"The Bulwark's Shadow" - A Novel in Progress via Steemit (Part I, Chapter 9)

I'm posting up the chapters of this uncompleted book as I hope the Steemit community might offer up its criticism (which would force me to finish it, honestly). Started in 2008, this was my first foray into novel writing and was my undergraduate thesis required to graduate. The story is about an executioner in the not-too-distant future. Executioners are highly trained individuals with extensive educations built to help them execute their prisoners in the exact same manner that the prisoner's victims died. This is called the law of retaliation or lex talionis; you may know it better as "eye for an eye."

Because I was also getting my degree in philosophy, I wanted to explore the ethics involved. While I feel I'm a better writer now and could certainly expand most of this book, I also really enjoy criticism as I'm usually too close to the work to see what's working and what's not (though in this case, there's plenty that I feel is not working). So please...feel free to criticize the work if you'd like, but be constructive about it. Simply saying "this part isn't good" doesn't tell me much; don't hesitate to tell me why it's not good or offer up possible alternatives to make it better.

Thanks in advance!

---

Previous Sections/Chapters:

The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter One
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Two
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Three
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Four
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Five
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Six
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Seven
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Eight

---

The imagination of the human mind is the one thing that is uniquely us. It lays claim to much of our personality and the way we react to situations. It sits like a coiled snake within most at any given moment, ready to strike. Many call it a muse, but it’s simply the synapse explosion uncoiling the snake inside, sending pen to paper, horse-hair bow to cello, or scalpel to skin in that perfect moment of inspiration.

The pen writes letters to family, notes to self, novels, laws, love letters, screenplays, apologies, dear Johns, and sometimes words that can’t be taken back. Socrates despised the written word as it prevented him from going back and changing his ideas. Once the written word was dry, it was as good as permanent and the ability to argue a point became impossible, the language became un-protean and consequently, diametrically opposed to the very nature of language which is to breathe and change as if riding air currents.

The bow plays Mozart, staccato, funeral dirges and evokes thoughts of morose colors and feelings, but when played on a guitar, it is seen as experimental and pushing the boundaries of the instrument. The decorative part of the hindquarters of an animal is the direct perpetrator of the frequencies heard through speakers, which are then received by the brain to evoke certain emotions out of the listener. Each person interprets these sounds differently the way we interpret inspiration on an individual basis. I preferred the broadness of Tchaikovsky’s works to the more single-mindedness of other composers when I used to listen to music for fun.

The scalpel, used to harm or help, has no gray area. Its only intent is to get inside us with its finely sharpened edges peeling quickly away at levels of dermis without leaving much of a scar. The original purpose was to get in and get out quickly after extracting a bit of something causing us pain. Some synaptic explosion occurred within someone and helped them to see how the other side of the blade worked, inflicting pain rather than disappearing it off to a biohazard container. Generations later, here we are, warring factions on either side of the blade both believing ourselves to be in the right and desiring complete control. It’s a horrible narcotic with no clear finish line, save for that which empties the arteries until they pump nothing but air, overworking themselves into panic, shock, and finally inactivity.

As much as we can praise the ingenuity of the imagination, we can turn right around and vilify it when it doesn’t jive with our world view of things. The excitement of auto-erotic asphyxiation sours when someone dies trying to get off while choking. It was fun before someone died, now it turns up noses and elicits disgusted looks due to the perversion of the whole mess. Like strip clubs? Oh, just the ones that make the girls wear pasties because that somehow keeps you from feeling dirty about watching a half-naked 18-year old strip down to her bra and thong. We lie everyday but the worst part is that it’s usually to ourselves in order to make ourselves feel better. That’s some twisted fuck thinking right there. If Freud were alive today, he’d make a fortune exposing us as the ridiculous race that we are. It’s so easy to see, but we conveniently ‘overlook’ the self-delusions to avoid the internal conflict that would arise. A willful ignorance of the truth, if you will.

The whole criminal justice system was waiting for its snake to uncoil. Crime rates were way higher than in previous years, repeat offenders were increasing by the day, and murders were becoming more grisly, more…imaginative. Rockwell Salton, one of the leaders of the Aesthetic party realized that in order to put fear in the criminal mind, the public had to be willing to sink to a certain level.

Salton lobbied for years espousing the idea of pure “eye for an eye” retribution. He started slowly and quietly, starting with the families of murder and rape victims. He would send them literature on how to start their own non-profit organizations or help lines and would ultimately have them in the back of his pocket come election time. Word spread and Salton’s popularity grew on the west coast and spread epidemic-like through viral video campaigning and dinner-time phone calls. Surprisingly, the public became more inclined towards his ideas on criminals and how best to dispose of them a few years after Towalski hit the scene.

In 2010, the first prison (this one) had finished construction and Salton gave a two hour press conference at the main entrance. In true politician form, he took most of the credit for everything leading up to the building of the prison, but the people knew better. They clapped politely and hoped things would get better.

And they did. The clapping got louder the more he speech-stumped across the Midwest later that year, corralling support from previously undeclared voters who became staunch advocates of the Aesthetic party. The rate of crime saw a sharp decrease for a year. No one had seen anything so drastic in decades and Salton seemed the perfect candidate to run for the office of the presidency when the dam broke.

The next year was one of the bloodiest and most horrific across the states. The Eugene Eunuch terrorized suburban areas of Oregon for months, never leaving much of a trail for police to follow. He would never rape his victims, but he’d use foreign objects on them all the same. Later on, after police caught him, they realized that his nether regions had been mangled and made useless by an abusive mother at a young age, ergo the posthumously awarded name. The newspapers were tickled by the alliteration. To me, it sounded too ridiculous to be taken seriously, but I was glad they caught him.

The Lincoln Twins were next. This kind happens every few years; the kids had seen a movie and decided they wanted to go on their own rampage, expecting some kind of movie or book deal while knocking over gas stations and Mom and Pop diners along I-80 in the bible belt. One boy, one girl; they both cut their hair to the same length and wore the exact same outfits. It wasn’t until officers caught them in a standoff outside of a Kwik Pump in Harlan, Iowa that they found the gender difference. A quick strip down at the local holding tank almost had the girl screaming rape as loud as she could while the officers tried to get her dressed again. The twins had been separated since and they had been nineteen years old. They would’ve been in their thirties now and neither one had been allowed contact with the other and while the girl was still alive due to a legal technicality, I remember executing the boy maybe two years after he got here. He cried non-stop while I killed him. I’m not sure who felt sorrier about their actions, me or him.

I had four weeks left until Towalski’s day in the chamber. Four weeks isn’t a lot of time to prepare oneself properly, yet again, the short time constraint forced us to focus on the job at hand and not stray. A kind of horse-blind for us down below the surface. A small blip like what I was dealing with now could make for a sticky situation later. I still had tools to prepare, procedures to study, and most importantly, to get myself focused.

---

More Chapters:

The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Ten
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Eleven
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Twelve
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Thirteen
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Fourteen
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Fifteen
The Bulwark's Shadow - Part I, Chapter Sixteen