He woke up once to the warden knocking against the bars once again. As he came to, a painful wave of realization radiated down from his heart all the way to the tips of his toes, leaving his legs stinging afterwards. “Jones! Up!” The warden shouted. Jones quickly snapped his eyes open, realizing that he had kept them closed while he thought. As he slowly sat up, he looked at the cell wall. Seven marks had been etched into the steel walls of the prison cell. It had been a week now. He rested his hands on his knees and tried to slow his pounding heart rate. “How can I go on like this?” He asked himself. In his drowsiness, his eyes drooped and his mind replayed the same scene which had been haunting him for months now.
It was Friday evening, around eight o’ clock. Mrs. Jones and their eight year old son Toby were out visiting some friends. Walter Jones was in his mid-to-late thirties, and worked as a teller at the local bank. As he set his bag down and unpacked his lunch, he mused about what he might do with his time home alone. It had been a long week, and he was looking forward to changing out of his work clothes, heating up some supper, and relaxing on the couch to watch his favourite television program. After making himself a can of soup from the pantry, he went upstairs to change. While in the bathroom, he spotted his pill bottle on the counter. “Nothing’s happening, I’m just staying home tonight, I don’t need to take one right now, besides, I don’t want to use them all up before I can get to the doctor” Jones told himself. After heading back downstairs and setting up the T.V., he began to relax and enjoy the evening. After the end of the episode he was watching, Jones decided that he had enough time to browse through some other T.V. shows that he might be interested in. It was only eight o’ clock now, his wife and son weren’t supposed to be home until after nine. While looking through the catalogue, Jones heard a strange noise. “It’s just the house creaking. Sometimes it does things like that.” He tried to assure himself. A minute or so later, he heard the noise again. Jones fought against himself and began to stand up from the couch, and walk into the hallway. “Hello?” He asked cautiously. No answer. He began to walk around the rest of the house, but didn’t make it past the front door without hearing the strange creaking again. His palms began to grow sweaty, as they always did whenever he experienced anxiety. Jones decided to walk upstairs and as he did, he realized that he had forgotten to lock the door on his way in from work. This, combined with the fact that he was never sure whether Toby knew to lock the doors when he was the last one in the house, and he was now second-guessing whether it was locked when he came home was enough to send him creeping up the stairs and into the bedroom. He wasn’t exactly sure what he might do once he got there, perhaps call his wife and ask if they might come home a bit early. Jones would never want to put his wife and son in danger, however, he knew that whenever he got worried about a similar situation, it was always completely in his head. He tried to remind himself of this, but the lack of anxiety medication was beginning to show its effects. He quietly locked the door and reached into his pocket to call Mrs. Jones. His hand fell upon empty material. He frantically began to search for his cell phone before realizing that he had left it in his work clothes, and had forgotten to take it out when he got changed. The landline lay by his bed, but he then became too embarrassed to call his wife. What if her friends heard him being afraid of a few bumps and creaks from the house? “That’s alright, I’ll just watch T.V. in here until they get back, no big deal.” He rationalized. He reached for the remote and began trying to search for programs to distract himself. His eyes fell upon the pill bottle through the doorway once again, but he decided that the medicine might hinder his reflexes in case something really were to happen. Less than 30 seconds into a show, he heard banging coming from the floor below. He quickly paused the show and crept up to the door to try and hear what was going on. He heard voices, but none that he recognized. The deep voice of a middle-aged man murmured, and another voice, which Jones could not identify as male or female answered. Jones could not make out any words, but by now his entire body was pained from the fear stemming from his racing heart. He looked over at the closet, and decided that desperate times call for desperate measures. He unlocked the safe and removed the gun which had never once been used. It was merely for piece of mind in case some obscure situation were to occur. Mrs. Jones had refused to let him keep it in the nightstand, and after that, Jones had begun worrying it might accidentally go off in the night, and decided that the safe was the best place for it to be stored as well, after all, things like this never happened in their neighborhood, but Jones was the type of man to prepare for the unlikliest of events. He took the gun into his hand and made sure it was ready, he slowly stepped towards the door and waited, it was possible that the intruders were just burglars. Perhaps they would steal some items and then leave. After a few more moments of silence, a wave of rationality came over him, and he decided to open the door and ask “Hello”, just to see if it was possible that the noises were his wife. He carefully opened the door, making sure that the phone was at the ready in case it was indeed danger, and he needed to contact the police quickly. “Hello?” He spoke out to the open air of the house. “Hello” the man’s voice laughed. It may have been sarcastic, but Jones interpreted it as menacing with not a doubt in his mind. He frantically closed the door once more, his fingers shaking over the buttons on the phone. Even though he was almost certain that the police would be needed, he still could not overcome his lesser fear of the authorities arriving just to find out that he had been afraid of some harmless visitors in his house. While fighting with himself, he heard the creak of the stairs leading up to his room, and he quickly shuffled over to the wall, so that the shadows of his feet would not be visible underneath the door. The footsteps changed as they hit the wooden floor compared to the carpeted stairs. It seemed no mystery to Jones now, this was how he was going to die, unless he could shoot them first. As the steps grew closer, Jones realized his greatest mistake. The knob on the door began to turn, and he hated himself for overlooking locking the door once more after opening it to test the intruders. How could he have been so stupid? It was no use now as instinct took over and he wrapped his finger around the trigger of the firearm which he had never used before. He hoped with everything pulsing nerve in his body that it would work. The second the door opened enough to shoot, Jones fired almost every bullet in the gun. It took him at least 7 shots before he was able to see that he had not, in fact, saved himself from a murderer, but instead, Mr. Jones had killed his wife.
Unfortunately, as if the universe did not see enough tragedy in one day, even after Jones had realized what he had done, he was convinced that his wife must have been running to safety from the supposed intruders, and shot up the arm of Mr. Rend, one of Mrs. Jones’ friends in an attempt to kill him. His wife and young son, one of Toby’s friends were able to stop Jones from doing any further damage while screaming that they had only been here on account of Mrs. Jones inviting them over for dessert after spending the day with them, and the response deemed as a threat by Jones was merely a confused laugh from Mr. Rend.
The trial went on for a while, Jones was convicted with murder of Mrs. Jones and attempted murder of Mr. Rend. Jones tried his best to have the jury convinced of his intentions, and even of his clouded mental judgement due to his anxiety, but since it had never been professionally diagnosed, it was difficult to argue for. His pills had been borrowed from his wife who had them left over during a bad period in her life where she struggled to drive after being in an accident, so he had no prescription to show that they belonged to him either. The court decided that he had greatly overreacted to the situation and even questioned whether his narrative was truthful. In the end, Walter Jones was placed on death row at Texas State Penitentiary.
Jones snapped out of the painful memories of the last few months as the warden once again pounded on his cell bars. “Let’s go!” He shouted. Jones reluctantly stood up and waited for the doors to be opened. Although he felt as if he might throw up if he tried to eat breakfast, his body needed nutrition, as it had been days since he last ate. It had only been seven days since he had arrived at the prison, but it already felt as though he had spent most of his life here. Waking up to shouting, struggling to compose himself, forcing himself to choke down food and heaving all day from the nerves. Walter knew he was going to die, there was no hope anymore. The only thing that might console him was the thought that perhaps, after a while, he would grow so anxious that his body might give out on its own.
It had been a year since Jones had been imprisoned, and though it was bleak, he was grateful for the little improvement which had occurred. A couple months in, the anxiety had subsided, and was in turn replaced with depression. Jones decided that he would rather be sad than scared, to put it in much simpler terms. He was able to eat properly, but was losing ambition to do little more than get up for meals and sit staring at the sky all day. Today there was something to hold on to though, for today Toby would be coming in to speak to him through the partition cubicle. Jones was worried, however, that the now nine year old boy would now be afraid of him, and would only ever see his father a murderer; as the man that took his beloved mother away from him. Jones hoped that the boy’s Aunt and Uncle were taking good care of him, and that they had not turned him against him.
Five years since the horrid day that changed Mr. Jones’ life forever was the day that he made a friend. One-thousand-seven-hundred and thirteen marks were now on the walls, which Jones had also covered in small drawings. As the warden let everyone out for their morning meal, a new face emerged from the cell beside him. Devin Irewell had been convicted of third degree murder, but swore on his life that he was innocent. By this point in time, Jones had become so numb to everything in life that he no longer cared who was innocent or who was guilty, but he was desperate to have some form of a friend. The two sat together at breakfast that morning, and began to slowly connect over the following weeks.
Just two years after Jones and Irewell had met, an execution date was set. Jones could not bear the thought of losing his only source of happiness, but knew there was nothing to be done. Irewell had spoken of his death many times before, and seemed not concerned in the slightest. He was a history lover, and told Jones that many times before had the innocent died for atrocities which they did not commit, and he held it a great honour to joins their ranks should he live until the time was right. Jones greatly admired his courage, and often wondered what it would be like for himself when the day finally came. It seemed unfair that his friend would be the first to go; not because he deserved more time to live, but because he envied Irewell. It was agony going on like this. Even without fear, the days all melted together, leaving Jones on the edge of insanity with every waking moment. Now, with Irewell gone, it would be even more unbearable, as it was before he arrived.
The day of the execution was a stormy one. They were woken up the same as always, but the extra guards standing by Irewell’s cell made it clear what was about to take place. As Irewell stepped out into the hall for the last time, he gave a small smile to Jones. “Don’t lose hope Walter, it’s never over until it is.” He told him. Jones tried to smile back and nodded, putting on a brave face for his friend. He couldn’t help the silent tears which slipped from his eyes as he watched the guards lead him out to the execution chamber. They didn’t have any trouble taking him, Irewell seemed completely at ease with his fate.
It seemed not long after Irewell was gone that Jones’ own date was set. In a twisted way, he was glad. It had been torture going on alone again after having a friend for the time that he did. Things were getting worse for both his mental and physical state. Although he was terrified, it was not of death itself, but rather, the fear of being afraid. At the moment, he could go and sit on the electric chair calmy, but he feared that when the time came, he would not feel the same. All he could hope was that this feeling would last.
The morning of Walter Jones’ execution by electric chair came slower than he would have wanted. The peace faded quickly after having time to think about the day of his death, but over time grew to a desire to die as soon as possible, the anticipation was far worse than the actual execution. As the guards dragged him out, the sun blinded his eyes for a few moments, and he mused over the irony of the universe. To everyone else outside it would have seemed an ordinary day, perhaps even better due to the beautiful weather. As he passed all the other cells, it occurred to him how dark and twisted this entire system was. Here he was, a troubled man who had only thought he was protecting himself from certain death all those years ago, now facing that very same thing. He was convicted on account of the death of an innocent woman which he did not intend to cause, yet here was the state willfully causing his. As he was strapped into the contraption of his death, he felt sorrow for the others who were struggling the same as he had. Agonizing over when they might die, weeping over the loss of their friends, and begging for it all to end sooner. As the executioner grabbed onto the switch, and Jones’ eyes scanned the room of all those watching his terrible end, as if they were watching some sort of film, he could only think two things. One, that his suffering would finally end, and two, that if he did not have to die, it might not have been so bad in the first place; and so, when asked for his final statement, it only made sense for Walter Jones to express these four words.
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