Notes on an Execution

by Danya Kukafka

Pity is destruction wearing a mask of sympathy. Pity strips you bare. Pity shrinks.

This was how it always went, wasn’t it? All those women who’d come before her, in caves and tents and covered wagons. It was a wonder how she’d never given much thought to the ancient, timeless fact. Motherhood was, by nature, a thing you did alone.

No one is all bad. No one is all good. We live as equals in the murky gray between.

Do you remember why I named you Saffron? It’s a flower. The most rare and precious flower, her mother said. The kind of flower that could start a war.

Now, Saffy wanted to tell Kristen how the drugs had felt, melting through her veins, how she’d passed entire days lying on a dusty mattress. How she’d known Lila’s life and then grown out of it—how Lila had not gotten the chance to do the same.

She had known from a young age that everyone had darkness inside—some just controlled it better than others. Very few people believed that they were bad, and this was the scariest part. Human nature could be so hideous, but it persisted in this ugliness by insisting it was good.

Grief was a hole. A portal to nothing. Grief was a walk so long Hazel forgot her own legs. It was a shock of blinding sun. A burst of remembering: sandals on pavement, a sleepy back seat, nails painted on the bathroom floor. Grief was a loneliness that felt like a planet.

Mothering could be as simple as this: a woman and her very own blood, breathing in tandem through the darkest heart of night.