"No, Padre, you can get the hell out of my cell is what you can do. Where does your belief in an afterlife come from anyway? My grandfather used to say that the only reason that humans believe in an afterlife is because of the fear that quickly follows the realization that we will eventually die. Once early man evolved enough to have a fear of death, it was easy for the most unscrupulous types, the descendents of whom are modern day politicians and clergy, to play on that fear to control entire civilizations. It is all quite clear to me, Padre.
Why are there no “dolphin” churches? Quick, name me the Elephant High Holy Days! Why is it that we never see chimpanzees praying the rosary or going to a “chimpanzee” confessional? Why aren’t there poodles making annual pilgrimages to Mecca? It is simple; we are the only animals on this planet with the curse of knowing that we are mortal. That realization of mortality and its directly related fear is the basis of the largest hoax ever perpetrated on the human race."
Jeff Plinkon, or Death Row Inmate 2897494, had just finished a meal, his last one. After his quick dismissal of Padre Raphael, he sat there looking at the temporary table in front of him. It was covered with empty plates that had been filled with the food his mother had made him for that last meal.
There had been stew and biscuits and ricotta pie with sausage. She also made him a chicken breast sandwich, swimming in mayonnaise, and an ice-cold can of soda wrapped in aluminum foil just like she used to pack in his lunch when he was a boy. Mom knew that foil would keep her boy’s soda cold all the way through lunchtime.
He picked up the paper bags that his last meal had been packed in, and smelled each one, and came upon one that smelled like home. He put the bag over his head and lay down. Besides cooking his favorite meals, filling one of those bags with the smells of home was the last loving gesture that his mother gave him. They hadn’t spoken in many years as he had been in solitary confinement.
He breathed in very slowly and he could smell his mother’s perfume, the same that she had worn since he was a boy. This brought him back to waking from nightmares in his youth, and how his mother would come to him, and embrace him tightly, and sit on the edge of his bed until he was soundly sleeping again. In his mind’s eye he could feel his nose pressed against her neck and smell that wonderful perfume coming from her skin. He could smell the detergent that his mother used as well as many other smells that combine in any home to make that home’s unique nasal signature. His childhood home’s smells brought him to the most peaceful place.
Although he was still lying alone in his cell, for his last few moments alive he was transported to the loving embrace of his mother and the caring home that she had made for him.
He felt no fear as he believed his execution would simply bring the most peaceful sleep he had ever experienced. In modern times they make execution painless. He knew that the victims’ families would get some satisfaction that he was no longer living, but as their loved ones had died in the most painful agony, he knew his getting such a peaceful and humane end would be a lasting emotional cancer for the rest of their lives.
He knew that the victims’ family members would be in the execution room, sitting behind the one-way mirror, alongside the reporters. He had vowed to remain humble, to not make eye contact and to not utter a sound. He didn’t want to embarrass his mother by making a scene in front of all of those people. This was to be his one last loving gesture to her.
He heard his cellblock door unlock and slide open. He heard the shuffle of many feet coming to collect him. Before his last meal they had forced him to put on an adult diaper, as most of those put to death will evacuate well before their hearts have stopped beating.
He was standing in his cell when the “death posse” arrived. He had requested that the Padre not be present while he was a dead-man-walking and that his mother cremate his body as soon as it was returned to her.
Long before he committed his misdeeds, he had made peace with the fact that he would eventually lose his life because of them. His devout atheism left him the perfect killer, unrestricted by the fear of the damnation of his non-existent soul. The thought that anyone believed in anything other than the randomness and fatelessness of our existences, made him giggle.
As he stepped over the threshold of the execution room, the warden said the obligatory “May God have mercy on your soul.” The door closed behind him and he stood before the cross-shaped execution table facing the one-way mirror. He calmly extended his arms in a perfect crucifixion pose and within 60 seconds he was fully secured to it with the intravenous lines placed neatly in his left arm. A remote button was pushed and the table began its descent backwards and soon he was staring at the bright fluorescent lights above him.
He heard the sound of air pressure, and realized that the first chemical in the executioner’s cocktail was now flowing through his veins. He smiled and his thoughts turned to another thing his grandfather had told him. He had said “Jeffrey, don’t fear death. Death is the end of all misery and toil. The world is a brutal place and the people within it even more so. With death, comes a true final peace that can’t be found here.”
His mind began to swim and his vision faded. A physical numbing began to cover his body and he felt assured that there would be no pain with his physical ending. He was feeling the peace that his grandfather told him about so long ago.
There was nothing but blackness now. The truest and most real blackness he had ever seen or felt. He knew the end was near and he gave himself gladly to it.
He heard the sound of a heart monitor flat line. The last remnants of his human self realized that he would soon be dead, and then his brain and body, a moment later, were in fact, dead.
Suddenly, he heard, or more felt, a cackling from what seemed to be a great distance beneath him. It wasn’t the cackling of a cartoon Halloween witch or a shriek of animated ghosts from the Saturday morning cartoons he watched when he was a boy. It was an all knowing cackling. It was deep, inhuman, and it was getting closer. He heard the gnashing of teeth.
He tried to thrash his limbs to escape and he tried to scream for help but he was unable, for he no longer existed in physical form.
He felt a scalding wet breath enveloping him, but not physically. No, it wasn’t a simple breath at all but more like the adrenaline-filled terrified exhalations of 1000 water buffaloes at full gallop across the 120 degree African plain as they fruitlessly run from the cheetahs who are gaining on them.
It was the breath of the full negation of hope.
It was the breath of eternal damnation.
He was helplessly afloat in the ether now, in his pure spiritual state. He was devoid of physical form and completely enveloped in the blackness, the death-breath spiritually scalding him, and the cackling was directly beneath him.
The Devil opened his fingers and extended his razor-sharp claws.
In one motion, they were plunged deep inside Jeff Plinkon’s essence.
The Devil’s claws enveloped the soul of Jeff Plinkon for a moment, and held it still and calm, just as a mother cradles her newborn child.
Then The Devil, in one well-practiced motion, savagely removed it.
He held it against his bosom with both hands,
and started his slow descent with it,
back into Hell, cackling all the while.
