The Shining Axe

“Have you repented of your crimes yet, Kerry?”

He had. Kerry had repented. And he was going to his death proud, free, and secure.

The Shining Axe had told him so.

The guards lifted the grate. Lowered down the cage. It traveled one story, then two, down the slickened chute towards Kerry Moynihan’s home for the last seventeen years. The iron bars clanked to a rest on the metal floor. It squeezed up against the criminal, for there was barely enough room in his cell for a bed, a chair on which he sat, and the cage.

Kerry looked at the cage, and sighed. For so long the only thing it had brought was food, and glints of light reflected off its bars. But now as he was to climb in to his death, he wondered just how beautiful it looked. How polished its sheen shone. How it appeared to be a palace he entered, to ascend to the heavens.

Up, up he went. Away from his moldy bed, and rotten chair. Away from the dank hole that he had been sentenced to for his crimes. Away from the vestiges of his sin.

For he was about to be forgiven.

Kerry was lifted out of the hole blind. The light burned his eyes, and he had to squint to even make out the guards that were taking him to the town square. After seventeen years, so much of his life had withered away. He had felt his hair gray, had seen flashes of its thinning as it shed from his head. He was mostly bald now. The man’s skin was pale, and clammy.

To the town of Northridge, it allowed them to hate him all the more. When Kerry had been sentenced, he had looked dashing. A thief and murderer who had gone on a spree of terror. They had locked him away, buried and forgotten him, until some magistrate decided the space was needed, and the death sentence was given.

And now he walked amongst them. Pale, thin, trembling. Looking every bit the despicable villain they had always wanted to despise. They threw rotten fruit, and rocks, and shards of glass towards the wretched thing. They were able to throw all their anger, their hatred at this man. Because he deserved it.

Kerry took it all in turn. He walked towards the center of the square, confident in his absolution. The Shining Axe had shown him the truth.

It was not always so. For years, Kerry had wallowed in the darkness of his prison hole. The first three years had been escape plan after escape plan. He had tried to scale the chute, or bribe a guard. Dig out of the darkness and perhaps find freedom in some other tunnel.

But the chute was too slick to mar or climb. The guards that gave him food were too far away to properly bribe, even if he had brought anything with him to trade. And the thought of going any further into the darkness began to haunt the murderer far more than any other punishment.

And so he had sat, and waited. Waited for the fair people of Northridge to slake their thirst for vengeance upon him. One way or another, he would not live long after leaving the hole.

This, he could see. Even with his bleary, sunsoaked eyes, he could see the chopping block. Set upon the gallows, with a hooded man standing nearby. Stained red and brown down the front, with the final resting spot of his head to be an ignoble basket.

Kerry didn’t desire death. He hadn’t desired madness either, but it had found him all the same. Locked away for years on end, with naught but his nightmares to keep him company. He knew it had started to come when the hole seemed to be filled with light. He had seen shapes, and colors. Kerry found himself surrounded by feelings, and sounds.

And that axe. Now leaning against the chopping block. The Shining Axe.

It wasn’t shining now. No, now it looked like any other. Strong, and sharp. The iron brightly polished to allow the head to quickly separate from the shoulders. To the naked eye, there was nothing special about it.

But Kerry’s eyes had been tested. Long after they had become blind to the real world, and spun into the nonsense of insanity, the Axe had spoken to him. Healed his soul, and allowed him to see more clearly.

The Axe had promised an end to the sights. An end to darkness. A way to find nothing more than beauteous peace and tranquility. And all he had to do was accept its cut.

And Kerry did accept the Axe. He loved the years that he had spent, learning the Axe’s wisdom. Studying under its tutelage, its mastery of justice. He long ago had learned the error of his ways. Now, he came to the chopping block, ready and willing.

The words were read, but he did not hear them.

The crowd jeered, but he could not understand them.

And when the executioner finally lifted the Axe, he could finally see the blade shine in the midday sun. It gleamed with fire, and a purity all its own.

Kerry was ready.

For he had seen the light.

Most everyone agreed that Kerry Moynihan’s execution was one of the less exciting ones, especially for a rogue of his stature. They had expected pleas for mercy, or a speech dripping with sardonic wit.

Perhaps seventeen years was too long to wait for an execution.

Took all the fun out of it.

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