With Whatever Tools at Your Disposal

”No soliciting, federal code 34b. Maximum penalty.” The old man gestures to the area where he knows the sign is posted. He fixes his rheumy eyes in a cold glare— towards the blur of a man standing before him.

His voice is like rust and rough cut lumber: “You are accessing a private, restricted property without prior authorization, and I will be pressing charges. As the rightful owner of this property I am issuing a lawful command: leave. Now. Or you will receive a harsher sentence.”

“Excuse me sir, but I am not soliciting. You can see the insignia right here on my uniform, I’m with the county. As I’m sure you know: authorized Distributors are permitted to access even restricted properties on a monthly basis, as per federal code 34c. The local records office indicates you have not registered a firearm or any other Mercy Tools. So I am making my required visit. In the hopes I can change your mind.”

The old man rubs his eyes. “Oh God. I can’t make out what you’re wearing, but I suppose I should have known. What happened to Kevin… ?”

Before the question has left his mouth, the old man regrets it.

He shakes his head and sucks his teeth. He already knows the answer.

The Distributor hesitates.

The air feels different in that moment, a discomfort lingers between them.

Finally the uniformed blur speaks “Well sir, I followed the rule. Sir.”

The old man sighs. He looks down. “I’m sorry. Were you close?”

He regrets that question even more than the first. He does not want to know the answer.

But it’s been so long since he’s spoken with another person in person and he seems to have lost the hang of it. He hadn’t known what else to say.

The younger man clears his throat. “Yes sir. We, uh. We worked together for several years and… well, he was my friend.”

The old man’s face wilts and his shoulders sag. “I’m sorry.”

“Sir, I’m here to offer you a Mercy Tool. I recommend a firearm, for ease of use. They come pre-loaded, just point and hold the trigger until the clip is empty. We have several brand new models available if you aren’t interested in any of the ones that, uh, Kevin offered you last month. Here’s a pamphlet. I, ahem, I gather your eyesight is poor. I’d like to point you to the most recent KR34 Model, which includes aim assist for the visually impaired. Like all standard issue firearms it has an automatic safety and a smart bio sensor. It will not fire unless aimed at a human experiencing Total Neural Dysfunction.”

“I’m not interested.”

The uniformed man hesitates again. “Sir, I really think—“

The old man raises his hand: “Sorry I am not interested and I will never change my mind. Kevin, uh. He knew my thoughts on this. He was willing to… modify the records a bit. This is a stubborn refusal on my part. So rather than waste time on these silly visits he just signed on his tablet, that he spoke with me and I refused. Gave me peace of mind, and allowed him an extra thirty minute break, to sit in his truck and play some mobile games. I’m hoping we can have the same arrangement.”

The Distributor’s demeanor changes. His face is too blurry for the old man to read. But there’s an obvious shift in his posture.

When he speaks his voice is suddenly cold, seething: “Oh. So you’re one of those people. Shame on you. You know as well as I do, that when someone goes Total, there’s no saving them! Every nerve triggers at once. It’s not just a seizure, it’s the worst agony a person can feel— every pain signal through out their body, ramped up to ten and firing nonstop. If you had ever heard the way they scream you’d know the only kindness we can offer is Mercy.”

Being insulted by a county representative? The old man stammers. “I just can’t—“

“Oh, you just can’t, huh? Excuse me— sir— but you’re fucking pathetic. People like you make me sick. Nobody likes the rule! It’s horrible. You think I liked shooting Kevin in the face? I still have nightmares about it. Probably always will. But unlike you, I’m not a coward! I’m not willing to let someone I care about— or any human— suffer. You know as well as I do the rule is necessary. Or I suppose you think people in TND should just wait for the Emergency Mercy Dispatch? To let citizens off the hook?”

The old man’s face darkens.

He’s not prone to anger, but this man standing before him is crossing too many lines.

He grimaces and the power of that expression almost seems to push away his frailty. “No. I don’t want anyone to suffer. But there are worse pains than TND.”

“Worse pains than TND? Do you hear yourself? You think every medical professional in the country is wrong? Bullshit. You’re just afraid to do your duty like everybody else!”

The old man knows he should just shut his door and file a complaint with the county. But he cannot leave these insults unanswered.

He grits his teeth. “Listen here, you son of a bitch. I was alive during the First Crisis— when the bioweapon was released. I’ve had to deliver Mercies you wouldn’t have been able to handle. The tech has advanced, since those days. There’s no longer need for human hand. Homebots or any of the countless delivery drones, they could execute the Mercies more reliably, without the heavy cost.”

“What are you, some kind of idiot? You know AI are prohibited from delivering Mercy and you damn well know why. Or are you old enough to remember the First Crisis but too stupid to remember the Second?— mercybots all over the country registering false positives at the same time! Thousands and thousands of deaths! You know the law, no more mistakes. Only real Mercies, with human judgment and human fingers on the trigger!”

“Like I said the tech is better now. Decentralized, unhackable. There’s no way cyber terrorists could ever pull a Third Crisis.”

“Not worth the risk, old man.”

“What risk? Law enforcement uses bots, those are lethally armed. They’re allowed to shoot protestors, but not allowed to shoot TNDs?”

Then his voice softens. “Young man, you work for the government. You call yourself county, but you know as well as I do, it’s all federal these days. You’ll take the paycheck, but you aren’t willing to ask the real questions? Doesn’t it bother you that they made you shoot your friend— to kill someone you cared about? I know you did the right thing. The necessary thing. I know you gave Mercy. But don’t you realize?”

He places a palm on the younger man’s shoulder, “This could— should— be automated by now! You shouldn’t have to see his face when you close your eyes, you shouldn’t have to bear the nightmares!”

The uniformed man, remains silent, for a moment. Then he shakes himself. He pulls free of the old man’s grasp. His voice cracks, high with emotional turbulence: “You’re a coward and a piece of shit. Regardless of what you think, the rule is clear. Even if we allowed bots to do the Mercies, it would still be every citizen’s moral duty to accept a firearm— or other tool— and be ready just in case! Your refusal is nothing more than you admitting that you’d let a human suffer, for no reason at all.”

“No. I live alone. All my needs are delivered by drone. I don’t go out. I’ve taken measures to isolate myself, specifically because I know I won’t be able to bear another Mercy. My intention is to never be in physical proximity to another human being as long as I live— because I can’t bear the risk.”

“You can’t bear the risk? You’ve taken measures? In physical proximity— do you hear yourself? Nobody talks like that. You sound like a robot. Doesn’t it even occur to you that you can’t control the rest of the world? I’m here right now, ‘in physical proximity’. What if I went Total? What would you do? Just let me suffer?”

“No, of course not. I would deliver the Mercy. But I just can’t do it—“

“No shit you just can’t do it— because you don’t have a registered Mercy Tool!”

The old man raises his hands, the skin is thin, and his fingers knobby. “I can’t do it again. That’s what I was trying to say. I’ve done it before without any tool but these.”

His hands shake.

There are tears, glistening in the wrinkles on his face.

“I’ve done it before. And I can’t do it again. Not again. That’s why I’m begging you to go. Do like Kevin did, and leave me by myself where it’s safe. Please. Stay off my property. Take an extra 30, tell your supervisors I’m a crazy old fuck who can’t be convinced.”

The Distributor shakes his head. “You really are a piece of shit. You’d rather let TND torture me to death than have to be the one to pull the trigger?”

“That’s not what I said. I said humans shouldn’t have to be doing this anymore, bots or—“

Spittle flies from the Distributors mouth— he’s shouting now: “You fucking dirt! I wish you’d go Total right now, just so I could watch you scream. You deserve to suffer old man! But I’d still shoot you’re miserable ass, you know why? Because I’m not scum! Bots can’t do it. That’s the law. You’re not gonna change that, so you’d rather be a pussy annnndd AAAAHJAJAJJAAK”

The old man’s blood runs cold— the sound.

That sound again.

Not again!

He should have paid more attention to the Distributor’s shift in mood.

He should have recognized the signs.

Irrational anger.

Hostility.

Well known prodromes for TND.

And hadn’t he seen that sort of rage before?

He watches the blur. It begins to dance and twitch. He watches the blur, it tumbles to the patio, he hears that endless, sustained scream: so shrill and inhuman.

The younger man’s crackling voice wails like a klaxon.

Devastation in the old man’s ears.

Or rather in his soul.

He remembers that same sound, but much higher pitched.

Back then it was a child’s voice.

He wishes he had paid attention to her tantrum, he hadn’t understood the warning then either.

He’d been ignoring her, until he’d heard that sound.

How it had pierced him!

His daughter.

Screaming the way kids do when they are shocked and terrified by pain.

His daughter.

Falling to the ground.

Writhing in their garden patch and thrashing through the cucumber vines.

How he had panicked.

His daughter.

Her scream, flung to the heavens.

Shrieking in tongues.

Glossalia.

But of course her prayer was never answered by the LORD, for that terrible sound had not been the language of heaven.

That language could only make sense to the Lord of Flies and Corruption.

It had come directly from hell.

The blurry man writhes on the porch before him, he shouts his agonies.

The blur moves and froths like noodles brought to a rolling boil.

When it happened to her, the old man had been been stunned. Paralyzed by disbelief. He’d thought they’d lived far enough from the city to be safe from the germ.

Even with the news reports, he’d hoped beyond hope that it could never happen to her.

How he had prayed with his entire soul, for God to fix her. How he had begged God to tell him this wasn’t actually real.

And the old man remembers how God hadn’t answered and he remembers how he had finally begun to move and how he had tripped over the chicken wire because his eyes were so full of tears and he remembers how he landed hard on top of her and how he’d pulled her into an embrace worried he had hurt her and how she jerked and flailed so hard he couldn’t even hold her and how she screamed and screamed and screamed and never seemed to notice him— neither the impact nor his desperate hug nor him begging her to stop.

The old man stumbles forward and steps down to the patio.

He steps over the writhing and bucking Distributor.

He remembers straddling his little daughter’s chest the same way, because there had been no other way to hold her in place.

The old man raises his hands and presses them forward and fastens them around the Distributor’s neck.

He puts his weight down.

His forearms tremble.

Tendons strain.

The skin is so thin. Liver marked.

There’s a siren ringing in his ears.

It’s splitting his brain.

He squeezes.

Even after all these years, the old man knows exactly how much pressure it takes to crush a trachea.

He squeezes harder.

But where is his strength? And this throat is much bigger than the one he remembers.

***

***

***

Author’s note:

(TRIGGER WARNING— harm to animals)

I wrote this story to help me cope with and emotionally process some of the most psychologically difficult moments in my life: instances where I was obligated to reduce the suffering of animals that were hopelessly, fatally injured or sick.

I work for a county park as a laborer/ guard.

Most days it’s a zero-stress job.

But….

The experiences I’m about to describe traumatized me.

I won’t be offended if you skip the rest of this author’s note. It’s going to be hard for me to even write this.

1.

Once I received a report: a suspected rabid raccoon, on a highly trafficked walking trail.

It became immediately apparent this poor thing was in total agony— and a danger. I called animal control, hoping they’d euthanize it. They told me to call 911 instead.

I assumed the responding officer would simply shoot it— rapid relief for the animal.

But he said it wouldn’t be safe to shoot at that particular location.

So he asked me what hand tools we had available.

He chose a spud bar, intending to club the raccoon over the head and knock it unconscious.

If the first strike failed, I’d be in charge of holding the raccoon in place to prevent it escaping and putting the public at further risk.

To accomplish this gruesome task, I would use a pitchfork.

The cop’s first swing startled the raccoon but didn’t stun it.

I had to move in.

I love raccoons.

I have rescued more than one of these curious, adorable bandits from our park dumpsters.

As an avid dumpster diver myself, trash pandas are my buddies!

So pinning my buddy to the dirt with a fucking pitchfork broke me.

I kept telling myself we were doing the right thing.

The necessary thing.

If we hadn’t, he’d have gone on suffering.

For hours

Or days.

Final stage rabies is pure agony— extreme inflammation, physical hell.

Not to mention the public health risk….

But I still feel immensely guilty.

After cleaning up his remains I went back to the park office and cried for a while.

That’s where the old man’s grief came from.

2.

Another time: I saw a large snapping turtle crossing a park road.

I was on my way to help it cross when some guy in a muscle car aimed right for it.

Her shell exploded like a pumpkin.

The sound still echoes in my ears: a hollow “thunk”.

I almost vomited, whether from rage or disgust I’m not sure.

But looking down I learned: snapping turtles are VERY hard to kill.

This one was inside out and still crawling :(

I had to get her out of the road. So I scooped her into a bucket and brought her to the dump, and somehow even after the drive she was still very alive, snapping and clawing aggressively.

Shocked, I ran to google and learned that snappers can survive for DAYS in this state, on account of their slow metabolism and low oxygen use :(

That only humane thing to do at that point was finish the job, and the only tools I had then were some loppers.

Seeing that poor turtle squirming, its entire body in agony, was where the TND concept came from.

3.

The last mercy was the gentlest, but also the saddest.

I noticed a fawn sheltering in the barn, it had an obvious compound fracture on its hind leg.

I called a wildlife rehabber.

When she arrived we entered, shutting the door behind us.

The fawn got spooked.

It got to its feet, wobbling, eyeing us warily.

And with the door shut we could tell by the smell: this animal’s wound was BADLY infected. The stench was unbearable.

The rehabber admitted with that level of gangrene there was no hope.

We snuck back out, she got her needles and handed me a giant net, asked if I’d help wrangle it.

The poor little guy seemed to know. He really put up a chase, even weakened and injured as he was.

Finally we netted him and brought him to the ground.

And he started literally screaming.

I had never heard a fawn do that.

It was shocking and terrible.

Sounded just like a kid crying for his mom— which I supposed he probably was…

I later learned from the rehabber that by that stage of infection the doe had probably already abandoned him :(

That’s where the scream in this story came from.

The lethal injection worked quickly, without all the violence of the raccoon or the gore of the turtle.

I feel damned for all three.

But I know that these animals suffered less than they would have, if there hadn’t been a human to help.

And that’s where the story itself came from.

Guilt, even when one follows the rules and does the obligatory “right” thing.