Power doesn't instantly course through my veins when I pull the lever. There is an idealized form of my job, but that doesn't really exist. There are simply different types of people who do it. We all do the same thing. I stand still while pious types do a lot of grandstanding, and I fasten the noose and tighten it around the neck. I wait a tick to let things settle and I gently pull a lever. The rest is done by forces of nature and time. The floor drops, along with the body, and then it's over. Quick and blank.
Talking to some of the others like me you get a sense of who they are. I'm strange in the way I have gone to see them work, asked them about it afterwards. Got their feelings, studied their behavior. People who don't do this job think it's a tale of stoicism. A life of death, misery, but also a demented sort of power, as if we handed down the sentence. As if we were more involved. Some of them distract themselves. Get lost in their persona and public perception. Feed into it because it's easier than fighting it. Others end up wishing it was them. They feel responsible, they feel powerless, and they can't come to terms with their actions. There is no internal struggle for me. I am not conflicted. There is no joy in my pursuit, but I am in control of my emotions. I do not let my proximity to death allow it to encompass and eclipse me.
I didn't kill those people any more than the smiling spectators did, or the rope, or the stage. I am not a harbinger. So distant am I from involvement I may as well be ethereal. A ghost. I am no more a murderer than a wave crashing a body against a cliff face. No more at fault than the ocean swallowing a sailor. I share the same blame as gravitational pull. So steadfast in myself am I that I do not need these comparisons. I am unlike a powerful unseen force. I am removed from contention. So light is my footprint I elude detection from the keenest eye, Hidden in plain sight. No, I am not a killer. The death may as well be natural. Often times it wasn't even their actions that caused their death, other than having the misfortune to exist in a time when the people who say you get hanged don't like you, or worse, don't even think of you at all. I am the pillar, the anchor, the lightning rod.
The clothes are a part of the act. The demeanor, the methodical way I move are because I'm distracted by my own thoughts. Sometimes about what is happening on the stage, but other times about what is happening in my own life, or the lives of the people I consort with. What I do is precisely that: my actions forced my chosen profession. I am not a hulking demon obsessed with death, nor am I an unfeeling ape, taking lives with instinctual malice. I am not a sadist, torturer, or lunatic. I am not deranged. But I am not unaffected.
A swaying body is no longer foreign to me. Not wholly comfortable, but something I see more frequently than a shoreline or a theater show. It has taken it's toll, but mostly, it is dull. My mind distracts me and I come to watching the corpse swing, hypnotized by the pendulum. Imagine my surprise when this first happened to me. Being comfortable enough with a cadaver on display that I idled like a feline.
And while I do not feel guilt, and I do tend to wander or fall into a trance, I do feel something for the loss. To me, life has become even more cherished. The spectators, the crowd of thrill-seekers, the revenge-stricken psychos eagerly waiting for the drop are the scary ones. Truly frightening it is to see a mass of villagers gather to watch a man die, only to disperse once the entertainment is over. Once the soul flees the body, the last twitch melts out of their bones. They care not for what each person has done. To them they are criminal, deserving. Maybe a few people are apathetic. The rarities are dissenters. They somehow feel less for these doomed vessels than I do. I can hardly blame them. You would assume my desensitization to the ordeal due to my inundation with it, but I've learned a valuable lesson about the preservation of life. I wish to prolong it now, in all things. Seeing that husk dangle carelessly now makes me see the life in things thought lifeless and vacant.
I'm no executioner. I'm no madman. This isn't just a job. When you see death every day you become desensitized to it, but I've become hyper sensitive to life. When a man is stood strapped with a rope around his neck, staring into a crowd that is waiting to watch the soul leave the body, that makes you wonder. I see myself in them. Perilously walking the line between worlds, as we all are. Facing mortality by virtue of awareness. The grand illusion of complacency. Fear behind a veil of delight. So much is unknown, and for that, please be thankful. If we had more knowledge, understanding, and comprehension, we might not be able to leave our homes. All of us, fetal, crying, feeble against the futility of it all. We're all dead men, yet we walk, breathe, and deliberately encounter strife. Only to be hung by the neck, have an axe brought down on us, or to be lucky and go without splendor, frail and empty, alone in a bed. No purpose could have enough merit to warrant this. No virtue could eclipse the dread of an eternity as a corpse.
There is no duty in life. Piousness or reverance cannot save us, from ourselves, or our fate, or the long dark of after death. I am thankful, being the one who pulls the lever. The man who commands the drop. It is a constant reminder that I should be happy because I can be happy. Misery would be easy, and just as fruitless. To be defiant in the face of extinction is to live. Guilt doesn't plague me, death is but the one thing we all have in common. I do not take them there with a light heart, but a stone mind. Fastening the rope, pulling the hood over their heads, changing them from living to something else. A daily reminder, not of the utter futility of life, but that to squander it is the only true sin. So easy it would be, under the circumstances, to give up, to quit, to laze about and cry and whimper. Easier than hanging a man. Easier than having a noose rend your consciousness from its cask. Choosing difficulty keeps me sane, makes me happy, creates a purpose.
Each person must derive their own purpose. We are not here for a reason. There is no power, no majesty, no cosmic camaraderie. Futility is beaten back into its cage like a mindless beast, who will eventually overpower us and win, but for now, is only a threat in our minds. I feel no guilt as a hangman, but I do feel something. As each life wanes, I am reinvigorated in myself. Not as a direct result, but through my introspection. If we must all meet our end, let us face it strong and passionate. We can choose how to meet our fate. I will face it with a smile and a wave, to be remembered. Or maybe I'll face it with a noose around my neck, a hood on my head, and someone pushing me into the void.
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