The Hangman's Replacement: Sprout of Disruption (BOOK 1)

by Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

  Though my eyes and hands are committed, my voice box is not. At present, I am also on the phone with a man who is renowned for his awkward syntax. However, given the state of my own letter, I must confess my guilt for the same sin. Still, I am half-asleep. What’s his excuse? In any event, my impaired communication is defensible. I am writing a letter to an old friend whose non-judgmental nature is his greatest virtue. Unless the subject is taxation, of course.

  Now, how are you, Percival?

  Though your well-being is a sufficient justification to write to you, my contact was inspired by an additional purpose.

  Beyond all the tasks that are engaging the wakeful part of my brain, the sleeping half is tangled in a recurring nightmare. It has haunted me for many years now. I do not experience it every night, but there is a rhythm to the recurrence. I cannot quite put my finger on it ... The nightmare taunts me. With your permission, I wish to share a live narration as it unfolds.

  I am standing in a massive hall. It is so large that I cannot even see its walls. There are endless rows of tables and chairs. They stretch as far as the eye can see. All are arranged in close, neat rows like the kernels on a healthy cob of corn.

  All the chairs at the table are taken. Everyone is eating. This is not the sort of consumption that one indulges for nutrition or to satisfy gluttony. There is an industrial discipline to this communal event. These people have a mission. They are trying to finish all the food in the world.

  More accurately, they are trying to eat all the fruits and vegetables in existence. I do not know if they will succeed, but I recognize progress when I see it.

  I cannot remember any of the faces after my eyes have wandered past them. Except for one man. He is always seated in the same place.

  The man has a fat face. As always, he is smiling and waving at me as though I am his friend. But I would never befriend anyone with such an obese countenance. How can someone get such a fat face from eating vegetables? I guess anything is possible if you work hard enough at it. After all, cows get chubby from eating grass. But that means they must spend half their lives eating. This leaves little time for thought; hence, their stupidity.

  I can’t stand the man. He's bastardly. That's the only way I can describe him. I ignore him.

  I hate all these people. I have hated them since the first night I walked into this nightmare. I will hate them every time I return. If I could conjure an axe, I would apply it to their skulls with alarming generosity.

  Why?

  Because life should be an exchange between species. There is something wrong with a world in which only the plants get eaten. Where only the humans develop fat faces by feasting on their carcasses.

  Who decided on the prevailing hierarchy of the food chain anyway? We have had it for so long that we accept it as logic instead of a call to subversion.

  Well, in one of my moments of mandated wakefulness, I decided to dispute this “natural order of things”.

  I believe with all of my heart (and at least half of my brain), that each species has the right to be a predator at least once in its evolutionary lifecycle. If men can feast on plants, I see no reason why the favour cannot be returned. However, this reversal cannot happen without intervention. Evolution is too slow and unreliable. I am neither.

  For several years, I applied my mental endowments to an important task. I finally made a breakthrough several months ago.

  I found a flower. It was beautiful. Of course, it had a tendency for sucking nutrients from the soil. I worked hard to exorcise this habit. I broke into the flower’s genetic vault and found the menu listing its preferred sources of nutrition. I burnt that menu and replaced it with a ravenous appetite for ...

  Well, my avenging angel eats meat.

  More needs to be done to make her more focused, discriminating, and aggressive. I have already included the main genetic ingredient that will make it possible to accomplish all three. I am inclined to leave the implementation to more modest minds. It would be criminal for me to waste my intellect on an endeavour that is cursed with inevitability.

  I do wish they would hurry, though. If I had a more robust version of my flower right now, I would place several vines at strategic locations in this dream. I would then step back and watch as these people are eaten alive. I would be so happy if the plants ate the fat-faced man slowly ...

  Enough daydreaming. It is night time.

  My inability to plant the flowers in this dream is my burden to bear. I just wanted to share the inspiration that sparked my botanical adventure. That way, you would truly appreciate my gift to you. After all, my plant has much in common with your gallows. Both are designed to destroy lives. Yours does so by adding to the ranks of the dead. Mine will do the same by digging them up. Effectively, my carnivorous offspring will eventually feed your machine. It shall be a productive partnership. My flame lilies have already started causing excitement.

  Keep the plant in a warm place with good lighting. It requires a climate that does not vary too much from these conditions. I don’t intend to be rude, but you live in England. I recommend an artificially controlled environment that is nothing like your typical British weather. I believe you have a glass-covered porch in your house? Maybe you can place the plant where your wife’s cat sleeps? I expect that your affection for the creature remains as frigid as it was when we last discussed the subject?

  Give the plant the amount of water and nutrition that corresponds to the misbehaviour you wish to provoke. Starvation makes them creative.

  By the way, congratulations on your blossoming romance. Benhilda sounds lovely. There is a chance that I may meet her. I will be going to Regina, Saskatchewan, for a meeting with a Canadian lawyer in March. On my way back to Zimbabwe, I may pass through the UK for the International Grammarian Society’s symposium in Northumbria. There is much contention among the members about the theme of this year’s Grand Debate. The majority would like to revisit the society’s hostile position on split infinitives. However, a small but powerful minority is pressing for a definitive position on the distinction between the words “presume” and “assume”.

  The latter debate has long been settled by common sense. However, the current chairman is in his final year. He has been pushing to place that topic on the agenda for the past twenty. If he does not get his way this time, he never will. The man is as determined as I would like my flame lily to be. Anyway, the relevance of this arcane discussion is that I will only stop in England if the society’s members elect to focus on split infinitives. If that happens I would be delighted to meet Benhilda. Either way, I trust that the two of you will enjoy many happy days together. Don’t sell her. Maybe you could adorn her noose with a cutting from the vine I sent you? She would look so perfect.

  I hope you have already thought of a creative way to explain your newfound love to Daphne. From what you say, your wife sounds smart. Such people can smell a lie from a mile away. Sniffing one out from a husband who lives under the same roof, and whom she has known for years, should be quite easy for her. Regardless of how well you prepare, she will corner you if your reactions are not nimble. So take note, my friend: Blessed are those who can think under pressure.

  YOUR FRIEND ...

  Mr. Chidoma Esq.

  PS: My wallet is empty. She is leaving as we speak. My mind is still starving. Show me a woman who is my intellectual equal and you can confiscate everything I own ... except of course, my brain(s).

  * * *

  THE THIRD INGREDIENT: THE HANGING JUDGE

  “ ... does a fair trial necessarily amount to a fair outcome?”

  Magistrate Changamire

  Magistrate Changamire had sent forty-seven convicts to the gallows in twenty-two years. Though his fellow judges also sat through gruesome trials, he always ended up with the highest number of cases with the greatest potential for the death penalty. Magistrate Changamire had agonized over every death sentence he had passed. He had challenged the prosecution on every allegation; he had s
earched high and low for ways to avoid sending convicts to death row. However, the prosecution teams always presented ironclad cases. They never failed to remind Magistrate Changamire of his duty to pass a death sentence when certain conditions were met. Thus, the gallows were a regular outcome of his judgments.

  One day, Magistrate Changamire approached the court registrar to discuss his concerns about his case allocation. As the court official responsible for assigning cases to the judges, the registrar claimed that the pattern was coincidental. In fact, it had not even occurred to her that such a pattern existed. Her eyes were blank but communicative. They confessed an underlying truth that she could not confirm out loud.

  Magistrate Changamire was known for his fiendish work ethic, intelligence, and fairness. These traits earned him the nickname Njanji, which meant “railway track” in Shona. No matter how complex a case was, he always arrived at a just and comprehensive result. His reputation was the best defence against allegations that the accused in death penalty cases had been denied justice. Even those he convicted could not argue they had been unfairly treated.

  Magistrate Changamire was uncomfortable about his role as a guarantor of the death penalty. However, he could not summon any outrage over it. Why did it matter that his competence helped to sustain a practice that he did not oppose in principle? After all, accused persons were entitled to fairness under the law. They were not entitled to an acquittal or to an exemption from the consequences of failing to secure one. In the end, a judge’s duty was to assess the facts and apply the law as required. This often led to death sentences. His record for capital convictions had earned Magistrate Changamire a second nickname: The Hanging Judge.

  * * *

  Why a Good Judge Always Hangs Bad People

  Nine years after speaking with the registrar, Magistrate Changamire was standing by the window of his chambers. Massive raindrops flattened themselves against the pane. They resembled a swarm of patrons storming the only exit of a burning tavern. As the casualties mounted, they melded into a single liquid sheet, which flowed towards the bottom of the pane. As the downpour intensified, the turbulence frosted the glass, making it difficult for Magistrate Changamire to see through. Beyond the fray, a streak of sunshine fought for recognition from behind the pinhole of a dispersing cloud. It quickly disappeared like a yellow ink stain blotting in reverse. The rhythm of disruption was a fitting soundtrack to the riot in Magistrate Changamire’s head.

  The judge was struggling beneath the weight of invisible forces. He had just sentenced someone to death that morning. She was the first woman he had sent to the gallows. Again, the case against her was airtight. The convict was a foreigner. She had not committed any crimes in Zimbabwe or against Zimbabwean citizens. Her misdeeds were alleged to have happened in the Central African Republic. Magistrate Changamire had scoffed when he first heard rumours of the case. Was the prosecutor on drugs? Why would he bring such a case before the courts?

  After he started reading through the case file, his disbelief had faded like the streak of sunshine fighting for recognition from beyond his window. After a long and difficult trial in which the accused never uttered a word, even to her own lawyers, he had no choice but to sentence her to death. Magistrate Changamire felt the same unease that had haunted him the first time he sent a convict to the gallows. The case against Leonidas D. Mamhepo had also been airtight. It left little room for leniency, even for a judge who struggled to find opportunities to exercise it. After twenty-two years of being directed by the stern hand of inevitability, Magistrate Changamire was feeling the strain.

  What was the point of being a judge if his own judgment never influenced the outcome in these cases?

  This latest trial was kindling thoughts of early retirement. If he quit his job, the system would lose its strongest argument that death penalty trials were fair. Of course they were, but does a fair trial necessarily amount to a fair outcome? The answer did not matter. He was aware of invisible forces constraining his departure. They had never spoken to him or expressed any form of coercion, but he knew he was subject to their will nonetheless.

  Magistrate Changamire would have to continue hearing death-penalty cases, even though the trials were as mechanical as the hangman’s job. The only difference was that he executed people with a pen. Fortunately, he was never there when its authority closed in on the convict’s throat. He would never feel the twisting strands of the nylon rope coiling through in his grasp. He would never tighten the noose around a condemned man’s neck. He would never pull the lever. The hangman’s job was raw and immediate. It was not insulated by the catharsis of legal analysis. There was no spirit level that swayed back and forth between competing evidence before settling on a just verdict. The hangman could not steel himself with the rage that had gripped the courtroom over days of gruesome testimony. He simply did his job. The judge had to continue doing his.

  Magistrate Changamire’s only insights into the execution process had come from other people. A fellow judge had once shared his experience defending clients who had been sentenced to death. At the time, the judge was a criminal defence lawyer who specialized in capital punishment trials. Years later, his eyes still watered when he spoke of the humility that accompanied impending death. The musty ceiling beams of the execution chamber evoked envy in the convict. He was jealous of the fungus that kindled the stale odour in the wood. It would outlive him. His final words were brief and measured. He asked for forgiveness and prayed for the wisdom to understand the impact of his crimes. That was if the next world had a place where he could cloister himself in penance.

  This picture sounded more romantic than the versions Magistrate Changamire had heard from other sources. Leonidas D. Mamhepo fought and swore until the moment his neck broke. The notorious bank robber “Chinhoyi Southern” had begged for his life before soiling himself. Stamen “The Stud” had grinned all the way to hell. Rodney “Mechanism” Gumbo had stayed up for the last forty-five hours leading to his execution. By the time the lever was pulled, he simply transitioned from one state of sleep to another. And then there was Lloyd “Filibuster” Gumede who insisted on sharing a thousand reasons why he should not be executed on that particular day. The man did not fear death. He was simply unhappy about being hanged before he had shared all his objections. Lloyd only made it to his thirtieth point. He managed to utter it just before the lever was pulled. Had the authorities known, they would have paused to appreciate his last declaration. Apparently, it was “unconscionable” to execute a man suffering from bad gas. The gallows proved his point. As soon as Lloyd expired, the guards rushed to open the windows of the poorly ventilated hall.

  Though each man reacted differently to his execution, none had been reflective about his crimes or fate.

  The woman from the Central African Republic was finally executed two years after her conviction. Neither the High Court nor the Supreme Court could find any fault with the prosecutor’s ironclad case or with Magistrate Changamire’s flawless judgment. Days after the execution, a headline article appeared in Zuva Redu: “Why a Good Judge Always Hangs Bad People.”

  Magistrate Changamire had seen it on the newspaper stand on his way home. He had not bothered to pick up a copy. He had never touched the publication and had no desire to make his first reading experience biographical.

  The day after the woman’s execution, Magistrate Changamire was busy working in his office when his assistant, Agnes, rushed into his chamber. He knew it was urgent because she did not bother to knock.

  “The hangman has announced his retirement!” she yelled breathlessly.

  That night, Magistrate Changamire enjoyed the best sleep of his life. The good news had not abolished the death penalty but the executioner’s job was a difficult one to fill. It could be years before they found someone with a spirit strong enough to carry the burdens of the job. Sure, the ranks of death row would continue to swell as the search continued. But until they recruited another hangman, the maturing voice of th
e abolitionist forces would speak with increasing authority. Maybe they could persuade the rest of Zimbabwean society that retaliatory murder was not a refuge for justice? Magistrate Changamire hoped for this outcome with all his might. He even forgot that he was not an abolitionist himself. He was simply desperate to shed his reputation as The Hanging Judge.

  * * *

  THE FOURTH INGREDIENT: AN EXCEPTIONAL LEGAL MIND

  “Never pick a fight with a man who is willing to devote his entire life to your demise.”

  The Organ Herders

  Years later, Magistrate Changamire was sitting in his office with an open file on his desk. He could not believe what he was reading. As he turned the pages with mounting intrigue, he realized that he had not touched a suspense novel in decades. In fact, the last time he had opened a work of fiction was during his days as a lawyer in Zambia. After becoming a judge, every moment he did not spend on his work was lavished on his family. The law was already the mistress that his wife could tolerate. Magistrate Changamire simply did not have the time to court another demanding mistress known as “leisure reading”. But the current tale was different. It had arrived on his desk in the form of an actual case that he would soon hear in his courtroom.

  The case file had been assigned to him the previous week. Neither the staff in the Court Registry nor his secretary had betrayed any signs that there was anything notable about it. Magistrate Changamire had placed the file under the mountain of other materials that had arrived on his desk before it. It was Wednesday afternoon by the time he finally got to it. When he picked it up, one sentence in the prosecutor’s statement of facts leapt from the page and punched him in the face.