Notes on an Execution

by Danya Kukafka

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.

It was a specific violence, the white of her underwear. Four weeks late, then six: Lavender prayed for a spot of blood. Every morning, her body betrayed her, morphing slowly without her permission.

Lavender could not bear even one more glance. Somewhere deep and full of denial, Lavender knew the last time she saw her children had already passed—she could not withstand their questioning eyes, their rosebud mouths, the little fingernails she’d grown from nothing. So she didn’t look. With her back turned, Lavender stepped into the day. “Be good,” she said, and she shut the door.

This is leaving me in shambles

Big Bear, the only person you are absolutely certain did not deserve the Death House. Twenty years ago, Big Bear had been watching TV in his living room when a team of police officers burst in with a no-knock warrant, meant for the man in the apartment one floor above. Big Bear kept a gun beneath the couch cushions. The room was dark.

She tried to tune out Ansel’s rambling, so faux-philosophical it sounded psychotic.

Literally!!!

And you’re right—none of his ideas are particularly new or interesting.

Thats what i said when he first told the audience about his theories.

Hazel had always felt confident in her vision of right and wrong, good versus evil. She had voted for Obama. She believed she would have been the kind of German to hide a family of Jews in her attic (though of course this theory had never been tested).

PLSSS THIS IS SO FUNNY

Jenny would create a new iteration of her half of the whole, shaping herself intentionally into something fresh. All the while, Hazel would be here. Here Hazel was, paralyzed in the shiny terminal, all linoleum floors and rushing bodies.