{"id":15312,"date":"2025-12-26T14:54:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T20:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jeffhood\/?p=15312"},"modified":"2025-12-26T14:54:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T20:54:59","slug":"the-demise-of-the-executioner-a-parable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jeffhood\/the-demise-of-the-executioner-a-parable\/","title":{"rendered":"The Demise of the Executioner: A Parable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Demise
Demise of the Executioner \/ AI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

*The characters and events in this parable<\/a> are entirely fictional.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Demise of the Executioner<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Death came for the executioner the way it comes for everyone.<\/p>\n

He had spent decades watching others cross over. Forty-seven men and women. He had memorized their final breaths. He knew the exact second when life leaves the body\u2026that moment when the eyes go somewhere else. He thought he understood it.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t understand anything.<\/p>\n

The Chamber<\/strong><\/h2>\n

He opened his eyes to a room he recognized. The chamber. The same pale green walls. The same fluorescent hum. The same gurney bolted to the floor.<\/p>\n

He was strapped to it.<\/p>\n

He could feel the leather on his wrists. He could smell the antiseptic and something else underneath it\u2026that smell the cleaning crew could never get out. He used to think he was imagining it. Now he knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t what?\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned his head and there was Marcus Williams. Execution number twenty-three. A Tuesday in October. They had trouble finding a vein that day. The executioner remembered standing there watching them dig. Dig and dig. Marcus never made a sound.<\/p>\n

Orange jumpsuit. Shaved head. That tired look the dying get.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarcus. I was just doing my job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts decided. The juries. The state. I just\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcus sat down. Folded his hands the way he had when he prayed before they pushed the plunger. The executioner remembered that too. Watching this man pray for the men about to kill him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting for you,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cI need to ask you something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The executioner didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter me there were twenty-four more. I watched you do it twenty-four more times. Check the lines. Mix the chemicals. Give the nod. I watched you go home after. I watched you sit in your truck in the driveway for an hour before you could go inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

The executioner\u2019s eyes went wet. He had forgotten anyone could see that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched you take a shower so hot it burned you. I watched you pour the drink. I watched you sit in front of the television not seeing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcus leaned close. His breath was cold.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you keep killing people?\u201d<\/p>\n

The executioner opened his mouth and nothing came out. All those words he had practiced. Lawful orders. The system. One small part. They had made so much sense when he was standing. They were nothing now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Marcus said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stood. Walked to the door. Stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone else wants to ask you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Victim<\/strong><\/h2>\n

She was younger than he remembered from the photos.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Torres. Nineteen years old. Night shift at a gas station. Paying for nursing school. Marcus Williams shot her for forty-three dollars and a pack of cigarettes. She bled out on the floor next to the candy aisle. The Snickers were on sale.<\/p>\n

The executioner had looked at her picture before every execution Marcus was on the calendar. He had needed her face to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cRebecca. I\u2019m so sorry for what happened to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t say anything for a long time. Just looked at him. Then:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you keep killing people?\u201d<\/p>\n

His chest caved.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor you,\u201d he said. \u201cI did it for you. For justice\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t ask you to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you took his. Then you took another one. And another. Forty-seven people. You put them through what I went through in that gas station and you did it in my name.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was crying now. The tears ran sideways into his ears. He couldn\u2019t wipe them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never wanted more death,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to live. I wanted to be a nurse. I wanted to hold people\u2019s hands when they were scared and tell them it was going to be okay. I was twenty credits away.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stopped. Looked at the wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about those twenty credits a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was honoring you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were burying me. Every execution you buried me deeper. You made my death into a bottomless pit and you just kept throwing bodies in.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sat down.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid it bring me back?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid it help my mama?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid it stop the next one? The next robbery? The next girl working nights?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen why?\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t have an answer. He had never had an answer. He had just kept showing up.<\/p>\n

The Forty-Seven<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Then\u2026 The gurney was gone. The straps. The room.<\/p>\n

He just sat there in the gray nothing.<\/p>\n

They were there. All of them. Forty-seven. He could see their faces now. The ones who cried. The ones who screamed verses at him. The ones who went limp. The ones who looked at him and said thank you like he was doing them a favor. He had never understood that. He still didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

One of them\u2026number thirty-one, a woman named Darlene who had killed her husband with a hammer\u2026she was standing closest. He remembered that she had begged for her life.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t angry. That was the thing. He almost wished they were.<\/p>\n

They were just waiting. Waiting for him to walk toward them. To sit down. To finally see them as something other than what he had made them\u2026problems to be solved with chemicals and silence.<\/p>\n

He took a step.<\/p>\n

It was the hardest thing he had ever done.<\/p>\n

The Living<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I don\u2019t know what happens to the souls of executioners when they die.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a room. A gurney with their name on it. A line of the dead waiting to ask questions that don\u2019t have answers.<\/p>\n

But I know the questions don\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re already here.<\/p>\n

It Doesn\u2019t Have to Happen<\/h2>\n

For every corrections officer who has walked into that room. For every one scheduled to walk in next month or next year. The questions are already here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you keep killing people?\u201d<\/p>\n

You can answer now. In this life. Before the gray nothing. Before the faces.<\/p>\n

You can just stop\u2026and save your soul in the process.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

*
\n*If you would like to support the Execution Intervention Project (the organization that financially supports Dr. Hood\u2019s work), click\u00a0here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*The characters and events in this parable are entirely fictional. The Demise of the Executioner Death came for the executioner the way it comes for everyone. He had spent decades watching others cross over. Forty-seven men and women. He had memorized their final breaths. He knew the exact second when life leaves the body\u2026that moment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2509,"featured_media":15315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[90,506,8487,829,1135,8490],"class_list":["post-15312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freshwritings","category-thoughts","tag-abolition","tag-capital-punishment","tag-corrections-officers","tag-death-penalty","tag-executioner","tag-spiritual-reckoning"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Demise of the Executioner: A Parable<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Demise of the Executioner. 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Dr. Jeff Hood is a Catholic priest (Old Catholic), theologian, and nationally recognized activist based in North Little Rock, Arkansas. A spiritual advisor to death row inmates across the country, Dr. Hood has accompanied more people to their executions than any other advisor in the U.S., including the first-ever nitrogen hypoxia execution in 2024. His work sits at the intersection of justice, radical compassion, and public theology. Dr. Hood holds advanced degrees from Auburn, Emory, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, University of Alabama, Creighton, and Brite Divinity School, among others. He also earned a PhD in metaphysical theology and founded The New Theology School, where he serves as Dean and Professor of Prophetic Theology. Author of over 100 books\u2014including the award-winning The Courage to Be Queer\u2014Dr. Hood\u2019s writings and activism have been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, CNN, and more. 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