A pauper's jerkin scolds his proud shoulders and chest, featureless pantaloons maintaining his facade of modesty and humility.  Matted strands of mahogany frame his hollow features, insulted by the filth and forced age that permeate them.  Against his curved spine, beneath his tired flanks is rigid, unyielding oak fashioned into an armchair with high back and cushionless seat.

Across the small of his back, his frail wrists lie bound.  Above him, far above him, stands the force that put them there.

They are all of them sinners.  Each and every one a liar, a glutton, a scoundrel and a bitch.  From behind their armor of frills and frivolity, they cast down their judgment, rife with hypocrisy.  Of them all, none will identify the indulgence in brother, in neighbor, in husband or wife.  What powers they have, they instead fashion with them their wasteful quilt, so to blanket their fears of retribution in communal deceit.

Unfit to live; immortal despite.

What detestable beings they are, that they trust not even themselves to hold criminals in contempt.  As a whole, they are broken, unable to act; thus, one among them is empowered.  Dominion over the law, the state, the household; these are given to him, and he is trusted by the untrusting to see to their affairs.  Of and among them, he is god, for there lives no God among heathens.

With fire and false retribution, he too casts down his judgment.  Possessive of such fury, yet blind to how unfounded it is!  Guilty himself of unspeakable crimes, mirrored in those who uphold him, he is nonetheless the ardent deliverer.  Emblazoned about his magisterial robe: the word of man superimposed over the name of God.  In this, he is justified!  So great, so grand is this pillar of menfolk to which all must aspire!

Unholy, unsanctified, uncouth; these words he hurls upon the accused, and they are echoed by all present.  Totality of thought, of shared persuasion, ensconces him.  Though he wants not for one, there is and can be no escape from these falsified charges leveled upon him.  To each, he pleads guilty.  Guilty!  As if guilt is a weapon, to be so haplessly brandished by the unjust!

Chorus self-attuned, his final sentence is sang.  Resounding from the high walls, the grotesque reverie thus created does not affect the criminal.  To cry death, to shout and scream of it!  Convulsions take the onlookers as they hollow their lungs, exhausting their self-righteous souls, making light their minds and sacrificing their statures; spittle and sweat fly from the magister's violently taken features, and Hell bears down from his eyes, ignited along his judging forefinger, cast upon he who is deemed worthy of such fate.

To cry death, he bleeds raw his own throat, splitting his own tongue and lips, setting aflame his own eyes.

Two featureless guardsmen appear at the criminal's sides, a single arm brusquely hooked beneath each of his own, and drag him away to the cries and cheers of the townsfolk.  Women faint, overcome with mirth profane; men tear at themselves, barking their fierce and furious assent.  He does not struggle or shout, does not give further satisfaction to his condemners.

Brutish hands push him into the cold, sharp face of death.  The deed is already done; from this, no redemption can be had.  What words, the executioner asks, will he wear on his lips before God?

The answer is the only answer he can give.  The only one that is true and real and pure.  Those who hear it, infuriated, carry out his sentence ferociously and dirtily.  The death of a terrible criminal; the end of a villainous life.

That any among them may now rest easy.