11/13/06 Journal- An Execution

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The following story contains slightly disturbing elements such as violence, blood and gore.

Reader Discretion Advised

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Four people stood at the door of a hotel room. They smiled at each other, each one wondering if these would be the last smiles they would see in life. Four of them entered the room. Only 3 would come out alive. Each person had committed a horrible crime. Each hoped that they would not be the one executed.

Jack, the town's garbage man, was a genius. He was so smart that some said he would be the next Albert Einstein. It was only by a cruel trick of fate, which I will not go into now, that he became the driver of the town's garbage truck. One night, he was performing science experiments in his garage. That night's experiment consisted of mixing various chemicals to create nuclear fusion, which is a very interesting topic but, again, I will not go into it. Once he had finished his experiments he disposed of the chemicals in the trashcan. The next morning he dumped the trash into the garbage truck and began his morning rounds. As he drove along a rather bumpy street, through a very shady neighborhood, the jostling of the truck caused some of the discarded chemicals to react with each other. The garbage truck exploded, sending toxic chemicals all over the neighborhood. Almost everyone died. Jack had survived by staying in the driver's seat. When the truck exploded he was rocketed out of the danger zone by the force of the explosion.

Phillip lived in the neighborhood mentioned above. Phillip was also the town's butcher. When the garbage truck exploded, he cut his wife open with his butcher's knife and placed her corpse around his head. Somehow this protected him from the toxic chemicals until the radiation had returned to normal levels.

Alex was the person who rode on the back of the garbage truck. His job was to jump off when the truck stopped and take the garbage cans from the street corner. He had been searching the garbage for valuables, which had been accidentally discarded when the truck exploded in his face. Like Jack, he was rocketed to safety by the force of the blast. Unlike Jack, he was not unharmed. His arms were burned and he had odd boils on his face.

Gregory was a sanitation worker. He was fishing trash out of the sewers beneath the street when the truck exploded above his head. He was unaffected, but when almost everyone was dead, he looted their houses.

The group sat on the two hotel beds and after a short conversation they decided that one of them must die. They thought for a while. It was arguable whether Alex had really committed a crime. After arguing they voted. Once the vote was counted, Jack was selected to face death. The reasons behind this decision:
1. His carelessly discarded science experiments had been the cause of the deaths.
2. If the explosion had not occurred, nobody else's crimes would have been committed, or caught.
3. Jack should not have been messing around with nuclear fusion anyways.
4. Jack had a mole on his chin.

The four of them went into the bathroom and filled the bathtub with boiling water. They were about to put Jack in the water when Alex screamed. He coughed uncontrollably and began to puke into the tub. Someone got him a glass of water from the nearest water source, the bathtub. Alex drank the boiling water and screamed some more. His burnt skin broke open and blood ran out, turning the bathtub red. His boils swelled and exploded. Green puss went everywhere. Soon he fell into the tub and died.

Once these events had subsided the 3 remaining men looked at each other and began talking. Obviously, God had destroyed the most evil of them. Nobody tried to guess why the one who had committed no real crime was the one who died.

They decided that one of them was already dead so no good would come from killing another. They left the hotel and went over to Gregory's house for tea.