“Begin the procedure.” The Doctor is now in charge and the prison orderlies act promptly. The Warden, the Chaplain, and several staff stand to one side and watch silently. The Chaplain clutches his bible close to his chest uncomfortably; it always feels heavy at an execution. Prisoner 213478 has been brought in from death row on a gurney, strapped down and buckled tightly, though his head remains free. At first he looks around in a panic as the orderlies rush here and there, tubes and jars and equipment in their hands. But slowly his eyes settle on the stuffy Chaplain. Then the Warden, standing there with so much silent pomp and superiority and that perpetually-curled lip. Neither return his stares, with a pronounced disdain. At last his eyes settle on the Doctor, who cannot help but look back. The interest transcends professional or medical necessity; it feels more like a personal matter to him. Every death is for the good of society, and the Doctor feels a grim satisfaction in the part he plays.
213478 was once a strong man, certainly before imprisonment. Yes, the Doctor can see just by looking at him why he ended up incarcerated; in his heyday he must have been quite the threat. Even now he seems a menace, strong jawed and sharp-nosed, with those aggressive brows and icy blue eyes. His cheeks have since hollowed out and his uniform seems oversized and ill-fit. His skin is pale and dry-looking; sickly, in fact. But that’s how they all look after a while, the Doctor shrugs as he prepares the first injection. It is a small dose of anesthetic phencyclidine, to numb without altogether removing 213478 from consciousness. An IV is inserted into his hand and taped down; the Doctor administers the drug and watches as 213478 reacts, first with a start, then with a shift as his body sinks into a malaise. Devoid of his muscle-mass and drugged up, 213478 seems rat-like and sinister. Not even sinister; simply untrustworthy and unlikable.
The IV is flushed with saline solution, the orderlies monitor his heart rate and vitals, and the Doctor prepares the next stage of injections. The bottle of tubocurarine chloride looks like the others in the cabinet, benign and rather dull. A regular dose of this has been found to slow down the body’s breathing; larger doses shut it down entirely. The doctor prepares something that should act just short of this and injects it. 213478 stares vacantly at the ceiling, scarcely there at all anymore. Just a body taking up valuable gurney space. What an age, the Doctor marvels, where a human being can be reduced to nothing with a few small injections. Would that all life’s problems be solved by science!
“Could we hurry this up?” the Warden asks through a yawn. A staffer plays with the buttons on his jacket while the Chaplain shifts from foot to foot, looking rather uncomfortable. The Doctor just dismisses them with a wave of his hand; one cannot rush science. He prepares the final injection, from a bottle whose label he has rather unprofessionally penciled a cartoonish death’s head on. The potassium chloride has a uriney quality, yellow and thin-looking. The Doctor prepares a lethal dose of it as 213478 continues looking off in an unconcerned stupor. He is miles away, to be sent indefinitely farther. A sort of permanent exile, for the betterment of society. He will not be missed. None of them will.
“Goodbye, you monster.” The Doctor injects the lethal piss into 213478, who anticlimactically seems dead already. He sputters once, then dies. The orderlies swoop in unceremoniously to remove the IV and prepare the body for removal. “He’s dead,” the Doctor tells the Warden. With a curt nod and a peremptory “Heil Hitler” he and his staff and the Chaplain exit the room. The Doctor watches as the orderly wheels 213478 out through a different door, toward the crematorium. He puts his bottles back into the cabinet and locks it, wondering if anything useful might be gained from the vitals. At the very least, they’ve developed a procedure superior to the crude hangman’s rope. Scientific, and far more civilized.
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