Life Sentence

The nameless man who had killed and been caught, judged and sentenced and jailed to await his own death watched as the authorities prepared to execute his surrogate.

The murderer occupied one place in a bank of seats filled by other invited witnesses to the State's administration of mortal justice. He had not been introduced to any of the other witnesses when the guards had coldly and somewhat roughly conducted him to his seat, and no one had since offered a name or hand to the man.

Understandably so. Quite understandably, as things stood now at this crucial cusp, this instant when the exchange of lives, the legal and spiritual transaction, was still incomplete.

But once the execution was over, he had been promised that this would change.

This promise he still found hard to believe or trust.

Despite all he had been through to earn it.

With the little bit of his attention and vision not devoted to the spectacle slowly unfolding before him--a spectacle in which, save for the most tenuous chain of circumstances, he himself would have been the star--the nameless man tried to assign roles to the others around him.

The Warden, of course, he recognized, as well as the dozen members of the Renormalization Board. Several people tapping busily on laptop keyboards he deemed journalists. A man and a woman who shared an officious, self-important air he instinctively knew for politicians. With a small shudder, he pegged a trio comprised of two expensively suited men and an equally dapper woman as doctors here to observe him. An inexpungable air of the examining--the operating--room still clung to their costly clothes.

But the bulk of the watchers, he knew, were the surrogate's family.

Weeping with quiet dignity, holding onto each other, they disconcerted the nameless man deeply. He could not watch them long, couldn't even count how many there were, or of what sexes or ages.

Yet be knew that soon he would have to match the living, tear-stained faces to the photographs he had studied for so many months.

Soon his intimacy with these strangers would extend far beyond mere faces and names.

There were none of the nameless man's relatives present. Even if the distant kin--distant geographically and emotionally--who still claimed him had wanted to attend, they would not have been allowed to.

After all, what would have been the point? The man he had been was soon to be dead.

Now, across the room, on the far side of a wide sealed glass window, a shifting of focus among the workers there riveted the attention of the nameless man and all the others.

The technicians had finished checking out the mechanisms of death, the drips and needles and biomonitors and video cameras. Some signal must have been passed to those outside the immediate view of the watchers. For now the surrogate was being wheeled in.

The man was cradled by molded foam supports on a gurney. Thin and wasted, he was nonetheless conscious and alert, thanks to various painkillers and palliative drugs. After he was maneuvered into the center of the web of death-apparatus and the wheels of his gurney were locked, the surrogate managed to raise himself slightly up on one arm to gaze out at the audience, smile wanly and wave weakly with his free hand.

In the brief instant before the surrogate flopped back onto his pillow, the nameless man received the image of the dying man's face into his brain in an instant, imperishable imprinting.

When the cushions and pillows had been readjusted around the surrogate, a triggering device, its cord leading in an arc to the death-apparatus, was placed in his right hand.

Following the surrogate had come a priest of the Gaian Pragmatic Pandenominationalists. Arranging his green stole nervously, the priest faced the audience on the far side of the glass. A technician flicked a switch, and sounds from the far side of the barrier-beeps and shoe-scuffings, coughs and whispers-issued forth from a speaker on the nameless man's side.

Then the priest began to speak.

"We are gathered here today to bear witness to the utmost sacrifice that any individual can make to the society of which he has since birth formed a grateful part. Far greater than such paltry donations as those of blood or organs is what the man by my side will render today. He will give up his very name and identity so that another may live and serve in his place. Doomed to perish of his own incurable affliction, having opted for a voluntary death, this man takes on--legally and ethically--the sins of one of his erring brothers, thus granting the guilty one a second chance. At the same time, the demands of society for justice and retribution are met. A crime--the most heinous crime, that of murder--has been committed, and today it is balanced by the death of its perpetrator. Our laws are not flouted, the guilty do not escape, and the scales of justice swing evenly.

"I will not eulogize the man by my side at any greater length. Last night at the hospital I attended the official farewell ceremonies hosted by his loving family and friends, and we all spoke of him at length, by his bedside, to his smiling face, It was a fine occasion, with joyous memories leavening the tears. He knows with what love and reverence and gratitude he is esteemed, and all the goodbyes and final words have been said."

The wordless sobs of the surrogate's family swelled, and the nameless man winced. He rubbed a sweaty hand across the regrowing stubble on his scalp, imagined he could feel the crown-encircling scar, although in truth it was already nearly invisible.

"Now," the priest resumed, "the man by my side assumes a new identity, taking on the bloody garments and sins of the murderer known as--" Here the priest uttered the name which had once belonged to the seated man on the far side of the glass. Curiously, the once-familiar syllables rang hollow to him, drained already of all meaning, distant as something from a history book.

"It is a light load, however," continued the priest, "and a burden instantly extinguished in the very taking of it. Christ Himself could do no more. Now, let us pray."

The sound was shut off. The soundlessly murmuring priest bent over the supine man, and relative silence descended on the audience.

The nameless man did something he thought--he hoped--was praying.

Now the execution room emptied of everyone but the surrogate, recumbent on his trolley, gaunt face obscured. He could be seen with a flick of his thumb to trip the trigger, murderer in truth at the final moment, if only of himself.

The red power-on LED's of the official recording cameras glared down on the scene. After an interminable ten minutes during which the calculated poisons circulated through the surrogate's veins and his breathing slowly ceased, the prison doctor entered the sealed room, performed his exam, and looked up. Although he had forgotten to activate the speaker, all could plainly read his lips shaping the words, "He's dead."

The Warden stood and approached the nameless man, who flinched. That dour official essayed a tentative smile is cameras flashed, and extended his hand toward the murderer. The murderer took it reflexively.

"Mister Glen Swan, I thank you for your participation in this event. We will detain you only for a few last formalities, signatures and such. Then you will be free to leave. But now allow me to introduce you to your new family."