The Final Judgment of Taylor Morris

Dark storm clouds had gathered in the Texas sky on the night Taylor Morris was scheduled to meet his maker. From his cell, the condemned man could stand on his tip-toes at the window and look up at the clouds above. They were gray and thick and heavy now, though most nights he’d spent there the stars shone bright, and the moon threw cold light through the barred window and across his bare cot. But tonight the moonlight had been smothered. The hallway which stretched before his cell door was also quieter than usual. Most nights would pass by with the shuffle of feet, the sound of hands dragging across the bars, and the measured tread of the prison guards. Now there was nothing but the sound of cicadas, and the night-wind picking up as the rain rolled in.

He paced his cell several times, sat, then rose again. He thought of the chaplain, who had come at ten and talked to him in his cell for thirty minutes. It had been so long since he’d looked a man in the eye, and even longer since he’d spilled his heart to anyone, and when the chaplain had stood to leave, Taylor had wanted to tell him to stay; but the chaplain said “You should be getting some rest,” which didn’t make much sense to him. His rest would come soon enough, and a lot of it; what he wanted now was to be able to squeeze as much living as he could from what few hours remained before he was to get the chair.

The storm front stampeded like horses, and with every rolling cloud, heat lightning crackled. Taylor wondered what it would be like, having lightning jump through his bones. For so long he had fronted being unafraid of death, and unrepentant of his crime, but he was afraid of dying. He wasn’t afraid of being dead, but rather of getting there. He was afraid it would hurt. When the clouds opened up and the rain began to pour down, Taylor released the bars of his cell and dropped back down on his heels, and again began to pace the room like a caged tiger. He had all his things laid out on his bed; his toothbrush, his cup, his dog-eared Bible. Glancing over at its weathered cover, Taylor stopped and thought about it for a moment.

Now, Taylor had not been much of the praying kind, but people can draw from deep wells within themselves in a pinch. Sitting down at the foot of his bed, the prisoner buried his head in his hands and began to pray as hard as he could. It wasn’t just a prayer, it was more than that; it was begging, it was pleading, it was an expression of his desire to live that consumed every ounce of his being. Having been unable to secure a reprieve from the governor, Taylor Morris decided to appeal to a higher court.

As the damned man prayed, the storm began to kick up and get bigger and bigger. The water was dumping down in buckets, the wind was blowing the sagebrush out of the ground by the roots. The dirt had been so parched before the storm that the water couldn’t seep into the packed and cracked ground, and instead a great mudslide pulled down a powerline and the whole town suddenly went dark, with the prison included.

With no lights, no moon, and no stars, Taylor could no longer see his own hands in front of his face. Walking to the door of his cell, he could hear the voices of his fellow prisoners echoing up from the hallways below in a great clamor of confusion and fear.

“What’s goin’ on?”

“¿Qué es?”

“What happened to the lights?”

In the great and all-consuming blackness, Taylor felt himself awash with relief. Stepping back from the door of his cell, he felt the coolness of the damp air on his face, and felt the knot in his stomach rapidly unraveling. He took a deep breath and let it out, thinking of the electric chair, that dispassionate death-dealer now rendered impotent by the greatest thunderstorm west Texas had ever seen!

He jumped for joy! He wrung his hands! Among all the shouts of fear, he laughed! Not just with relief, but at the very thought that somehow, fate had granted him amnesty!

Then, the lights flickered and returned. The generator had kicked in.