Snuff Fiction (28 page)

BOOK: Snuff Fiction

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The New World Order had no time for people like me, he said. People like me were a waste of time.

He condemned me to the Chair.

I don’t remember too much about the trial. It was held in private and the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

I don’t really remember too much about what happened after the pedallers beat me up and dragged me into the helicopter.

Although there is one thing I remember and I will set it down here because it is important.

I remember what the pedallers said to each other as they got their legs pumping and the helicopter into the air.

‘Senseless, that,’ said one. ‘A truly senseless killing.’

And then he said, ‘Here, Jack, look down there. I never noticed that when we flew in.’

And Jack said, ‘Oh yeah, the trees. The trees are all laid out to spell letters. Huge great letters. What is it they spell?’

And the other pedaller spelled them out. ‘B,’ he said, ‘and I and S and C—’

‘BISCUIT,’ said Jack. ‘They spell BISCUIT.’

Yes, that’s what they spelt. Biscuit. My dog, Biscuit. He murdered my dog, so I murdered him.

Was that wrong?

When I wrote that passage about being in prison, the one about bad behaviour and about the bad man who kills. Kills an innocent man. Remember? When I asked whether there really is such a thing as an innocent man?

Well, I still don’t know the answer to that.

But that is it for me. The man in the black mask is coming to turn on the power. I must put aside my pen and paper.

For it is time for my big aaah-choo!

My goodbye.

Well, almost.

You see, they always allow a dying man to make a final request. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or something. There’s no point in trying to come up with something clever. So I just kept it simple.

I just asked whether it would be all right if I kept my silver coffin-shaped snuffbox with me. As a keepsake. And would they mind if, in the final second before they pulled the switch, I just took the one little pill inside.

They said, No, they wouldn’t mind. That would be OK.

They said, What harm could that do?

It wasn’t as if it was going to let me cheat death.

It wasn’t as if it would make me immortal or something.

And here he comes now. The prison chaplain has said his last words. The executioner’s hand is moving towards the switch.

I must sign off now.

I must take the pill

I know that its effect will only last for one single second in real time and then the switch will be pulled and I will die. But for me that single second will be an eternity. And what more can anyone ask for out of life, than eternity?

Not much, in my personal opinion.

P is for pill.

P is for paradise.

I’ve had a lot of trouble with Ps in the past.

But not this time.

No absolute time.

No absolute space.

Years and years of heavenly bliss.

And swallow.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.

Here we go, here we go, here we go-oh.

Here we go, here we go, here we go.