The Unlawful and Unprovoked Murder of Richard Haskins

By Michael Gryboski

“This was a good man, with a progressive mind and an eye for the future,” said the congressman, standing on the floor of the House. “It is a pity, no rather a shame, that this administration is not actively aiding President Haskins,” he continued, annunciating every syllable to every word. “Rather, we are letting him be at the mercy of the religious fundamentalist terrorists who brutally kicked this democratically elected leader out of office and are set to execute him. How can we condone such an injustice?”

“I have my doubts,” said Mark, who was seated by the desk facing the outside. They were all in that one room, on office with a window to the overall facility. There was no joy in that room. Some discarded and unimportant papers were laid out on the wooden desk, but none paid them any mind.
“We agreed to it, we made a vow that he could not be allowed to live,” said John, looking at the cell from the room. It was a bland gray with three bars covering the only square window. The prison was otherwise empty. His hand covered his forehead, elbow leaning on the archway to the open door.
“That man deserves to die. We cannot hope to be legitimate unless we show how serious we really are,” added Jacob. “Most certainly all of you believe that.”
“But he was elected. If we do this, we are inviting the rage of Western Civilization,” said Mark.
“Then so be it,” replied Jacob. I have quit caring.”
“As have I,” said Michael, the clergyman of the group.
“If none of you care,” said Mark as he stood up, “then neither will I.”

With that, the men left the office. They summoned the guarding soldiers, who went to the cell and, with some resistance, put funeral clothes on Richard Haskins and bound him. Soldiers were on every side of him, and additional ones arrived with John, Mark, Michael, and Jacob after they put on the proper garments and gathered together the necessary items for the execution of unfortunate Richard Haskins. The decent man, now bound in chains, about to be killed by his usurpers. Two soldiers and a drummer boy went in front of all who were just outside of the prison and awaiting the order. The drummer boy at the very front, a couple soldiers behind him, the leaders behind them, a half-dozen soldiers guarding the condemned, and lastly another pair of soldiers at the rear. They all faced in one direction, the grassy hilltop ahead. No manmade road led there, merely torn light brown soil.

Then the drummer started. Like a heartbeat, the lub-dub of the snare-drum signaled to everyone within auditory range that the procession had begun. It was supposed to be a public execution, but few people from nearby left their homes to view. Fear was rampant, no one knew if watching the event would imply consent, for the whole world was in some way watching this scene. Already several nations had were drafting a resolution condemning those executioners, and men like that congressman were demanding sanctions or even military intervention. Maybe if they did not watch the execution of that innovative individual who was sentenced to die, then maybe the world would show pity.

Richard Haskins did what passive things he could to resist. He slowed his walking, dragging his feet. Every time he did, a red haired soldier behind him would push Haskins, sending him a little more forward. Poor Haskins thought this crimson haired soldier probably took a sadistic pleasure from each forceful push. None of the leaders, John, Mark, Jacob, or Michael looked back. They knew, unlike Haskins, there was no escape for the popularly elected man sent to the hilltop to be killed in a brutal, medieval way. They had opted for the stake and fire; John had decided it would be the best way to remove Richard from the earth. At that moment, Haskins could only hope for rescue.

Michael, the clergyman, was wearing his sacred vestments and with his right hand held a golden cross, equivalent to the length of his waist to his shoulders. This cross had a flattened bottom, for it was at one time put upon an altar in the church where Michael ministered, but does not now. This was because when Richard Haskins came to power he declared that the nation would be advancing “Scientific Socialism”, and saw fit to remove what he deemed the dogmas holding back enlightened man. Haskins had squadrons of soldiers go forth into cities and towns to destroy all things religious. Scores of churches were converted into hospitals, factories, or even barns. Many were dynamited. Michael’s church was one of those leveled. He would have resisted the soldiers, but when they got to his sanctuary Michael, along with hundreds of clergy, had been exiled.

Walking steadily and with a heavy heart was Mark, who held a medium-sized black leathern Bible. Haskins was a good man, he noted the Bible with drooping eyes as he was pushed yet again. It was beautiful copy, with gold lettering and silvery page edges. It was also one of the few copies not thrown into the many bonfires that dotted many plaza squares of many cities while the democratically elected Haskins ruled. He sent men to storm peoples’ houses and confiscate and then burn endless copies of the Good Book. The fiery procedure was part of his plan to modernize the nation. Haskins was so determined that he made it a capital offense to own a Bible. Mark was carrying his copy, the one that landed him in prison for a couple years. His execution date had been set for a mere seven days from that very moment under the Haskins administration.

With beat of the drum, boom-boom, boom-boom, the group of soldiers, leaders, and victim moved up the grassy hill to where the stake resided. Like a flagpole without a banner, its thin dark frame pointed to the sky. Poor Richard looked up only briefly, bowing his head down as they walked on, with Jacob turning briefly to view the wretched soul behind him. Jacob, unlike his comrades, was not particularly religious. He was a lawyer, fitting since he carried with him a copy of the next book soundly rejected by the gracious Haskins: the law. This was because many lawyers and legal jurists began to oppose the Haskins administration, including Jacob and his brother, also a lawyer. They took issue with the growingly violent ways Haskins dealt with religionists. For these crimes Haskins turned the military on the lawyers and their families. In a given evening, whole families disappeared, oftentimes ending up in prison and other times in shallow graves in the hinterlands. As the prisons filled to capacity, Haskins solved the problem by executing the most vocal of his critics via firing squad. One of those critics was Jacob’s brother.

The drummer boy, his name is Samuel Roberts, led the small troupe to the top of the hill, where he had been before. His small eyes had seen much on this hill, for this was not the first time he had come. To its eastern side there was a ditch, full of countless bones and corpses, some still being picked at by the birds. As dissent became more widespread, more people had to be liquidated. Haskins would spend hours signing death warrants everyday, as prisons were emptied and filled at an increasing rate. Drummer boys like Samuel saw many killed by firing squad, people of both sexes, numerous religious sects, and often in groups. The system was repetitive: people were lined up, the firing squad lined up, they would open fire and the corpses would fall lifeless down the hill into the ditch. There was only one execution Samuel did not see and that was the execution of the Roberts couple for suspected collaboration with the rebels. As time passed, justification for killing vanished alongside any freedoms the populace once had. Such was what Haskins did for the progress of the future.

The snare drum was silent. They all stood in semicircle around the stake, which had some logs at the bottom. At the order of the cleric Michael, one of the soldiers led Samuel Roberts from the hill back to town. Now two soldiers held Richard Haskins as cleric Michael led the small group into a prayer. It was brief and Haskins shouted through the whole thing, as though trying to blot it out as he had other prayers and open displays of religion. After the prayer, the two soldiers tied Haskins to the stake. He struggled as much as possible here, so that soldier who had pushed him up the hill whenever he slowed, the red haired man, helped with the tying. In the struggle the crimson haired soldier had to remove his gloves to secure the bonds better and in doing so revealed scarring along his wrist.

Although a member of the army, that was not sufficient to protect him. As Haskins found more traitors, many of them came from the military. Or at least, the decent president believed them to be traitors. Regardless, purges began even as units were being sent to various parts of the country to crush uprisings against the administration. In the purge the man became one of tens of thousands thrown into hellish prisons, shackled for long hours, sometimes days or even weeks. Whenever they were not torturing him, they tortured another, one whose identity was noted in passing as his gloveless hand showed an indentation along the ring finger. A torturer pulled it off his finger when it appeared the red-haired man had died of deprivation, which was not an uncommon fate for those languishing where he languished. It was the last indignity, preceded by government agents violating his wife in front of his eyes and eventually executing her on that hill. The red-haired soldier who stepped away as the bonds were secured could be named, but to name all the victims of Richard Haskins would take too long a time and would required much research, for many documents that held such information were destroyed in a futile effort to cover his tracks.

To the front of the semicircle around the stake with Haskins tied to it was Jacob, who opened the law book, which contained the soon to be re-acknowledged constitution. “Richard Haskins,” Jacob began, “for the charges of suspension of constitutional law, violation of human rights including but not exclusive to the right to life, liberty, fraternity, and property, for the unlawful executions of countless citizens without trial or reasonable evidence of guilt, for committing offenses against people of conscience, acts of blasphemy, sacrilege, and destruction of sacred objects, and for other malicious and unprovoked crimes against humanity not discovered at this time, the new republic of our nation finds you guilty on all counts and sentences you to be burned at the stake until dead. May God have mercy upon your soul.”

Jacob then closed the law book and moved away from Haskins. As he stood along the crowd Mark walked to where Haskins was tied with the Bible and opened it, shaking some as he read from it. “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's—“

Suddenly Haskins spat upon Mark, hitting him on the cheek and interrupting the reading. “You stupid little boy, when will you start to stand on your own two feet?!” sneered the good and decent president.

With the spit slowly crawling down Mark’s cheek, he calmly turned several pages in the Bible as Haskins had a crude smile, nearing a bout of laughter. Then, seldom looking down at the page, he read another passage: “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

As he shut the Bible and walked away, the smile of Haskins was gone. Walking to where the other leaders were, Mark, John, Michael, and Jacob watched as the soldiers did what they were told. Two soldiers came forward, the crimson haired one and another, who was carrying a five-galloon gasoline can. “No, you can’t do this,” said Haskins, sensing only now his mortality. “You have no right to do this. I am your president! Your ruler! I say you cannot do this!” At first the soldiers ignored him, but as his shouting got louder, the soldier with the gasoline tank started to hesitate. “I am meant to lead you into the future, removing the dogmatic yokes imposed upon you by the likes of them.” The other soldier pushed himself to do what he was ordered to do and he poured the gasoline on the head of his former ruler and then only too happily stood away. This left only the red-haired soldier.

“You wouldn’t dare. The world is on my side. Do you hear me?! You will all be destroyed! If you kill me, this unlawful and unprovoked murder, the world will rise against you. You will all be destroyed!”

There was fear, hesitation as they heard him. Undaunted, the red haired soldier lit the match and then replied, “You first.” With that he dropped the match on the dampened logs and the fire arose. Harsh screams resounded from him, as his flesh was burned off. The sight was so horrid that most of those looking had to turn away. Some were brought to trauma, as the screams harkened them back to their days in the dungeons. After eternal minutes, however, the screaming stopped and his charred body dipped into the flames, and with that Richard Haskins was dead, his corpse feeding the still viable conflagration. All those standing there were uncertain of the future, for they could not undo that which they had done. Some would disapprove, everyone had their opinion. Somewhere on that day, in town, on the radios and on the televisions, which had in the past pumped out the propaganda of the state, making the now dead leader appear righteous, stations carried the oration of leaders abroad regarding the event, including the words of that misinformed Congressman:

“This was a good man, with a progressive mind and an eye for the future. It is a pity, no rather a shame, that this administration is not actively aiding President Haskins. Rather, we are letting him be at the mercy of the religious fundamentalist terrorists who brutally kicked this democratically elected leader out of office and are set to execute him. How can we condone such an injustice?”