The Chair

[bigbilly123]

The Chair

 

 

I sat there, staring straight in to the fiery eyes of the towering brute; the guard was tall, stocky and broad. He was holding his left arm which was shaking violently, he looked at me like he was going to pull out his gun and shoot me right now. I was sat in an electric chair so the concept of death by gunshot didn’t matter to me.

 

I spat warm blood from my cut on my lip, down on to the cold, hard, concrete floor. On the other side of the glass I assumed that some official suited up morons would be staring straight at me, here to watch the fireworks. I didn’t even acknowledge the fact that there was a pane of glass feet from my nose. A huge black guard handcuffed some icy chains around my wrist and it sent a shiver down my spine.

 

 

All of the guards were occupied with either a wound that I had inflicted or they were busy preparing for my departure. One of them, the smallest, was in the corner, crouching down and dipping a sponge in a bucket of icy cold water, soaking the crown that would take me on to the highway to hell.

 

 

My memory flicked to how I got here, the Texas journalists portrayed me as a cold blooded cop killer, betrayer and bank robber. They claimed that I was the murderous backstabber that killed my friend, and a cop, they were half right. I laughed at the journalists who pretended that they were in the heart of the action and could relay everything; they were not the ones who had to witness their childhood friend bleeding to death on the floor, they were not the ones who had taken 3 bullets to the pelvis and were crippled, they had not been backstabbed and been blamed! No the journalists have never personally witnessed anything this horrific; the arrogance of them enraged me.

 

 

My old chair was on the floor beside me, my prison within a prison. I have been forced to sit in it for six months now, with no physio therapy. Being a cripple is not the way I intended to end my life. The frustration of not being able to move your legs has driven me to the brink of madness. As I was wheeled in to the room with the electric chair, which was ironically named “old sparky” I decided to show the guards the same respect that he had shown me over the last few months, you can use your imagination as to what I did to all of them, after suffering their emotional and physical torture for months so I think my point was proven.

 

 

The tall guard was still holding his fractured left arm, one had ice on his head and two others, one of which had a busted nose were both trying to revive the small unconscious one that was bleeding heavily on the floor. I finally looked up through the glass, and naturally, as I predicted, three men and one woman were all sitting there, with their best suits and notebooks. The word witness came to mind and that sparked a monstrous rage inside me that was inside all criminals. People cannot keep their mouths shut.

 

I flash back over the long road to the point I am at now: execution. We agreed to split the cash, five million each, five million is enough for a lifetime of paradise. Me, Tony, Steve and Mike, Me and Mike grew up together in El Paso Texas; we were always the best of friends. Throughout school we always had each other’s back; we always grew up a few streets away.

Tony and Steve were family; all three of us were cousins. We spent our Sundays as teenagers with our fathers (uncles to each other) in bars playing pool.

 

I looked over at old my wheelchair again, broken, blood stained and battered in the corner. The tall guard cast me a dirty look while he was bandaging his arm with the first aid kit.

The priest came in through the door, a small old man, with purple robes over his white ones. Last rights, as they called it.

 

He read from the bible, said prayers, and read a letter from my brother; it talked about how disappointed he was in me, and how if my mother was still with us (God rest her soul) how disappointed she would be. He said “If you needed money you should have come to me.” He also said that he was sorry for Tony and Steve’s death, then he said “I’m sure Mike is with you now, watching and I think that he would forgive you for your betrayal and…” I interrupted.

 

“Nope Mike isn’t here, he is rotting in hell.” I looked up at the shock on the priest’s face, “And if he thinks its bad now, just wait until I get there!” I looked in the reflection in the glass and a murderous grin spread across my battered face.

 

The priest shivered, and a guard flicked a nearby switch.

My chair started buzzing and vibrating. I closed my eyes and thought back to the moment when it all went wrong; I opened the big glass door and walked in to the busy high street. The bright son made me squint, I was swaying and trying to keep upright but Mike’s bullet was still lodged in my stomach and I was struggling to breath, blood was spilling all over the street from my gut. I squinted to my left and saw our white getaway van parked a block away. As I squinted more I saw, about 200M down the street, Mike, running with the briefcase in his hand came in to focus, I looked down at the blood stained .45, and aimed it down the street, whilst I swayed through loss of blood, I pulled the trigger.

 

The bullet missed Mike; it hit an innocent woman who was just coming out of a nearby grocery store, the bullet got her right in the throat, she dropped her bags, and dropped instantly to the floor, shaking with blood spilling everywhere. I pulled the trigger for a second time and hit Mike just below his neck, between the shoulder blades; he kept running for a split second more then dropped the case. He fell and grabbed on to a mailbox on the way down to keep on his feet. He leaned on it for a moment, swaying in the sunlight, and then finally dropped dead. As soon as I took my finger off the trigger, a loud noise erupted behind me. BANG! BANG! BANG! My back! A pain erupted above my waist, I dropped my gun and screamed out in pain, I looked down and there was a hole in my hip, blood was gushing out, one of the bullets went straight through me. My legs turned to jelly, I fell straight forward and landed nose first on the hard concrete. I managed to push myself off the floor on my hands, in a press-up like motion, the blood was spilling everywhere, then suddenly I felt a large crack as a cop kicked me in the gap between the floor and my stomach, I catapulted feet off the floor and landed against a car door, smashing my head. The thought flicked in my head of reaching for my .45, but the cop had the same idea.

 

It’s strange how your entire life changes when you are staring down in to the dark chamber of a gun barrel. I already had four bullets in me, one off Mike and three courtesy of the Texan police department. I did not intend to have another one lodged inside my face.

 

I came in “quietly”, meaning that I couldn’t walk and was on a stretcher. Normally I would have fought the cops until my heart stopped beating but in handcuffs and a stretcher there is a limit on what you can do.

 

The way everybody saw what happened it looked like I was the traitor, I didn’t deny that fact because it would do me no good; cop killing is a crime punishable by execution. As soon as I saw the cop strolling through the glass doors of the bank I knew that our plan had failed. I aimed my gun at him, “Drop your gun!” I shouted. He dived to the right and shot Steve, I quickly fired three shots to his chest.

I went over to help Steve, who was lying, spread eagled on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood, as soon as I saw the size of the wound I knew it was over for him, Tony came over to help, he kneeled down and took of his jacket, he pressed it down on the wound. We struggled for a minute, ignoring the sounds of alarms and people screaming.

“Mike, come and help!” Tony shouted. Mike held the case tightly in his left hand; he just stared at Tony, then pulled up his gun and fired two shots in to his face.

 

“No!” I screamed, I let go of Steve’s limp body and went to grab my .45, a flash of light and Mike had hit me in the stomach. He turned around and ran, ran for the door, black case in his left hand and gun in his right.

 

I stood up, blood spilling from my gut, re-loaded my gun and limped to the door. My body pumping with rage as I looked forward to killing the yellow rat that had stolen all that we had worked together to take.

 

I snapped out of my dream as I heard the cold words of the guard with the broken nose:

“Do you have anything to say?”

I stared at the concrete for a long time, thinking about my family, I hadn’t seen them in six months. They had refused to see me as they thought I had killed my brother and friends. My thoughts turned to Mike, in a moment I would be joining him and he will realise the true definition of the word pain. I opened my mouth and uttered my final words

 

“Push the button”.

 

 

 

What do you think?

 

 

[TheJonesy]

A little creepy, but nicely written!

 

There was some grammatical errors that I have noticed, but I'll leave that to Eminence...

Edited June 10, 2007 by TheJonesy

[bigbilly123]

Your right..

I just read over and realised that this isnt my final version.. that is on my pendrive

 

Oh well.. mistakes aside you get the point

 

I always imagined the main character like the big guy out of Sin City

[TheJonesy]

I hope you don't take the "creepy" thing bad, it is a good thing. Atmoshpere is an important factor in writing, I am no expert, but you pulled it off well!

 

Also, I've never seen Sin City, so...I have no idea what you mean. But go ahead and write some stories of it, I might get the idea...

[bigbilly123]

 

I hope you don't take the "creepy" thing bad, it is a good thing. Atmoshpere is an important factor in writing, I am no expert, but you pulled it off well!

 

Also, I've never seen Sin City, so...I have no idea what you mean. But go ahead and write some stories of it, I might get the idea...

S'ok thats the effect that I went for...

 

And i mean this guy

 

[Eminence]

Not bad. Worth an A*, definitely. There's improvements that could be made with the general storytelling, though. Sometimes it seems to get a little fragmented, and skips from scene to scene without establishing what the narrator is actually talking about. This may be intentional - it's his last moments so he may be remembering things in fragments - but it simply seems to make the reader a little confused in this case, which you don't want to happen.

 

Here's a few random things I picked out, anyways.

 

 

I have been forced to sit in it for six months now, with no physio therapy. Being a cripple is not the way I intended to end my life.

 

Tense switching - here you're speaking in the present, "have", as opposed to the past, which has been used throughout.

 

 

The frustration of not being able to move your legs has driven me to the brink of madness.

 

Again present tense, "has". Also, it should be the frustration of not being able to move "my" legs - you're speaking in the first person, not the second.

 

 

As I was wheeled in to the room with the electric chair, which was ironically named “old sparky” I decided to show the guards the same respect that he had shown me over the last few months, you can use your imagination as to what I did to all of them, after suffering their emotional and physical torture for months so I think my point was proven.

 

Firstly - it should be that "they" had shown me - you're talking about doing something to more than one guard, so "he" isn't applicable.

 

Also - this is all one sentence? It's far too dragged out, and it gets lost in itself after a while. It needs splitting up a bit, so that the reader doesn't get lost. Also, the end is a little confusing. Well, not confusing - more, it just isn't really written well. You mention that your "point was proven" - but you haven't made a point. What point? That you should use your imagination to think of what you did to them?

 

 

I finally looked up through the glass, and naturally, as I predicted, three men and one woman were all sitting there, with their best suits and notebooks.

 

How can he see them? Mirrored, no? You even refer to it as such a little later, after he notices his widespread grin in it.

 

 

I flash back over the long road to the point I am at now: execution.

 

Again, present tense.

 

 

she dropped her bags, and dropped instantly to the floor

 

Within a few words you've repeated the word "dropped" - it's also used twice more in the following sentences. Try to vary it a little more - repetition isn't good in this form.

 

 

BANG! BANG! BANG! My back!

 

Comic-book-style onomatopoeia. Not good.

 

I know Sin City is based on the comic and whatnot, and this is loosely based on a Sin City character - but in narrative like this, it's just poor description.

 

 

Not bad, anyway. I liked the end - it was a good way to finish it off.

 

Decent job, I say. I'd like to see you write some more - it's quite good.

[Oxidizer]

Whoa, I like this! Awesome effect, definitely payed off as I can see why you got an A* - well earned!

 

I seem to be hooked on the dark stuff lately, 'tis a little worrying.

[bigbilly123]

Not bad. Worth an A*, definitely. There's improvements that could be made with the general storytelling, though. Sometimes it seems to get a little fragmented, and skips from scene to scene without establishing what the narrator is actually talking about. This may be intentional - it's his last moments so he may be remembering things in fragments - but it simply seems to make the reader a little confused in this case, which you don't want to happen.

 

Here's a few random things I picked out, anyways.

 

 

I have been forced to sit in it for six months now, with no physio therapy. Being a cripple is not the way I intended to end my life.

 

Tense switching - here you're speaking in the present, "have", as opposed to the past, which has been used throughout.

 

 

The frustration of not being able to move your legs has driven me to the brink of madness.

 

Again present tense, "has". Also, it should be the frustration of not being able to move "my" legs - you're speaking in the first person, not the second.

 

 

As I was wheeled in to the room with the electric chair, which was ironically named “old sparky” I decided to show the guards the same respect that he had shown me over the last few months, you can use your imagination as to what I did to all of them, after suffering their emotional and physical torture for months so I think my point was proven.

 

Firstly - it should be that "they" had shown me - you're talking about doing something to more than one guard, so "he" isn't applicable.

 

Also - this is all one sentence? It's far too dragged out, and it gets lost in itself after a while. It needs splitting up a bit, so that the reader doesn't get lost. Also, the end is a little confusing. Well, not confusing - more, it just isn't really written well. You mention that your "point was proven" - but you haven't made a point. What point? That you should use your imagination to think of what you did to them?

 

 

I finally looked up through the glass, and naturally, as I predicted, three men and one woman were all sitting there, with their best suits and notebooks.

 

How can he see them? Mirrored, no? You even refer to it as such a little later, after he notices his widespread grin in it.

 

 

I flash back over the long road to the point I am at now: execution.

 

Again, present tense.

 

 

she dropped her bags, and dropped instantly to the floor

 

Within a few words you've repeated the word "dropped" - it's also used twice more in the following sentences. Try to vary it a little more - repetition isn't good in this form.

 

 

BANG! BANG! BANG! My back!

 

Comic-book-style onomatopoeia. Not good.

 

I know Sin City is based on the comic and whatnot, and this is loosely based on a Sin City character - but in narrative like this, it's just poor description.

 

 

Not bad, anyway. I liked the end - it was a good way to finish it off.

 

Decent job, I say. I'd like to see you write some more - it's quite good.

Thanks for taking the time to analyze that

Im not making excuses but the final version is on my pendrive

 

You have a few good points there but after reading it like 30 times for correction after correction then its more difficult to find mistakes

 

Thanks for that fella

[The Unvirginiser]

Wow! Just been digging through old threads and read this.. absoloutley fantastic, very creepy... good atmosphere!