The Hell-Cells

Our job was to guard him twenty-four hours a day. Our boss, Colonel Thompson, told us the man was yet to be charged. What was his alleged crime? Standing up for what he believed was right … but nobody ever seemed to talk about that. Our prisoner was incarcerated in a twenty-foot high and forty-foot wide titanium and laser-protected “hell-cell”, alone, isolated from all other jails and their prisoners. It was a necessary obligation to pass a retina scan and a voice recognition scan to so much as enter the cell, but few people did anyway. The entire compound was situated on a lone island in the North Sea, closest to the north-east coast of England.

The job of prison guard required a sense of emotional detachment unrivalled by any other occupation known to man. You had to be able to murder without blinking, and to observe human suffering with nothing but curiosity. For a prison guard at that particular compound, to delve into one’s own thoughts was to plunge into a charred, hateful vortex of pain and death. My name is Ben. I was a guard at the McNeill Death Row Prison Facility, otherwise nicknamed as the “Hell-Cells”. I was one of the group who took shifts to watch that particular prisoner, and this particular day it was five o’ clock in the afternoon on the third of November, 2034, and there was still an hour left of my shift.

“Please … get me some water,” came a raspy voice from the other side of the thick, quietly humming door.

I jumped, but not visibly. I was too distant, too far gone from reality to feel anything but the simple sound of a voice.

“I will,” I said, and I walked to the tap and took one of the drying glasses. I watched emptily, almost serenely, as the water steadily gushed into the glass. Without thought, only instinct, I stoppered the water as the glass filled to the brim, and carried the glass to the prison door. I completed the retina and voice scans and entered the cell.

I ignored the huge monotonous grey walls of the cell that had disconcerted me so much when I first began the job. I glanced around briefly, and took in the small, barred, square window. Winter was only just beginning, and though the days were getting shorter, sun rays still glimpsed through the narrow gaps between the bars, and shone onto a small section of the wall. In between two of the bars, a small vase containing three blossoming violet tulips sat wistfully. I cast my eyes over to the small, cramped bed and it was then I saw the prisoner standing in front of it.

He looked thin and drained.

And so pale. He stood, weak, skinny, currently handcuffed to a drainpipe with his feet tied together. In this dark, dingy home, the white-grey figure of the prisoner almost shone. He was the leader of a political group who were amassing huge respect and popularity, and he had been arrested on a charge of public misdirection – and in that politically strict day and age, the penalty for that was death. I looked at him up and down for a second; took in the pale grey garments hanging repulsively off his bony, drooping shoulders; his gaunt, pasty features; his greasy dark hair hanging over his eyes; his swollen, half-shut eyes; his abandoned face protruding with countless black bristles. He looked very ill, and I felt an instantaneous yet highly unexpected wave of pity. I shook myself, but the feeling didn’t fade. I took an alarmed look at the man. His nametag read TOM FINNIGAN.

“Here – here’s your water, Mr. Finnigan,” I stammered out in a low mutter.

He opened his rotting mouth, and I poured in all of the water.

When he had finished, he said “thank you.” I then took my leave.

Yet this became a regular occurrence – I would walk in with a glass full of water nearly every time I had a shift – and soon we began to talk. Though I half-heartedly fought against myself, I knew I was coming to see him as a friend. I learned much from him – he was such an intelligent, funny man. He spoke of his political ideas, he spoke of his books, and sometimes – though times were bleak and hopeless for him – he spoke of good experiences and of amusing moments in his life.

A fortnight after our first conversation, I walked into Tom’s cell carrying a glass of water as usual, on another 3pm to 6pm shift. I entered the cell and glanced at the barred window. There was less sunlight shining through the bars than usual, and so the sense of smothering greyness was darker and far more real.

“The days are getting shorter. It hasn’t been this dark at this time for a long while,” I commented, frowning slightly, holding out the water.

Tom was sitting on his bed, not coming forward.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Ben,” he said, a pained look on his face. “My trial is tomorrow.”

There was a long silence. I looked anywhere but into Tom’s frightened eyes.

“Ben,” Tom murmured finally, “I’ll never forget your companionship. I promise.”

“The trial,” I said, suddenly and bluntly, voice shaking. “What are you expecting?”

But I already knew.

“Death.” Tom’s simple reply.

My hand holding the glass of water lowered in a slow, jerky fashion. A few small dribbles of water spilled onto the hard floor. I looked over at the vase of tulips. They were starting to die, hanging drooping heads hopelessly. Another long silence.

“Water them,” whispered Tom. “They need it.” So I walked over and poured a few trickles of water into the almost-empty vase.

I walked back over to bed where Tom sat and looked down at the glass of water I held in my hand. It was only half-full now, if that. Tom, who remained sitting down, opened his mouth as usual. I poured in the water and took my leave.

The next day, Colonel Thompson came thumping into the guards’ sleeping quarters, his second chin wobbling precariously over the collar of his beige army uniform.

“Finnigan’s execution is in four days boys – he got the death sentence today. Ben, Derek, Colin: you’ll be accompanying Mr. Finnigan on his lovely brisk walk to the gas chamber on the day. 10am.”

I suddenly felt sick to my very stomach. I remembered that night was the night I had my 6pm – 9pm shift on guard duty with Tom, and so the interminably slow morning and afternoon reluctantly passed, until the evening came and I went to Tom Finnigan’s hell-cell.

At seven o’ clock I entered. I noticed the glass was holding even less water than the previous day. The cell was almost completely dark. Hardly any light was glimpsing through the bars of the window now. I pulled out a flashlight and turned it on. I turned the torch to the vase. The flower heads were drooping even more so than the previous day. I moved to water them.

“Leave it,” said Tom, and I pointed the torch at him. He was on his feet, but looking incredibly pale. “The tulips are almost gone, and I am thirsty.” So I walked over to Tom and poured all the water into his mouth.

“Thank you,” he croaked. I left.

The next evening, my guard duty with Tom was 6pm until 9pm again. I didn’t enter the cell until five minutes to nine. In one hand I held the flashlight and in the other I held a glass, now only a quarter-full at most. It was as good as pitch-black now, and I switched on the torch, pointing it at Tom, lying down on his bed, two arms stretching over his head as his hands were still handcuffed to the drainpipe. I then pointed the torch at the vase – the once blossoming violet tulips were now as good as dead.

“I am thirsty,” said Tom, voice ringing with a deadened tone of barrenness, and his eyes squinted at the sudden light of the torch.

I was silent for a moment.

“Tom ... it isn’t water this evening,” Tom Finnigan sat up and stared. I continued: “This is poison – it will kill you within a minute with very little pain, if you choose to take it. The gas chamber tomorrow morning will kill you within ten minutes – it will be agony.”

I could hear Tom was breathing very fast now. “Are you sure?” he said, his voice shaky, almost excited.

“Yes,” I answered. I looked into Tom’s eyes and he seemed resolved.

“Do it,” he said, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

He opened his mouth.

But as I took my first step towards him my hand slipped. The glass fell to the floor and smashed, leaving glimmering shards all over the ground. The door of the cell opened, and a fellow guard, Andrew, walked in.

“What’s going on, Ben?” he asked.

“Ben was just handing me a glass of water before he finished his shift, and he dropped the glass,” Tom announced. “Now you’re here, you may as well clean it up and let Ben be going on his way.”

I looked from Tom to Andrew, realising I was out of options. I silently left the cell.

The next morning, the day before Tom’s execution, Colonel Thompson, following standard execution protocol, told Derek, Colin and I that we were barred from guard duty with Tom Finnigan – to increase the sense of emotional detachment necessary to murder him. But Colonel Thompson didn’t know that for me, it was far too late.

The day passed so quickly and yet so slowly. My mind was a whirlwind; a turmoil, and I felt so very alone. What hit me so poignantly hard was the simple fact that I was going to help in the murdering of an innocent man. More than that, he was a righteous, good man. I lay in bed that night, just before midnight, and realized that Tom’s cell would be pitch-black now. I realized that tonight, Tom Finnigan would have no water to quench his thirst. And I realized that Tom’s tulips would now be stone-cold dead – just like Tom himself would be in ten hours time.

I woke up on the morning of the execution, and visited supplies. I slipped a pistol into my pocket.

The next time I saw Tom Finnigan was standing on his right side at 10am, at the foot of the “green mile”. Tom looked scared. He knew that in a few steps time he would reach his final destination. I looked away from everyone, terrified to the bone of what my eyes might reveal. Thompson stood on my right, Colin and Derek on my far left.

We began to walk.

Then, just as the gas chamber came into view, Tom collapsed onto his knees.

“No!” he screamed. “I – want – to – live!”

“Oh great,” said Thompson angrily, gritting his teeth. “OK, we’ll get this over with here and now. Anybody bring a gun?”

There was frenzy among the guards; a silent rush of worried eyes searching themselves. Too late, I realized the handle of the pistol I had taken from the supplies earlier was protruding from my left trouser pocket.

“Colonel! Ben’s got one! A pistol in his left pocket!” yelled Derek suddenly.

“Oh,” said the Colonel, moving over to where Derek and I were standing, glancing down at my pocket. “Were you not paying attention?” he asked.

“Sorry sir, I – I … forgot,” I concluded.

“All right,” said the Colonel, shrugging. “Well, you’ve got the gun, Ben. You can do the honours. Shoot him.”

Ice. Ice froze my mind. Time. Time with Tom had made me human again. My trembling hand drew out the shiny, black pistol, full of potential wrath and fury. I raised the gun. My head was building up to a silent scream.

I fired.