Notes on an Execution

by Danya Kukafka

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

We are all bad, and we are all good, and no one should be condemned to one or the other. But if good can be tainted with the bad that comes after, then where do you place it? How do you count it? How much is it really worth?

Memory, Saffy thought, was unreliable. Memory was a thing to be savored or reviled, never to be trusted.

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.

Of course you can be good, the chaplain says. Everyone can be good. That’s not the question.

There would be no story, for these girls alone. There would be no vigil, no attention at all. They are relevant because of Ansel and the fascination the world has for men like him.