I Am Me

by Ram Sundaram

  A question remains though: why is there an execution scheduled on Christmas morning? More importantly, why has the entire town assembled to witness it? Why stand around and watch a killing on Christmas morning? Have none of us earned ourselves a sinless day? Are the jails so full that I am forced to take lives on this, the day when we celebrate life and birth?

  My eyes then fall upon the first man that the sheriff leads towards me. He isn’t even a man—he is a young boy, no more than six years old perhaps. Yet his solemn face shows that he has endured more in those six years than most, for there is genuine sadness in his eyes, not unlike that of a man who has lived a lifetime and learnt that the world is cruel.

  What crime could this child have committed to have his life taken on Christmas morning? He ought to be in his home, with his parents, opening gifts and shrieking with the kind of joy only a child would know. He shouldn’t be here…

  He does not ask me to spare his life; he does not cry or even show fear. Instead he meets my gaze with a steely resolve, as though he has already accepted his fate. I feel genuine sympathy for him, for he has barely lived. If not for me, he would perhaps live to be an old, withered man. But what would age bestow upon him but regret and bitterness? He has already amassed enough sadness in his six years to match a lifetime’s worth of grief; why should he endure more? Life is hollow. It would benefit him to put this existence behind him and embrace the next. Let him enter the beyond, where his dreams will turn real, where his hopes will find fulfilment, and where his love will push past this ordinary realm of individuals.

  I slip the noose around his neck and cover his face with the mask.

  The second prisoner is a young man, handsome, strong, and full of ambition. I see in his eyes a sense of promise I’d never known in myself. He is in the prime of his life; a stallion, capable of challenging the world and defeating it. He should be thundering through life, conquering everything he deems a challenge. He shouldn’t be here, facing defeat.

  I hide his beautiful face and slip the noose around his neck.

  The third prisoner is an old man, grey and wrinkled. He meets my eyes proudly, without any regret. It is he who saddens me the most, even though he has lived longer than the others, for I realise it is this old man that I will never become. I was once a young boy, innocent and full of dreams; I had briefly been like that young man, full of daring ambition; but I haven’t lived enough to accumulate the experience this old man holds within him. It is the life he has led that I envy, when I slip the noose around his neck and cover his face with a hood.

  I step back as the reverend whispers words of counsel and comfort to the three hooded figures. They do not respond. When he is finished, the reverend steps away from them and says aloud, for all to hear: “May God have mercy on your souls.”

  That is my cue.

  Their bodies drop with sudden, loud jolts. The crowd turns away as one, unable to watch the end of a show they sacrificed their Christmas mornings for. Almost immediately, they begin to disperse, chatting animatedly amongst themselves. A few of them cast covert looks at the three hanging bodies, but then hastily turn away. The sheriff nods to me before shuffling away. The reverend puts a sympathetic hand on my shoulder before leaving. Soon I am left alone, with three more killings on my soul, and three bodies to dispose of before breakfast.

  I remove the hoods off of their heads and stare into their faces, so different from one another in life, yet so alike now in death. We are all the same in the end; in fact, we’re all the same in the beginning. It is somewhere in between that we delude ourselves into finding non-existent differences, and then naively form unnecessary segregations. When strung up by a rope, we all die the exact same way, regardless of age, race or gender.

  I have been contemplating my own death of late. I have no responsibility to this world but for this noose and my partnership with it. However, I have learnt to realise that the noose is fickle and unworthy of my loyalty. I have taken far too many lives to worry now about duty and loyalty. What then do I have to live for? I wish to embrace death as soon as I can.

  Death sits on our shoulders from the moment we enter this world. We carry death with us wherever we travel, whatever we do, and however robustly we live. Death is not an estranged acquaintance that returns to us when our bodies can no longer endure this existence. No, death is our dearest friend and our most loyal companion— perched on our shoulders, it waits for the day when we can become one with each other. I wish to be one with death.

  But then I remember something from my past.

  Years ago I tried to kill myself. I strode onto the gallows one night, when the town was silent and the stars were veiled. I slipped the noose around my neck and prepared for the long drop. I had tried to think of a suitable last thought… I debated whether to fill my head with pious thoughts, or choose instead to reflect over a happy moment? I decided eventually that it would be best to recount sadness, so that my spirit would be more willing to leave this mortal existence.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It wasn’t cowardice that held me back that night, for I was more afraid to live than to die. No, it was the realisation that I was already dead, in every way a man could die. My innocence died when I saw my father shot; my ambitions died the day I was shackled to this duty; and my soul died the day I first killed a man.

  I do not need to reunite myself with death now or ever, for death and I have been one for many years. In fact, it can be said that in many ways, I am death. Will I die one day? I hope so, but I don’t know for sure. All I know is that my duty as hangman is larger than this town. It’s larger perhaps than even this world. It is more than just a duty—it is my life.

  I lower the bodies with the help of an undertaker, who then transports them to the town cemetery. I stay behind, watching the sun climb higher in the sky. I can hear laughter and celebration in the town. People are busy enjoying life. I stay at the gallows all day, until the sun disappears behind the long arm of the mountains and darkness falls. I do not know what tomorrow will bring. All I know is that I’ll be here at the gallows, first thing in the morning.

  X

  Immortal in Death

  A bell tinkled as I stepped anxiously into the shop. A large, tawny owl, magnificent and regal, peered down at me with lamp-like eyes; his gaze seemed at once inquisitive and accusatory. I fumbled through my mind for an explanation, for an answer that would appease his curiosity, before I noticed he was perched atop a wooden coat rack. He wasn’t real.

  Perhaps I should rephrase, for he was indeed real, as real as I or this shop were. But he was a mere shadow of his former self: skinned, dismembered, and then resurrected onto a hollow, lifeless shell. Yet he looked frighteningly life-like, and a part of me expected him to hoot disapprovingly at my searching stare. I hung my coat on the rack, while admiring the creature’s faultless assembly, its seamless restructuring, and the smooth, intricate finish.

  “He was one of my first specimens,” called a voice from the end of the store.

  I looked up to see my former student and old friend, Menon. He was wiping his hands on a blue apron as he emerged from the darkness, with a generous smile spreading through his plain features. “I keep him by the door so that he’ll be the first thing my customers see upon entering my store. If he passes their approval, and perhaps as importantly, if they pass his approval, then the odds favour a mutually beneficial partnership.”

  “Ah,” I said, smiling as we shook hands. “And did I pass his approval?”

  Menon grinned. “I think he’s undecided.”

  As we laughed and exchanged pleasantries, I was struck by how young and resplendent my former prodigy looked, despite the dim, unflattering light. It was as if all the skins he had tanned and all the bodies he had preserved had somehow rejuvenated his own. But as my initial impression of him faded and I studied him more intently, I realised that though he looked
much younger than when I had last seen him, his eyes had aged far beyond what they should have; and despite his glowing, unblemished skin, and lustrous hair, he looked disconcertingly lifeless.

  “You look well,” I lied.

  An empty smile spread across his waxen face, but the gesture missed his eyes. “I’m glad you chose to come today,” he said, and I noticed his voice had changed considerably. There was no longer a boyish softness to it, but a deep, gravelly tone that was oddly unnerving.

  “I was surprised to receive your invitation,” I confessed.

  He raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “But why? I owe all my success to my mentor.”

  I smiled. “The store’s larger than I expected,” I confessed, looking around.

  “Come, I’ll give you a tour,” he said, leading me into the shop.

  I followed hesitantly, wishing the store was better lit. It was dusk, and there were only two windows in the store, both by the front door and both veiled by drapes. The only light came from the lanterns above each diorama, and that was hardly sufficient.

  The place had an eerie quality about it. Taxidermy shops were usually peculiar anyway, but the atmosphere in this store was particularly unnerving. The darkness concealed most of the animals from view, but their figures still bathed the store in heavy, ominous shadows, while their eyes danced unnaturally in the glow of the lanterns.

  As Menon led me into the shop, I came to appreciate just how extensively he had branched out in his trade, for he had a diverse collection. Most of the specimens were lined up for sale on shelves, but quite a few were placed in very elaborate dioramas to attract potential buyers. These displays depicted the animals in natural poses, as part of natural situations, within their natural environments. Of course, an African lion and a Siberian tiger facing off on a riverbank wasn’t exactly a natural situation, but it did make for fascinating viewing. I smiled inwardly at the commercial mindedness that had no doubt determined which animals would be selected for the dioramas. The lions, the tigers, the leopards and the rhinos had made the cut, whereas the less glamorous buffalo, elk and antelope, were left on their shelves to gather dust.

  “After I left your class, I went to Africa,” Menon said, as we passed a pair of arctic foxes, standing alertly on a blanket of artificial snow. “I wanted to see as many animals as I could, living in their natural habitats. I wanted to remember them in their active, mortal forms, before I immortalised them in plaster and fiberglass. It was a journey of discovery.”

  “I see,” I replied, as a black panther glowered at me from beneath a bush. His eyes burned yellow in the shadows, and the malice within them felt frighteningly real.

  “Then upon my return, I branched out into other areas of taxidermy,” he said, leading me towards a large display case, filled with hundreds of insects, from as small as fleas, to as flamboyant as butterflies. “I learned the skills of restoring birds and insects.”

  I stared at the collection with genuine revulsion, for I hated insects. I was also overcome by jealousy, for I realised Menon had surpassed my own knowledge in the trade. I possessed a general understanding of the process of restoring insects, but I had never actually learned or practiced the skill. But Menon had a display filled with hundreds of these specimens, each real and life-like enough to provoke my natural repulsion towards them.

  As I hastily turned away, my attention was caught by a rather large diorama containing a life-sized African elephant. It was a bull, a male in its physical and symbolic prime. He was a grand and humbling sight to behold, for he towered several feet over me, and since his dark body merged with the heavy shadows, he appeared even more massive. He had his head tilted back slightly, and his trunk was raised in the air as if he were just about to bellow majestically into the forest. His most distinctive feature though was a large pair of tusks, which gleamed impressively in the modest lighting, like a royal symbol of his might and ability.

  “I’ve never had the pleasure of restoring one of these,” I said, bitterness leaking into my tone, as I approached the dwarfing stature of the enormous creature. “Did it take long?”

  “Indeed,” Menon admitted, “Of course I was less-experienced then, so it took longer than perhaps it should have. But this is definitely my masterpiece.”

  I shot him a searching look. He was different to the humble student I had tutored all those years ago. His demeanour had somewhat hardened, a change I attributed not only to the fact that he was older now and had acquired more wisdom, but also to his freshly inflated pride. But thereupon I chastised myself, for it occurred to me that that which I perceived to be his ill-serving pride, might merely have been a projection of my own ill-fitting envy.

  “Has the trade changed much recently?” I enquired, suppressing acrimony.

  “The world makes scientific advancements steadily, and the benefits of these advancements filter down through the chains of necessity, shedding most of its worth before trickling into obscure and irrelevant art forms such as our trade,” he replied, mechanically.

  “Irrelevant?” I repeated, studying a leopard yawning lazily. “Personally, nothing in the world seems more relevant to me than the skill of preservation.”

  “Do you remember what we always said restored pieces were?” he asked.

  I nodded, a smile forming on my lips. “Frozen moments of time,” I said, as old memories reattached themselves to my mind. “Each specimen tells a story: what the creature looked like, what its behaviour was, what it ate, and perhaps even how it died. Of course, some pieces reveal more than others. Some are frighteningly real, to the point where you feel you know them.”

  “They’re all the same though,” Menon said.

  “How do you mean?”

  He was staring into the shadows, his expression one of yearning, as he said in a hollow, detached voice, “The killer and his prey are the same.” He turned to me. “The fox and the hare; the cougar and the elk; the cheetah and the antelope—they’re all one and the same.” There was darkness in his voice and it made me considerably anxious. I noticed how strong Menon was, how his thick forearms jutted from beneath his rolled-up shirt sleeves. His hands, rough and calloused, looked more like the hands of a killer than a restorer.

  Even as I considered Menon’s physicality, I had a sudden vision of a cheetah, powerful and agile, thundering across the earth in pursuit of its prey. Its muscles moved with mechanical efficiency, but were driven by a pulsating desire that was human in its planning, yet animal in its desperation. It reached the antelope rapidly and leapt forward with murderous relish. Little did it know that it had just been frozen in time, for it was then that the gun fired, and the cheetah’s quest ended humbly; so mighty, so magnificent, yet so undeniably mortal.

  The restored cheetah in the diorama was lunging forward with its teeth bared. The antelope before it was frozen in an evasive posture. The scene looked vividly real, more compelling than video footage, and far more exhilarating than a photograph.

  I realised the tragedy behind this display: the antelope would forever be pursued by its predator, and the cheetah would forever remain frozen, a mere two feet from its prey.

  “You miss it,” Menon said, and I saw him eyeing me with an odd gleam in his cold eyes. He knew me well and was adept at guessing my thoughts. “The instincts are still there.”

  I nodded. “It’ll always be a part of me.” I touched the skin of the cheetah, feeling its genuine texture—I will not lie and say I did not look for unconcealed seams or stitches, but there were none to be found. The finish was flawless. I wasn’t sure what I envied more, the progress Menon had made as a taxidermist, or the fact that he was still a taxidermist while I wasn’t.

  I hadn’t touched my cutting blade in the six years since I had given up the art. I say “art,” though many would cringe at my using that word. Taxidermy is considered a dirty, crude trade. But as someone who wa
s once immersed mind, body and soul into the practice of preservation, I cannot imagine a more rewarding experience. When a specimen is successfully mounted, the taxidermist feels a sense of godliness, of having defied death and attained immortality. Finished specimens are more than models; they are fractions of life, preserved in three-dimensional forms.

  “You’ve improved dramatically,” I told him, ushering forward the best compliment I could manage, considering the torrent of bitterness raging within me.

  “I had a good teacher,” he said, humbly.

  But I shook my head. “You surpassed anything I ever achieved… I always thought I had the unique gift of capturing an animal’s character in its recreation, but you took it further.” The elephant’s eyes met mine. “You’ve captured its very soul.”

  The word struck me with deeper significance as I said it—soul. That’s precisely what I was seeing before me. Menon had captured every creature’s soul and projected it through its recreated form. It is said that when a creature dies, the soul escapes blameless, while the body is left behind to hold all of its sins. These specimens in Menon’s store were brimming with evil, with horrific misdeeds and sinful pasts, but their souls were intact, too. Trapped within their murderous forms, these souls were in turmoil, demanding to be freed.

  “Have you worked on any pieces since retirement?” he asked, as we left the cheetah and came up to two lionesses, nuzzling each other affectionately.

  “No,” I said, though I wondered if perhaps he had guessed it already.

  “The field is changing daily,” he said, conversationally. “The methods have advanced, but the attitude had regressed to a more romantic, old-fashioned time.”

  “How so?”

  “We aren’t merely content with capturing an animal’s form. We want to take a living being, with all its imperfections, its malice, its greed, its cruelty… and immortalise it.”