I felt something moist beneath my foot this morning. Under my heel, to be specific. It took a while to register. I wasn’t fully awake. I turned on the hall light next to the bathroom. I looked at the floor. There was a small brown stain in the shape of New Zealand. Toby must have coughed something up. I reached under the kitchen sink for a bottle of stain remover, aimed the nozzle at the stain, and squeezed the trigger. A fine spray came out. It made a sound that was one part whisper, one part hiss, and one part gurgle. I rubbed the stain with a paper towel. It came up easily.
Morning is a delicate time. I emerge into consciousness slowly. If it happens too fast, I’ll be in a shitty mood all day. If it happens gently, calmly, quietly, there is a change the day may flow forward as gracefully as a Yankee clipper.
Dolphins leaping at its side.
I dollop out some food for Toby, pour some coffee, and sit down in front of the computer. I google the New York Times. The state of Georgia executed Tory Davis. I find this deeply sad. They quite possibly executed an innocent man. Seven witnesses recanted their testimony. There was significant doubt that Davis had murdered Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Davis insisted on his innocence right up to the last moment before he was executed with lethal injection. Amnesty International, Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, and even the Pope pled for clemency and a stay of execution. Carter wrote “executing Troy Davis without a real examination of potentially exonerating evidence risks taking the life of an innocent man and would be a grave miscarriage of justice.”
The news is a stain, but this stain can’t be removed. It is a stain on humanity. A foul discoloring of the soul.
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1 comment:
It's an outrage. I vehemently oppose the death penalty. We're far too fallible, and the state doesn't have the authority to take a life. Shameful!
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