Free Eye of the Beholder by David Ellis

outside the gas chamber, where a doctor will be able to pronounce Burgos dead without having to enter the chamber.
    The forehead restraint is a new thing, after a guy down south split his head open banging it against the steel pole behind the chair while he fought the air hunger. Leave it to our state to want to stop a man from knocking himself unconscious so we can execute him.
    If Terry Burgos looks pathetic, a hairy, pudgy man sitting in his underwear, strapped into a chair, with an audience watching the spectacle, he doesn’t reveal any awareness of it whatsoever. He doesn’t show much of anything, moving his eyes from person to person with the wonderment of a child. He has lived almost entirely in isolation for the last seven years, and maybe there is something stimulating about this.
    Beneath Burgos’s chair is a bowl filled with sulfuric acid mixed with distilled water. Suspended above the bowl, in a gauze bag, is a pound of sodium cyanide pellets. When the warden gives the signal, the guard outside the gas chamber will pull a lever that will release the cyanide into the liquid, causing a chemical reaction that releases hydrogen cyanide.
    Actually, there are three levers that will be pulled simultaneously by three different guards. Two of the levers will not do a damn thing, while the third will lower the pellets into the acidic water. None of the three guards will go to bed tonight knowing that he was the one who killed a man. The state may lack compassion for its killers but not for the executioners.
    “I hope to God he doesn’t hold his breath,” Carolyn says to me. She’s done her homework. If Burgos takes a deep breath of the gas, he’ll be unconscious in seconds and will die peacefully. If he holds his breath and fights it, he’ll likely go into convulsions, and this could last up to twenty minutes.
    “Terrance Demetrius Burgos,” the prison guard begins, holding the clipboard away from his face. “You have been convicted by a court of law in this state of five separate violations of Article 4, Section 6-10(a), of the Criminal Code, to wit: the homicides of Elisha Danzinger, Angela Mornakowski, Jacqueline Davis ...”
    Carolyn Pendry makes a noise, leans forward, and, with a guttural groan, vomits on my shoe. I ignore the bile at my feet, offer her a handkerchief, and take her hand, lacing my fingers with hers. She attempts an apology, but there’s no need. She will not be the last one to react in such a way. There’s a doctor on call, in fact, for the witnesses.
    “... Sarah Romanski, and Maureen Hollis.”
    Terry Burgos has gained a good twenty pounds since his arrest, adding a second chin that covers his neck, his eyes reduced to tiny beads now. He has almost no hair on top; a few strands stick up over the leather restraint that covers his forehead. I look for it in those eyes, any sense of remorse or compassion. Or fear. I admit it, I want this to hurt.
    “... jury has determined that these homicides were committed with premeditation and under special circumstances warranting the imposition of capital punishment...”
    I feel the collective tension behind me, the mixed emotions of the people so angry and hurt, reliving the tragedy all over again over these last few weeks, now getting the justice that they clam ored for, begged the jury to impose.
    “You have signed a written statement, notarized and validated by a court of law, indicating your choice of lethal gas.”
    That, or electrocution. I’d have gone the other way. I can’t imagine anything worse than fighting for air.
    I look at the two telephones on the wall, one black, one red, the latter connected directly to the governor’s mansion. Then I peek at the clock. Twelve on the dot.
    When I look back at Burgos, he has settled his gaze on me. Now we have made eye contact, and I know he’s going to watch me as long as he can. I consider looking away, showing him the lack of respect he probably deserves, but I lock my stare on him.