the executioner
by dava sitkoff
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
It had been like that every day, for an amount of time that the Executioner did not know.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
That was all there was. Day after day.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
The Executioner did not think about it very often. He had no need to question his life. It was as it was and it progressed day by day.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
The Executioner knew very little, but he was able to name and understand a few things. He knew the colors. Grey wall, grey floor. Yellow hair, black hair. He knew what hair was—he knew eyes, and mouths, and legs, and arms, and necks.
He knew that mouths did a lot of screaming. Loud, terrible screaming. The Executioner did not like the screaming. He understood some of what they said, mostly “please” and “no” and “I have a family” and “Karlan scum.”
The Executioner did not know what a Karlan was, but he had come to assume that he was one.
Sometimes he was spit at, sometimes screamed at. Sometimes the people were resigned, heads down and eyes crying. The Executioner also knew a lot about crying.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
The days grew long. The Executioner was unsure if he enjoyed killing. He knew he enjoyed eating and sleeping, but something about killing felt different.
He liked the silence. With people came screaming, and killing stopped the screaming. He decided from that logic that he did enjoy killing.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
The Executioner began to count. He did not know how he knew the numbers, he just assumed that they were. Killing was, eating was, and sleeping was as well. He had no more reason to wonder about counting than he did about sleeping or eating.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
The Executioner wanted a way to remember how many days he had been counting for. One day, as he ate, the knife created a groove in the plate as he picked up a piece of food too harshly. The Executioner held the knife with him as he walked to the place where he slept.
There was a gray wall at his sleeping area, and the Executioner thought about his counting. There had been 8 days since he started counting, and so he made 8 grooves in the wall with the knife before setting it down on the floor and going to sleep.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
After 9 more days and 9 more corresponding grooves, the Executioner started to notice patterns. The ones with dark skin never had yellow hair, and the ones with yellow hair never had dark skin. The Executioner thought this was interesting.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
Notice.
After 5 more days of noticing, there were too many patterns for him to remember. When it was time to sleep that day, the Executioner held the knife for a moment longer than usual. He then began to write. He wrote all the patterns on one side of the wall, and then wrote down everything he noticed about the people he’d killed that day. He did not wonder how he knew how to write. Writing became, like how eat, sleep, kill, count, and notice just were.
Writing took time. More time than he'd ever spent not sleeping when he should have been, and the next day felt hazy and blurry. He was not as precise, and it took him two tries to kill one person with brown hair, light skin, and a large chest.
After counting, he wrote everything he’d noticed about the people he’d killed that day. Writing had become as natural as eat and sleep and kill and count and notice.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
Notice.
Write.
The Executioner was beginning to notice more patterns. He noticed that the ones with large chests or softer faces were usually the ones who had lighter voices. He did not know what his face looked like, or if he had one. He could look down, though, and knew he did not have a large chest. From this he inferred that he would not have a light voice if he spoke.
He had never spoken.
That was the second noticing he had made about himself. He knew he was a Karlan, and that he had a small chest and therefore a low voice. He then realized that he was a person.
People usually had hair, but he did not. He put his hand up to his head and felt nothing. He looked down at his hands, and saw that he had medium skin. It was not very light, but he had seen skin much darker.
He wondered why he did not have hair. He wondered if he had ever killed another Karlan. He wondered if there was any way to tell. And then he took the knife, and wrote his wonderings.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
Notice.
Write.
Wonder.
After 57 days in total since he had begun counting, he had counted and noticed and wrote and wondered so much that the wall was full, and there was no more space.
There was another wall, though, directly across from him. He began to write again.
On the 63rd day, he realized that when he ate and when he bathed, it was not the same thing. He understood that he had a shower, a sink, many products, and scissors. He knew how to use most of the products, but he did not know what the scissors were for until the 67th day.
Eat.
Sleep.
Kill.
Count.
Notice.
Write.
Wonder.
Bathe.
On the 67th day, he was killing a person with a small chest, dark skin, dark curly hair, and dark eyes. He swung his axe and the person cracked. This had been a quiet person, no cries for “family” or “help” or “filthy Karlan”.
As he swung, his vision was blocked by wispy tendrils of what looked like hair. It was his hair, connected to his head.
The Executioner had brown, straight hair. This did not surprise him. Usually the ones with medium skin had brown or black hair. But it was not always straight, and so that did surprise him. He somehow knew to cut his hair with the scissors that day during bathing.
On the 74th day, he began to wonder why he did what he did. He knew what would happen if he did not sleep, as it had happened the day he started writing. He knew it was bad, and made everything hazy and blurry.
The Executioner decided to try not eating for one day. It did make everything hazy, but in a different way. It also made him feel pain in his chest, which at one point got so intense that it made him cry out. It was the first time he had ever spoken, and his voice was low like he had wondered. It was a similar cry to the ones people made when it took two swings to be killed.
On the 89th day, the Executioner was cutting his hair when the scissors slipped and fell fast onto his left foot. This was pain again, like when he didn’t eat. He decided that pain was bad.
On the 90th day, he was wondering a lot about the scissors. He noticed that they looked like a smaller axe. He wondered if the people felt pain when they were killed.
For the next three days, he tested out the words. “Do you feel pain when you are killed?” The words sounded foreign to his tongue, but he eventually became comfortable.
On the 95th day, he asked someone with yellow hair, a big chest, and only one eye.
She looked up at him, and then said “Wait, Vano? Flaming Ghal, Vano- it’s been… you’re... aren’t… aren’t executioners supposed to be mute?” She seemed to be having trouble speaking.
“What is a Karlan?”
The person’s one eye moved and looked at his eyes. “What? We’re…” she stopped speaking for a moment. “You’re a Karlan.”
“I know.” he said. “What does it mean to be a Karlan?”
“Well,” said the yellow haired person. “Karlans conquer planets and kill entire races of people.” She sounded like she was in pain.
“What is a planet? What is a conquer? What is a race?” said the Executioner.
“Oh, right.” said the yellow haired person. She did not sound like she was in pain anymore. With her one eye, she looked behind her, and then at him. “Your memory wipe would have been a stage two.”
The Executioner did not know what a memory was, nor a wipe, nor a Vano, nor a Ghal. But he did not ask.
“Listen, Vano. I can get you out of here.”
He did not understand. Where was here? Where was out? It was all so much that his head began to hurt, and he gripped his hair with frustration. All the questions and all the thoughts were too loud. And he knew that killing made loud things become quiet.
The Executioner did not want to kill her, because it would mean she felt pain and pain was bad. Something was different this time, and his hands shook so badly that the axe almost fell out of his hand and onto the ground. But killing was what he did every day, and so he did.
Even though he was the one killing her, it was him who felt a sort of pain. It was different from the pain he felt when he’d gone a day without eating, or when he’d dropped the scissors. It didn’t hurt in the same way that those had, and yet it still felt like pain.
On the 100th day, his wondering was very loud again, and it made him unhappy. He wondered about planets, about Karlans, about the person with one eye, about what a memory was, about killing.
He wanted silence. And he knew that silence came after he killed someone.
This time, it was his own thoughts that were too loud and causing him pain, rather than someone screaming for their family. He had killed the yellow haired person when his thoughts were too loud, but it didn’t help. He had not slept that whole night, and it felt even more blurry than the first time he didn’t sleep.
He wanted silence. And the only way he knew how to get silence was killing. But he was making the noise. Would it be possible, he wondered, to kill himself?
He decided it was worth a try.
So, on the 100th day, he picked up the axe and placed it upon his neck like he did to the people.
He swung.
And, like the others, the Executioner cracked and fell.