executioner diaries.

Day 1

Gripping the hilt my still wet axe I went about finishing my daily culling of the village. Not of people though, oh no, I got the big job, the job unto which all other jobs will be compared. Today ladies and gents I… am killing chickens. The king's personal, well paid and overly qualified High Executioner - cool title right - sent to speed up the often diligent work of local foxes. Marvellous. This job just doesn’t come with the kind of perks you’d imagine. I mean, yes the respect (read: fear) is okay and I suppose the hours are flexible, but you want a modicum of job satisfaction, don’t you? I can’t even remember the last time I knocked at someone’s door without it immediately being followed by wild tears and screaming. All I was doing was visiting my own parents for a drink and what followed was city wide panic attack. Families eh.

Oh right, so who am I then? The name is Celia, Celia Delacour: resident and social pariah of the underbelly city of Brigg. I guess I just thought I’d pour my rambling thoughts into this diary to try and show that not all in my profession are overpaid inbred brutes. Most of them are, I'll give you that, but not all. More so killing chickens is just hardly what I’d call “intellectually stimulating” and I was always taught to keep my mind sharper than my axe. I’ll leave the story of how I wound up in this line of work for another time.

Today has been a particularly slow day in terms of business. Two executions, one very sceptical trial, and some below par grocery shopping at the local market. Deeply upset me it did. No, no the trial not the failed shopping. Actually come to think of it both left an unsavoury taste - one of the more literal kind. A woman, caught cheating on her lecherous husband, sentenced to death, for the very same act he himself committed? Something tells me there is an inconsistency there. He’s a vile creature anyway, or was, I haven't decided yet what to do with said lech.

Poor Marianne - not looking forward to her passing. Especially if she takes her renowned lemon drizzle cake recipe along with her to the grave. I can never seem to get the damn sponge to rise... maybe I can coerce those to be her final words.

I can smell that the king is on his way down to the peasant housing I'm currently stationed in. I’ll come back to this later…

Day 2

Well yes, I’m back. The genius. The mastermind. The savant… or some shit resembling that. I’m getting quite accustomed to writing my thoughts down in this little pocket book I plundered. I mean conversing with an off-shoot of yourself on paper seems much more socially acceptable and a less likely way to get ostracised than talking out loud at a time when anyone in a dress is accused of being a witch. Not that what I do for a living is anywhere close to getting me invited to banquets and balls but a girl can dream.

The removal and/or displacing of someone’s head is a precarious task. Ground breaking, I know right? It’s pretty much a scientifically acknowledged fact that to be successful in the “removals” game you have to have a rather dry, black sense of humour. Those executioners you see passing out on their first chop? Yeh they’re known as ‘clouds’. Will explain that more some other time.

You can’t help but laugh at some of the hokum that dribbles forth from the mouths of those facing the sharp edge of time. Some apologise for their often well compounded sins, some apologised for sins they never committed, some apologise for never commiting the sins they wished they had, others begged the big man himself for divine forgiveness. One man even burst into fits of nervous laughter but he was strange long before that to be fair.

I always look down on the general intelligence of those who pray for mercy at a time of inevitable death. I mean right, let’s get the cold hard facts straight: if you commit a crime deemed worthy of capital punishment then you’re likely going to Hell and that’s just pre-determined. You can’t argue with that no matter how much you want to. So why on Earth these people decide to pray to God as their saviour is beyond me. Surely you’d pray to Lucifer for a less excrutciating afterlife. Wait, do Satanists pray? Hmm. Never mind. Anyway surely they’d pray to him/her for a swift death and maybe some recognition when you get through the gates of Hell for the atrocities you’ve committed in your brief stint in the land of the living. But hey, that’s just what I’d do.*

Don’t get me started on religion though. Being French I’m obliged to live and breathe the Catholic ways - doesn’t mean I actually believe in them. I mean I do believe the whole concept of a God and the "Devil” - I just think they’re actually the same ideology just preached by two different extremes of man. Radical, I know. I'm really in the wrong line of work here.

I’ll go deeper into that one night after I’ve had few relaxing glasses of wine. Settles the mind of course - cough. I was here to tell you something wasn’t I? Oh yes, that’s it. How I, the delicate rose of Brigg, became a High Executioner. It’s quite a surreal story if I’m honest. Some women - well most around here - are born to be housewives. Bred into a society where women are the ground upon which men walk. Well not me. 21 years and one paedophilic father later; I found my niche.

In all fairness, it was only because the King didn’t have his very own pocket killer that I was allowed to live. He said I showed tenacity and passion in what I do. What I do? You mean that activity I did that one time through pure ire… okay, I'll run with that. **

It’s not that I am or became misandrous - it’s just, I really enjoyed inflicting pain on those deserved of it. Maybe I’m mad? Maybe we’re all mad in here - who can sanely judge that without exposing themselves to madness and clouding their own judgment. Exactly. You’re mad too if you're reading this.

I was shown the ropes early - pun intended - and taught how to care for and expertly handle the guillotine: or Matilda as I called her. So after one very hectic and particularly rebellious Winter, I was appointed - and this is an official title by the way, can write it on letters and everything - the High Executioner of Brigg.

That’s all I can say at the moment in time, sorry. Young Marveux has just finished hopelessly praying and pissing himself. Silly idiot.

* Yes I have already come to terms with the fact only distinguished guile will get me into Heaven now.

** A few years later it turns out that this was in fact true. Foresight at its very best there.