The Big Swing

In silence I pray to my own special god. I am suddenly aware of something warm dripping down my cheek and in that instant I remember the cut I sustained while shaving barely an hour ago. With trembling fingers I touch my face. My life force is red and warm as it drips down my cheek. I cry softly to myself and the tears flow down my cheeks and mingle with the blood.

There was something about his name in all the town papers, his image in the courtroom and on the television that kept his humanity at bay. His crimes permanently demonized him as one with his deeds. Being a human being is not always the apex of evolution. No animal I ever heard of killed the way he did. Deep inside his lost soul I know there is a mother's child somewhere, but I cannot feel sorry for him in any way.

He who threw himself so vehemently on the mercy of the court showed none at all to his victims. He who screamed so loudly about how he did not want to die failed to give those he butchered for no reason at all, save the satiation of his own bloodlust, the very same option.

Yes, it has taken a very long time for justice to prevail. My anger is such, however, that I want even more. I yearn to see what glass will do to his skin. To watch him hanging by his private parts in front of a cheering crowd or his skull cracked like an egg and then stomped on would surely warm the insides of my heart. Dying more than once, preferably horribly, would have sufficed as well; once for my wife and again for my dear brother. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.