seems like the soul would be the obvious loser every time," Towalski replied, the tremor finding its way back into his voice.

"For the Egyptians, the heart wasn't a physical so much as a metaphysical object. It was a record of the owner's morality over his or her lifetime. Likewise, the feather wasn't so much a physical object as it was the physical embodiment of Ma'at, or what they considered the concept of truth and order," Brein explained, standing up to remove his apron. He walked over to the wall at the head of the gurney and hung it up on the lone peg.

"If truth, or the feather, outweighed the individual's morality, or his heart, then that soul was given to Osiris who was considered the god of the afterlife. He ruled in a part of the underworld called Aaru, which is much like the Grecian Elysian Fields. Still following?" he asked, sitting back down on the stool next to Towalski.

"Yeah," Towalski replied with a questioning look on his face.

"If the soul was allowed passage to Aaru, they would have to fight their way through several doors. Some scholars say 15, others 21, but ultimately it was like someone having their own Herculean tasks to finish before reaching their final resting place, even though they had already been judged as moral enough to be there."

"Okay," Towalski said, wondering where this line of story was going.

"However," Brein continued, "if the person's heart weighed more than the feather, their soul would remain in Duat where Ammit, the Eater of Hearts who was part crocodile, part lion, and part hippopotamus, would…"

"…eat the heart. Got it," said Towalski, finishing the sentence.

"Indeed. Now comes the interesting part. I have no doubt that the Egyptians were geniuses in their own right. The pyramids, the temples set into cliff faces, all of that was brilliant and we're still trying to figure out how they did all of it today…but these people of great intelligence somehow thought they could fool the gods. Since the heart was considered to be the most important part of the human body, the beacon for the soul AND the center of reason and emotions, many people would acquire surrogate hearts to be placed inside their mummified remains so that they could pass into Aaru without worry."

"Surely there were punishments from the gods for that," Towalski asked, suddenly curious to hear more.  

Brein shrugged. "No idea. I'm not Egyptian and I certainly don't believe all of what they believed. These were the same people who scooped out the brain and tossed it into the trash before mummification, believing it to be an unimportant part of the body."

"Well, where did they get these surrogate hearts from?"

"Slaves, beggars, who knows? It was a society of people who were more inclined to cut off your genitals than sincerely trust you with their concubines," Brein replied, shrugging. He had stopped looking at Towalski and seemed more interested in the wall beyond the gurney.

"So, the point of all this is…?"

Brein turned his eyes from the wall and looked directly at Towalski. "I'm going to weigh your heart against my feather and we're going to see what happens."

Towalski's face contorted into a look of terror. Had he been able to move, he probably would've shaken himself hard enough to tip the gurney over in a useless form of protest. Brein saw the fear spread across the prisoner's face and jumped up off the stool.

"Whoa, whoa! Take it easy, boss, I'm speaking metaphorically here. I'm not really gonna remove your heart. Relax," Brein cooed, trying to assuage the prisoner's mind. "Just relax." He laid a hand gently on Towalski's shoulder and bent his head down to his ear. "You don't know me, but I know you. Whatever happens, act as normal as possible. You will have to trust me, though you do not know me well enough to do so," he whispered slowly.

Towalski's eyes grew with each successive line spoken. "You! You wrote the note? But why?"

Brein sighed loudly, clasping his hands together behind his back. "Because after having read your file, it seemed like there were too many facts out of whack. In other words, someone sent me a surrogate heart."

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Lex Talionis (Part II - Revised/Edited) - Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen:

I stood up as he entered the cell with slow, lumbering steps. He sized me up and grunted, probably assuming I wouldn't be much of a fighter, but pulled out his electraprod anyway. "You gonna give me any trouble or should I call for some of my friends to help me escort you?" he asked gruffly.

"No trouble," I replied calmly, holding my hands up in a sign of surrender. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

He nodded after a moment. "I'm gonna back up out of this room. When I'm fully out, I want you to step out slowly and lay down on this gurney I have to the right."

"Okay," I said as he backed out of the room, never dropping his gaze from me. When he had stopped, I shuffled out of the room and slid up onto the gurney, the fresh smell of leather and copper smacking me in the face. I recoiled at the mingling of the smells and stretched my body out across the metal surface. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him step into my vision fully, but out of arm's length. He wasn't taking any chances with me.

"There's a leather buckle by your right hand. I want you to slide your hand in through the loop, tighten it with your left hand and then wait."

"Okay." Without looking, I moved my right hand over, feeling the circular leather and slid my hand through it. I fumbled over the material with my left hand, but finally found the strap and pulled it taut, but not enough to cut off circulation. I knew he'd come to check it anyway.

"Good, thank you for being cooperative," he said almost cordially. "Now, I want you to slide your left hand in the left strap and sit tight."

Without a word, I found the strap and did as I was told. I kept staring at the ceiling, hoping to avoid any unnecessary outbursts or suspicions of my not following orders. I heard him sheath his electraprod as he stepped close to the gurney. The strap tightened up quickly around my left wrist and I grimaced. "Too tight?" he asked. I thought I heard genuine concern hidden beneath the question, but simply shook my head no. A second later, the strap had loosened to a more comfortable, but still secure, tightness.

His boots struck the floor with every footstep as he walked to the foot of the gurney. "I'm going to tie up your left leg first, then your right, then I'm going to check the strap on your right arm. I would strongly recommend that neither of your feet move during the process as I will take it to be an act of resistance. Should that happen…"

"It won't," I said quickly. "It won't. I have no intention of resisting."

"Good," he replied quietly, moving to strap down my left leg. Once that was secure he moved to the right and strapped it down as well. He checked the strap on my right arm and muttered his approval as he moved to the head of the gurney. I noticed the ceiling in this part of the prison was taller than I imagined. I hadn't really noticed it my first day coming down here, but I could hear the sodium arc lights buzzing overhead as he began to push the gurney down the hallway.

I kept silent as we passed row after row of lights. For every set that was turned on and blazing, three sets were off and dark. I kept my head down the entire ride for fear of being shocked, but vaguely recognized the thick metal doors that led down to this particular hub as they raised open with a loud, metallic groan. The ride was smooth and we rolled along at a nice pace. I felt a singular breeze wash over my face and my eyes watered at the chill as we turned a corner. Having not paid attention to the turns we were making, I lost track of where we were until finally he stopped at another large metal door with no windows. Half the size of the hub doors, this one opened like an office and he rolled me through the entryway. The smell of copper was overpowering in here and I felt a sickness building in my gut. I was about to die here. This wasn't some chance encounter – someone had played me for a cruel joke with the edible note, raised a dying man's spirits maliciously. Was this how it all went down, with a joke and a gurney?

I tasted anger on my tongue as I saw the guard slip on a heavy apron. It was a deep brown, almost black, and stains mottled the front. He held up a tiny vial of clear liquid and stuck a hypodermic needle through the top, sucking out enough to fill the syringe a quarter of the way. He moved to another part of the room and I noticed the gleam of polished silver resting atop a pillow of velvety red fabric on the counter space. Despite my best attempts at calm, I felt my breathing shorten and hyperventilate as my heart boomed like a kick drum inside my chest. I closed my eyes and felt a rivulet of sweat fall from my forehead to my left ear lobe. This wasn't your normal, run-of-the-mill guard, I realized slowly. This was my executioner.

"Do not regret the past. Look to the future," I whispered to myself. "Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child."

"What was that?" the guard asked as he flicked the syringe, ridding it of air bubbles.

"Just reciting a koan is all," I replied, my voice wavering. "I figure if this is the last time I get to know this earthly body, I'd like to at least remember my teachings." I clenched and unclenched my hands in nervous anticipation, waiting for the prick of a needle somewhere on my body, and exhaled loudly.

From my right side I could see that he had put the needle down on a silver tray that moved as if on wheels. He slid a stool up to the side of the gurney and stared down at me, examining my forehead, my nose, my mouth, my ears and then examined each of my fingers and toes, having first removed my shoes and socks. He did this wordlessly, nodding to himself after each body part before moving on to the next one. He was methodical and moved slowly, stretching out already long minutes until it felt like a day had passed.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to find a white place within my mind, a place of infinite serenity and the absence of everything. I felt a slap across my face and I came back to the reality of the room. "What was that for?" I asked, angry at my treatment.

"You passed out. You can't pass out yet. That's not how this works."

"I didn't pass out. I was trying to meditate to calm my nerves."

He held up the syringe and gave me a blank look. "That's what this is for," he said calmly. "Besides, I need you here mentally as well. It wouldn't be polite otherwise."

I pressed my lips together and felt my eyes misting. Of course there was no easy way out of this situation, that's not how this was supposed to go. It never had been. No deus ex machina would rear its head in this tragedy.

"You've been cooperative this far," he started quietly, moving and arranging objects on his gliding tray. "I'd hate to see that end with us so close to the end, now." He walked away from the gurney and I heard running water, followed by hands sloshing together. The faucet turned off and the sound of cloth tearing and he walked back to the gurney, drying off his hands. "I've been doing this job almost as long as you've been here, did you know that?"

I shook my head.

"No, of course you didn't. They don't really tell the prisoners here anything, do they? Well, let me tell ya, you're quite the anomaly here. Everyone seems to have their own ideas about you and who you are and what you've done. I was actually given the option," he said, spitting the last word out, "of taking your particular case. Everyone knew I'd take it of course, so it wasn't an option so much as it was a polite handing off of something no one else wanted to touch." He spoke calmly and close to my face, sitting back down on the stool to look down on me.

"Why's that?" I asked. Me? The center of gossip in a prison?

"That's an excellent question," he replied, grabbing the syringe. "But for now, you and I have other business to attend to."

I felt the needle stick in the upper part of my right arm and watched him depress the liquid. "This is merely a sedative. It will knock you out completely and when you wake up in about an hour, you will not be able to move. You will be able to speak, but you will not be able to move. Thanks to this special paralytic, however," he said, holding up a different syringe filled with a light blue liquid, "you'll be able to feel anything physical. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Is this all clear?"

I nodded as he seemed to split into two separate people. My eyelids had gotten heavy and my body went limp. I could see his face above me and I could see his lips move as his voice seemed to echo off into eternity. Effortlessly, I passed into dreamless sleep still strapped to the gurney as a small bit of drool dribbled out of the corner of my mouth. Here was the black I had been looking for and finally found. Here was the place where last thoughts birthed and died, swimming along until someone grabbed hold and made them their own. "We have much to discuss," someone whispered from the abyss.

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Lex Talionis (Part II - Revised/Edited) - Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen:

My math was right, I was sure of it. I had calculated the passing of time properly and even erred on the side of it being earlier than it was, but a week had passed with no word from Father Josef. I had begun sweating more and feeling my muscles cramp up upon waking every morning. I felt less like a man and more like the spring-loaded trigger of a mouse trap, ready to pounce on the first thing that kissed against my existence. As such, I focused on my heart rate and my breathing and made attempts not to wonder why he hadn't shown up yet. He had seemed so genuine, so friendly. I wasn't sure why he would go back on his word, especially knowing I was so close to my last day.

Focus on nothing and everything. Think black. Think thick, pitch black and wallow in it as if struck by a muting fever…

Sick! Yes, he must've gotten sick. But surely he would've at least sent word to let me know he wouldn't be coming? It felt like he would possess and exhibit that kind of social grace, even to a prisoner. I latched onto this idea and then brushed it aside, not content that I had found the answer, but forcing myself to believe I had found the answer.

Stop it, I kept telling myself. He'll come. He must because he promised. Focus now. Slow down everything. Breathe in – breathe out. Focus.

There were now two of me, fighting over the rational, logical part of my brain. Like arguing children trailing behind a mother running errands, they screamed louder and harder at each other with every passing day with no clear way to stifle the noise. It had started as a quiet din, a whisper along the walls every so often, but had recently grown to a constant wave, a chorus of voices, all singing in different keys at different speeds. My meditations had been less frequent and felt shorter every time.

Breakfast came cold that morning as usual, but as the tray slid through the slot, a note fell out from beneath it, folded thin and on material thinner than wax paper. I immediately sat on the floor with my back to the opaque glass and pretended to eat while my trembling hands lifted the note off the floor. Black ink bled through the folded parchment and I opened it up to a message either quickly scrawled or by someone with terrible penmanship:

"You don't know me, but I know you. Whatever happens, act as normal as possible. You will have to trust me, though you do not know me well enough to do so. Swallow this paper with your meal and let no one see it."

No signature, no indication of who the letter writer was, just an exercise in blind faith. My hand had stopped shaking and what hunger I might have had disappeared. I forced myself to swallow the cold scrambled eggs on my plate, discretely tearing the already tiny note into thin strips and placed them on my tongue with each successive bite. I could feel the paper dissolve on my tongue quickly as the black taste of ink gave my taste buds something new and different to process. It was acrid and foul beneath the flavorless mass of eggs and I chugged the accompanying water greedily.

With the note gone and the meal half-eaten, I slid the tray back through the door slot and waited for the guard to return for the pick-up. A half hour later, the sound of boots clomping along the floor came closer to my door and I knocked, having heard him grab my tray.

"What do you want?" the gruff voice on the other side asked indifferently.

"I was wondering if Father Josef was coming back today or not. He had mentioned another visit today or yesterday, but as of yet hasn't show up."

"No idea." He began to walk away and I remembered I needed another book. Something thick this time, something to keep my mind off the ominous note.

"Excuse me," I shouted through the door slot. "Could I get another book, please? Maybe something around 800 pages or so?"

I heard a grunt from the other side of the door as the boots disappeared around the corner. It was probably too much to ask that the book be delivered by the end of the day, but the note had calmed me rather than added to my already unraveling grip on things and I sprawled myself out on my bunk, put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling, quickly plummeting into a much needed nap.

I awoke to a lunch or dinner tray (I knew not which) being taken from my door slot. The plastic tray clanged across the metal surface in clumsy or uncaring hands and I sat up slowly, wiping the crusty sleep from the corners of my eyes. My stomach gave an angry rumble and I rubbed it instinctively, as if the motion would somehow quiet the gurgling and sate my appetite. Alright, I thought to myself. No lunch for sure, and possibly no dinner depending on what time it was. Super.

A knock came an hour later and the door to the cell swooshed open. A guard I had not seen before held a thick book in his hands and wore a look of indifference. He stared at me as I sat on the bunk and tossed the book onto the floor in front of me and said "Not that you'll have time to finish it." He closed the door before the book had even hit the tiling and I screamed out a sarcastic thanks while shaking my head in wonder.

The book was bound in a deep maroon hard cover. The gold embossing had been worn away over the years and the spine was practically screaming for the pages to stay in place, but the glue had loosened in parts as well. The pages themselves had yellowed like smoker's fingers and the smell of old came wafting up to shock my nostrils into full awareness. It was the most unique smell I had experienced since being brought down here nearly a year ago.

I opened the cover and several pages slipped out, the glue holding them in having dissolved over time and frequent use. A grin spread across my face as the title jumped out in bold from the first page – 'A Fine Balance.' I remembered reading this back in school so many years ago, but found myself forgetting the overall premise as I laid down on my bunk to begin reading.

Thirty pages later, my door slid open again and I figured it was Father Josef coming to visit me during the late hour. I sat up slowly, finishing the last sentence on the page and then earmarked it with the top corner. I turned around to see the voyeuristic guard of the last few weeks. His entire body shadowed the doorway and I could see the metal gurney behind him, shining in the dim light of the hallway. His face was still and emotionless and when he spoke this time, his voice was even and confident. "Get up. You're going for a ride."

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Lex Talionis (Part II - Revised/Edited) - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen:

That guard came back today, the one with the fire behind his pupils. I notice his hair is cropped shorter and dark; it blends into the dark of the hallway. Black military fatigues (minus the camouflage) sit high up on his waist and end at black boots shined to a mirror surface. His chest expands the black shirt he wears, up and out, down and in and his lips do not move, even to grimace. He does not let on if he is tired of standing.

His body language, however, tells me he is tense, possibly knotted up from laborious days stuck in an office and being told what to do by his superiors. This is more activity than I have seen since being put down here and I have no doubt this is abnormal. I couldn't say why or why not, simply that his face seems to be constantly asking questions his mouth can't form. I am the caged animal to his scientific method, an uneasy variable within his world of simple equations.

We stare at each other through the thick glass partition, neither of us flinching. It is schoolyard politics on a subterranean level and we are both unbending like old Redwoods surrounded by our own hurricanes. He stands, hands behind his back, with the corner of a file poking out from his left side. I sit on my bed, Lotus style, seeing a hazy reflection of myself overlaid around his midsection. It is this image that sticks with me as he turns to walk away.

It is pointless to wonder what his life is like, so serious all the time. Although, one must consider and factor in his occupation, I suppose. He is probably meticulous, but lonely. No wrinkles to speak of in his garb and he obviously takes care of himself. Perhaps his life is his job. Perhaps it is the other way around. Panzer told me stories about guys like this one, guys so narrow-minded that they forgot the people around them existed. A singularly focused individual would be perfect for his job, a 'yes man' walking amongst trash waiting to be incinerated.

I stare at him until I see the glimmer in his eyes disappear – he is somewhere else now, no longer looking at me, but rather through me. The cogwheels of his intellect are turning round and round, perfectly cut teeth finding residence within the spaces between other perfectly cut teeth while untwisting images and words into coherency. I close my eyes and meditate, leaving him to his thoughts because I have found myself angry at his presence for no tangible reason. I have forgotten my teachings here in Hub 4 and I need to return to them soon as I feel this irrational cancer bubbling to the surface waiting to pop and drown anyone within range.

Perhaps it is the way he stands there with no words tickling his lips, or maybe it's because it feels like he is merely examining me like one would examine a rat in a cage. I was never one for the allure of the spotlight, so it's entirely possible that my deeper vanity is what's bubbling up beneath my skin and I hate the idea of that being the case. Vanity – what a waste of good emotions.

I am shaken from my quiet by the glass partition returning to its opaque and darkened nature. The lighting in the room does not reflect well off it and seems to be swallowed whole by the murky substance within. I guess he has left for now, tired of poking and prodding without actually doing so. This close to my last day, I have to wonder if this is what it's like for the other prisoners down here – do they sit and wait as the unflinching guards watch them in silence from the other side? Is this as off-putting to them as it is to me?

I sat cross-legged and still until lunch. It slid through my door with a suspicious lack of steam and flavor and in that split second, I knew I had another option. I rose from the bed quickly and ran to the door, slamming my hand against it and screamed for Father Josef. I assumed the guard had already walked off as there was no response and I was mad at myself for not requesting him earlier on during my stay. Foolishly, I thought I could fight this solitary on my own. 'No one wins wars on the strength of one,' I mumbled to myself, going back to the bunk. I leaned against the wall, wrapping my hands around my knees and drew them close as I waited and counted seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into ends of days constantly stuck on a repeat of nothing.

The glass partition lost its opaque façade when Father Josef arrived the next day wearing the same serene smile I had remembered from my first day here, one that seemed to outshine the room itself in an unreal burst of honesty. He shook my hand, clasping his other around the handshake itself and cocooning my hand briefly. The smell of oak and pure emanated from his robes as we sat on my bunk and I couldn't seem to find the right starting place. I chewed on my lip and fingered the sheets of our makeshift couch as I flipped through the pages of the mental diary I had begun almost a year ago. "Are you doing okay down here, J? Or are we just conversing simply to converse?" he finally asked after several long minutes of quiet.

"It's always quiet here," I started. "There's no commotion, no conversation, no nothing. It's a weird kind of purgatory." He nodded and said nothing, allowing me to finish whatever train of thought I was riding.

"And no, you're not just here for conversation, but I'm having a hard time finding a place to start. I promise I'm not wasting your time," I replied, looking up at him.

"Well, I find it's best to start wherever the head keeps leading you. If something is constantly at the forefront of your mind, it's probably best to begin there and see where it leads you."

I nodded and inhaled big and slow. "There is a guard here. He has come to see me on two occasions. He tried to speak with me the first time, but I tuned him out when he fumbled on what he wanted to ask me. I found myself angrier than I had ever been when I was on the other side of the prison and I'm not sure why. I'm not normally an angry person, but his presence was enough to get me twisted up." I looked at Father Josef and waited.

"Why do you think this is?"

I looked at the floor and shrugged. "I think maybe I'm going stir-crazy, as stupid as that sounds. I never get to leave this cell and I never get to talk to anyone about anything. The food is almost always cold and the lights never go out completely. I honestly think I'm using him as a scapegoat for my situation, but not due to the cause of my being here, but rather just the being here – in this part of the prison. Does that make any sense at all?"

"Of course. Your situation is not only unique, but requires a unique response. I have read your file and you seem to be, for lack of a better phrase, a model prisoner. You blend in, you don't cause problems and many of the guards on the other side say that you are always on your best behavior. What you're feeling right now is a sense of loss coupled with loneliness. 'If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' God is always there for each and every one of his children. You must always remember that you are never truly alone."

"From Psalms. I know the passage," I replied.

"Ah! A man of God, then?"

"No, just a man with a lot of time and a lot of books on hand," I said ruefully before replying in kind. "Shoichi was a one-eyed teacher of Zen, sparkling with enlightenment. He taught his disciples in Tofuku temple. Day and night the whole temple stood in silence. There was no sound at all. Even the reciting of sutras was abolished by the teacher. His pupils had nothing to do but meditate. When the master passed away, an old neighbor heard the ringing of bells and the recitation of sutras. Then she knew Shoichi had gone."

A coy smile spread across Father Josef's face as I finished and he leaned back against the wall. "So many people divide themselves against the theological walls and forget that, whether you believe in God or Allah or whomever, the basic fundamental in all of them is the same – treat your brother as your equal and love unconditionally." He clucked his tongue and returned his gaze to me. "Would you like to know how I came to be a man of the cloth?"

"Absolutely. I find that a person's history gives insight into who that person is and why."

"I agree. There are cases where one's history only muddies up the waters of their present, but…I was visiting my grandmother in Chicago some many years ago. A warm woman, conditioned to hug anyone she came in contact with and you could taste it in her cooking, for the woman cooked a lot and well at that," he said, smiling wistfully. "My grandfather had died before I was born, so I never knew him, but when I'd visit Chicago, she would take me to Lake Michigan." He adjusted his position and faced me directly, looking off into some unseen memory.

"That summer, she fell ill and remained in bed many days. She would give me fare to take the train downtown so that I could get the most out of my trip, but most days I would pocket the money and play close to her house. I wasn't afraid of going out on my own, but I had the feeling that if I went too far, something would happen to her while I was out enjoying myself. The irrational thought of a child, of course, but very real to me at the time."

"I remember those," I interjected. I remembered having thoughts like that all the way up until I graduated high school and then one day, they just stopped as if adulthood had put up a wall to my younger self, keeping the surreal out for good.

"I hid the money in a jar in her guest bedroom, deep underneath the bed where I knew she wouldn't look. I was sleeping in the basement bedroom, so I figured I was being smart, but she knew. I'm not sure how long she knew, but she kept giving me money regardless, never hinted that she knew. Halfway through the summer, I had to ask her for another mason jar because the other one had gotten too full," he said, chuckling. "Anyway, we both kept up the façade for three months, playing our cards close to the chest. That August, she couldn't move from her bed at all and I was essentially feeding her every meal. At least those that she had an appetite for. I didn't mind, even at that age, but she had called her pastor that weekend and he made a visit near the middle of the week."

He started wringing his hands together and I could see them redden around the veins popping through the skin. My eyes instinctively shot to my own and I realized we were about the same age, although his face had the look of youth frozen at its epoch.

"They spoke for most of the afternoon with the door closed and I could hear bits and pieces of the conversation, but nothing of any substance. Eventually I heard him gather his things and say his goodbyes. I ran to the guest bedroom and grabbed the two mason jars full of money and stood at her door as it opened. He was older and monolith tall to my young eyes. I held the jars out to him and asked if there was a way the money would help my grandmother get better and he said there was no currency greater than the one he and grandma used, or something to that effect," he said, waving the hazy part of the memory away.

"He placed his hand on my head and it seemed to engulf me, like a comforting fire falling from his fingertips and I felt weak in his presence. That irrational thinking kicked in again and I realized my grandmother had called this man for a reason and I believed him to be a kind of superman in black and white clothing, able to heal however necessary. From then on, I wanted to be him, be like him, anything that would help me to help others. That feeling never left as I finished high school and I went to Seminary school. And that, as they say, is that," he finished, clapping his hands against his knees.

"What ever happened to your grandmother?" I asked quietly.

"She passed later that year when I was back at home. Old age had finally gotten her, but she left us in good spirits and that same pastor oversaw her funeral. She was not lonely and I was thankful for the pastor's presence near her. When I left that August to come home, I no longer felt guilty about leaving her alone, simply because I understood that she wasn't alone and never had been."

"And you've been with the church ever since?"

"Ever since. I have not regretted one day of it. Sometimes I get to see the end result of the work we do through our outreach programs, but sometimes I have to just hope that they work the way we want them to."

"I should've met with you sooner," I stated. "I've been stewing in my own brain juices for so long. I should've asked more questions. Thank you."

"You're very welcome," he said, his teeth gleaming brighter than the room itself. "But let's talk about you now. I feel like I've wasted your time by talking about me instead."

"Actually, I think that was exactly what I needed. Can I meet with you again before, you know…" I asked, letting the question melt away.

"But of course. When?"

"Anytime next week. I think the next few days will be good for some reflection and meditation. Both of which I've done entirely too little of these last few months." We shook hands again and he rose to leave. "Oh, do you know many of the guards here personally?"

"I know a few, yes. Some better than others, why do you ask?"

"Are they good people?"

"They have their moments," he replied, exiting the cell. "Be well. Until next week." His shoes clip-clopped along the floor and the door slid shut behind him quietly as the glass went opaque again, blocking my view of the guard station. It was the last time I would see him before my time came in the darkest part of the prison.

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Lex Talionis (Part II - Revised/Edited) - Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve:

My first day in the Catacombs was arduous and unnerving, a stagnation of time flipped on its head and left to rot. The priest was right – any human contact I might've hoped for came three times a day in the form of silence and steady looks from the guards who fed me. It was like sitting in the waiting room of God's holy office, but having no magazines to read. No clock to keep checking to constantly wonder when he'll finally usher you in to sit and chat, followed by the disappointment that God has shitty taste in furniture. 

I have been allowed only one book per week to read. It's funny in a sad kind of way that I have more time to read down here, yet fewer options to do so. I read Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" the day it was delivered to my cell. I was pleased with myself until I realized I now had nothing to read for the next six days. My successive choices over the following months were more shrewdly chosen and more thriftily read. During my third month (for I had been counting the days since being Segregated), I chose a large dictionary. Expanding one's vocabulary might seem absurd when looking down the barrel of a death sentence, but for all the good it does, meditation wasn't going to carry me for the bulk of my days.

I found myself thinking about the crew, more often than not. I wondered if Big Jim had found a way back to the topside through his unique messenger. Or maybe it was something worse. Panzer had probably been unwillingly promoted to head of the crew and Riddle, well – one could never lay a sure bet on anything regarding Ridsy. Jilette would take what came his way and adjust. He was strangely protean in that way. I'm sure Reitman would still spend most of his waking hours trying to find a loophole in his case. No sense wasting his last appeal without a mountain of sound arguments, he used to tell me.

These attachments would end up eating away at me if I wasn't careful, but they were all I knew. They were the people I spent my last days with and had, admittedly, a great many laughs with while we slowly forgot what the sun looked like. And then I thought of Scabs and like the crack of thunder shaking the ground, I came to the realization that he could be in the cell next to me and I'd never know. Scabs was like Panzer in that they had both served in the military, but while Panzer was discharged as mentally sound, Scabs had seen more combat during the Russian-Iranian conflict and came home with the soldier's form of the flu, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Calling him a loose cannon would be cliché, but one could never tell. He'd offer up half of his breakfast tray in the morning, but have a fork to your neck for your lunch. There was no order in his world despite being confined in a place built on order.

Eleven months I've been in this cell now and I wondered if he were right next door. That first night, I sat on my bunk with ear pressed to wall, hoping to hear the smallest of sounds that would tell me he was there or not; a sigh, a cough, anything. The Catacombs are wide and spread out from the rumors I've heard, but the thought that he might have been in another part of them never crossed my mind. I was sure he was my incarcerated neighbor, but all I got for my trouble that night was silence, an aching ear, and legs that had fallen asleep before my eyes could catch up with them.

After the thirty days was over, I stopped spending my nights listening. If he had been my neighbor at any point, he was gone by then. I was perhaps overly optimistic that I might see guards take him from his cell somehow through the opaque black glass, but I saw nothing and recited a Zen koan in his memory one afternoon.

"'Ikkyu, the Zen master, was very clever even as a boy. His teacher had a precious teacup, a rare antique. Ikkyu happened to break this cup and was greatly perplexed. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he held the pieces of the cup behind him. When the master appeared, Ikkyu asked: 'Why do people have to die?'

'This is natural,' explained the older man. 'Everything has to die and has just so long to live.' Ikkyu, producing the shattered cup, added: "It was time for your cup to die.'"

He came to see me today, attempting to extract some form of truth from behind the one-sided glass partition. Somehow I sensed him standing against the far wall, waiting as if to pounce like I was injured prey. I sat in the lotus position on my bed, legs crossed and wrists attached to my knees, pointed skywards. Many of the others have laughed at my doing this, but meditation really is the best way to spend time here. With only a few books at a time allowed within each cell, I read the thoughts of others and meditate on my own.

With eyes closed, I made my way to the partition and tapped at it, tilting my head. The speaker crackled and the opaqueness of the glass fizzled and disappeared. I saw him silhouetted in front of the dim hallway light and I imagined I could smell what he had for lunch that day, the odor wafting through the speaker on vocal notes strained from some kind of unease as he spoke my last name. My eyes popped open. In the quick half-second it took to size him up, I knew I'd never be able to fight back if we ever came to blows. His forearms alone were twice the size of my thighs and what was that look? Concern? Fear? Longing?

"You're looking at me like you want attention," I said. "I'm not your dog and you're not my owner, so what do you want?" The weight of my inflection startled even me, but I couldn't let him know. Months of not talking to anyone had affected me more than I wanted to admit, I suppose. Better to keep up the charade though. Physically, the guards have the upper hand, but if I'm to die soon, a psychological power play can't hurt any more than just waiting around.

No response from the speaker. I tapped on the glass and mouthed "Hey, I asked what you wanted." Whatever reason he came down here for, he seemed to have forgotten it as there was no response. Perhaps this was his idea of toying with me? I headed back to the bed and shrugged the notion off since I was the one in the cell. I sat back down on the sheets of my bed and folded legs beneath me as I heard faint, questioning tones from the speaker. I was already well on my way back into my meditations and forced the noise outward so that I could concentrate inward.