thesheedspot
12-10-2013, 03:54 PM
He sat in the corner of the Room, a ten by ten cell that was nothing but four off-white walls. Near the solid steel door on the far side of the Room from the man sat a tray of picked over food. The man sat with his head slumped to his chest, legs before him in a V, arms folded in his lap. Diagonal from the man, in the opposite corner, sat the Box. An innocuous box covered in brown paper and tied simply with a coarse piece of khaki string. A voice came over a loud speaker in the room and the man jerked awake, pulling his knees to his chest and covering his face with his arms. “It would have been my husband’s forty-fourth birthday today. Every time I look at our son’s face, I see his, but then I see yours. I hope after today that will change. I am pressing my button now.” The speaker went dead and the man eyed the Box. He waited. His pulse quickened, his fists clenched. Everything went white and he felt sick. Nothing happened.
Almost three years before he was placed in the Room, the man had placed his own box in a very public place. He had casually set his box down, walked away and pressed his own button. Nearly five hundred people were killed in the blast. A National manhunt was quickly launched and within two days time the man was apprehended. He never would say why he did it. During his trial there were three attempts made on his life. There were riots outside of the Courthouse. Eventually the man was moved to a different undisclosed location for the duration of his short- lived trial. A special Supreme Court session was held after he was unanimously found guilty of one of the worst single perpetrator crimes in history and a resolution was passed to enable the use of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. It was decided that conventional means of punishment were no longer adequate in dealing with the unconventional nature of the World.
The man was sentenced to die. That much he had anticipated. What he had not counted on was the method that was to be employed for his end. The State had contrived a special penalty in this case. The man was to be placed solitary in a Room, and in this Room would be a Box. The contents of the Box were to be decided by the victim’s families. Each family was allowed to place one object in the Box. Most people chose nails, screws, razors or other sharp shrapnel. Some, assured that Box itself was packed with enough lethal force to obliterate the man on its own accord, placed pictures of their loved ones lost. Some wrote letters. Once the Box was loaded with every item, it was to be placed in the Room with man. On the day they came to place their items, each family or person was given a remote. On one side of the remote was a button that connected directly into the Room. This button could only be pressed once, just as it was with the other Button. The Button on the other side of the remote was covered in a small plastic casing. Once this Button was pressed, the Box came closer to detonation. Only after every Button had been pressed would the story of the Room, the Box and the man finally have closure.
In the end, only one person, an elderly woman who had lost her husband, rebuffed participation. She said it was her right to place nothing as her object in the Box. Initially she had decided to decline to press the Button, refusing to have anything to do with the death of another human being. After much thought she realized this decision would only prolong what she felt was an “awful experiment”. She went to the Courthouse, placed her nothing in the Box, pressed the Button as soon as it was handed to her and then handed it back.
His first few days in the Room were spent pacing the far wall from the Box. He did mental calculations. How long will it take if a Button is pushed every minute, hour or day? The flap on the steel door would open and a tray of simple food and water would slide in. In the beginning he considered refusing to eat so he could starve himself to death and go out on his terms. One session with a feeding tube down his throat changed his mind on that. Even getting to have some human interaction wasn’t worth the pain of the tube. After what he guessed was a few months, the man began spending most of his time right beside the Box. He got so bold that he eventually began sitting on it and not long after that the man started talking to the Box. There were days where he would scream and rant at it and others where he was apologetic for being harsh towards it. After close to a year in the Room the day came where the man finally lashed out at the box. He was delirious from his extended isolation. First he slapped the top of the box with his open hands. Then he kicked it. Finally, in a fit of desperate rage, he tried to pick up the box and fling it across the room. It was too heavy, so he began throwing his whole body at the Box. Nothing came of it.
Outside the room the Button had become a phenomenon of its own. One man had tried to sell his Button in an online auction. The bids had reached thousands of dollars before the Government stepped in and shut it down. Local media outlets interviewed those who held the remotes. Some people held large parties, some public, others private, and ceremonialized the Button’s pressing. There were people who viewed the ones who pressed the Button already as either too weak or too compassionate. At the same time there were people who viewed anyone who had pressed the Button as a hero. A much smaller group existed that thought the whole thing was barbaric and retrograde and protested the entire process. The general opinion of and behavior towards this group was so vitriolic that they remained a mostly sequestered and silent minority.
…
He held the solid black remote in his left hand, flicking the plastic cover over the Button up and down. Up and down. His hand was shaking violently, the way it always did when he held it. It was dark in the house, the only light the trailing end of the sun setting behind him. The shadows on the table were long and familiar. Sitting the remote down on the table in front of him, he traded it for a glass of clear liquid, a trade he had made countless hundreds of times over the past two and a half years. The glass drained itself and was refilled. He picked up the remote, turned it over and exhaled deeply. He fought back the tears from his eyes and the bile in his throat. There was only one button on each side of the remote and he pressed the button labeled with a small speaker icon. He felt everything inside attempt to come out at once, everything but his words. In a Room that was only physically far away, the man became animate. The speaker inhaled, exhaled and finally spoke. “ I have waited this whole time hoping that every second of every day would be torture for you.” In an attempt to quell its shaking, he grabbed ahold of his hand with the other. “Every day I sit and ask myself when will it be long enough? How long to balance the ledger? How much torture am I capable of?”
Neither man knew that speaker was holding the last Button, but there was an edge in his voice that set this conversation apart from the nearly five hundred others. The man in the Room was nearly paralyzed. “But today I realized, that it wasn’t you that I was torturing.” He reached for the glass and its clear contents, but pulled his shaking hand back. “I realized that this would never balance any ledger. I realized, just now, that I forgive you. That I should have a long time ago.” The man in the Room stood up. “I hope that you can forgive me too.” The man eyed the Box, closed his eyes for the last time and nodded. A now steady hand rolled the remote over and flipped open the cover and calmly pressed the last Button.
The man in the Room opened his eyes. In the corner the Box sat there, unopened as ever; it had not detonated. The speaker came to life. “We wanted you to know, before we let you go, that We were in control the whole time. We hope that the Buttons were of some help, but there were only illusions of power. Goodbye.” And somewhere, very far away, the one and only Button was finally pressed.
Almost three years before he was placed in the Room, the man had placed his own box in a very public place. He had casually set his box down, walked away and pressed his own button. Nearly five hundred people were killed in the blast. A National manhunt was quickly launched and within two days time the man was apprehended. He never would say why he did it. During his trial there were three attempts made on his life. There were riots outside of the Courthouse. Eventually the man was moved to a different undisclosed location for the duration of his short- lived trial. A special Supreme Court session was held after he was unanimously found guilty of one of the worst single perpetrator crimes in history and a resolution was passed to enable the use of Cruel and Unusual Punishment. It was decided that conventional means of punishment were no longer adequate in dealing with the unconventional nature of the World.
The man was sentenced to die. That much he had anticipated. What he had not counted on was the method that was to be employed for his end. The State had contrived a special penalty in this case. The man was to be placed solitary in a Room, and in this Room would be a Box. The contents of the Box were to be decided by the victim’s families. Each family was allowed to place one object in the Box. Most people chose nails, screws, razors or other sharp shrapnel. Some, assured that Box itself was packed with enough lethal force to obliterate the man on its own accord, placed pictures of their loved ones lost. Some wrote letters. Once the Box was loaded with every item, it was to be placed in the Room with man. On the day they came to place their items, each family or person was given a remote. On one side of the remote was a button that connected directly into the Room. This button could only be pressed once, just as it was with the other Button. The Button on the other side of the remote was covered in a small plastic casing. Once this Button was pressed, the Box came closer to detonation. Only after every Button had been pressed would the story of the Room, the Box and the man finally have closure.
In the end, only one person, an elderly woman who had lost her husband, rebuffed participation. She said it was her right to place nothing as her object in the Box. Initially she had decided to decline to press the Button, refusing to have anything to do with the death of another human being. After much thought she realized this decision would only prolong what she felt was an “awful experiment”. She went to the Courthouse, placed her nothing in the Box, pressed the Button as soon as it was handed to her and then handed it back.
His first few days in the Room were spent pacing the far wall from the Box. He did mental calculations. How long will it take if a Button is pushed every minute, hour or day? The flap on the steel door would open and a tray of simple food and water would slide in. In the beginning he considered refusing to eat so he could starve himself to death and go out on his terms. One session with a feeding tube down his throat changed his mind on that. Even getting to have some human interaction wasn’t worth the pain of the tube. After what he guessed was a few months, the man began spending most of his time right beside the Box. He got so bold that he eventually began sitting on it and not long after that the man started talking to the Box. There were days where he would scream and rant at it and others where he was apologetic for being harsh towards it. After close to a year in the Room the day came where the man finally lashed out at the box. He was delirious from his extended isolation. First he slapped the top of the box with his open hands. Then he kicked it. Finally, in a fit of desperate rage, he tried to pick up the box and fling it across the room. It was too heavy, so he began throwing his whole body at the Box. Nothing came of it.
Outside the room the Button had become a phenomenon of its own. One man had tried to sell his Button in an online auction. The bids had reached thousands of dollars before the Government stepped in and shut it down. Local media outlets interviewed those who held the remotes. Some people held large parties, some public, others private, and ceremonialized the Button’s pressing. There were people who viewed the ones who pressed the Button already as either too weak or too compassionate. At the same time there were people who viewed anyone who had pressed the Button as a hero. A much smaller group existed that thought the whole thing was barbaric and retrograde and protested the entire process. The general opinion of and behavior towards this group was so vitriolic that they remained a mostly sequestered and silent minority.
…
He held the solid black remote in his left hand, flicking the plastic cover over the Button up and down. Up and down. His hand was shaking violently, the way it always did when he held it. It was dark in the house, the only light the trailing end of the sun setting behind him. The shadows on the table were long and familiar. Sitting the remote down on the table in front of him, he traded it for a glass of clear liquid, a trade he had made countless hundreds of times over the past two and a half years. The glass drained itself and was refilled. He picked up the remote, turned it over and exhaled deeply. He fought back the tears from his eyes and the bile in his throat. There was only one button on each side of the remote and he pressed the button labeled with a small speaker icon. He felt everything inside attempt to come out at once, everything but his words. In a Room that was only physically far away, the man became animate. The speaker inhaled, exhaled and finally spoke. “ I have waited this whole time hoping that every second of every day would be torture for you.” In an attempt to quell its shaking, he grabbed ahold of his hand with the other. “Every day I sit and ask myself when will it be long enough? How long to balance the ledger? How much torture am I capable of?”
Neither man knew that speaker was holding the last Button, but there was an edge in his voice that set this conversation apart from the nearly five hundred others. The man in the Room was nearly paralyzed. “But today I realized, that it wasn’t you that I was torturing.” He reached for the glass and its clear contents, but pulled his shaking hand back. “I realized that this would never balance any ledger. I realized, just now, that I forgive you. That I should have a long time ago.” The man in the Room stood up. “I hope that you can forgive me too.” The man eyed the Box, closed his eyes for the last time and nodded. A now steady hand rolled the remote over and flipped open the cover and calmly pressed the last Button.
The man in the Room opened his eyes. In the corner the Box sat there, unopened as ever; it had not detonated. The speaker came to life. “We wanted you to know, before we let you go, that We were in control the whole time. We hope that the Buttons were of some help, but there were only illusions of power. Goodbye.” And somewhere, very far away, the one and only Button was finally pressed.