Shaking his hands and clattering to keep his jaw shut, he watched them without looking at them. Still and flustered, he sat in their dark and sharply-lit cave. Glancing his papers sternly, they skimmed not only the ink but also the parchment. Their heads intermittently swung to one another, offering confused gazes. Adjusting glasses and darting eyes impressioned upon the grand table. His heart raced like it was about to be punctured.

Then the sweat came. He knew not to show his passion and veiled his emotions, as he had always done to his wife. She understood not to ask, and he never worried over her ever probing. Now, the situation was very different. His entire life laid before the nine strangers. Every letter, every note, every receipt and every cheque had spilled upon the surface by the kind lady at the Colonel’s office. While he felt a clear conscience going in, at this point, doubts rang through his bones. Even though he never missed a deadline and always did what they commanded him, he wondered if he forgot some terrible crime and left some undeniable trace behind. He knew he would do nothing wrong in their eyes. He was one of them. But his fear of some creeping possibility or unfavourable technicality never warned away. He imagined himself in odd circumstances, doing the things they would so admonish and dismiss him for. Then the sweat, at first a cooling layer of silk upon his forehead, became dollops of burning frustration. It sprang a flow that attacked his eye, and a disconnected blink filled him with anguish.

After the passing of many more minutes of trading breaths for a shallow calm disposition, the old gentleman at the corner of the table flung his wrist above his chin and shouted “Time.” They rushed upward. His throat swallowed itself as he clenched his whole being, but their graceful walk out the room filled him with a vague assurance. Awaiting some sort of divine intervention, he clasped his hands together in this rare moment of privacy. However, in knowing no religion, he begged to himself or to the earth, or to some cosmic ether to bring him a worthy good fortune.

The nine gentlemen shortly re-entered the room. Barely time to grapple these big ideas, he had to halt all thoughts and count his moments left to live. They aligned at their chairs and commanded he stand with them. The final stroke at death, the flaming furnace bursting out the lever door. At last they nodded firmly to one another, checking that the last man was not in disagreement. The air left his body, and the cramps ceased miraculously. Relief and serenity were so far away, but they finally came, filling him with an exact and all-encompassing peace. They could still say anything to him, but he knew. From the General, the slow words came out, “Congratulations”. Within a hollowed gasp, he thanked them all profusely and mumbled with joy. They accepted all his praise and kisses. The lady gathered the dunes of paper and sent him off. Not a single question asked. Strolling with purpose out the quarters, he wondered how easy it would have been if he knew the outcome. The pointless torment created a self-righteous rage. He should have known he did nothing wrong. But it no longer mattered, for the job had just begun.

Husbands apart from their wives, children lost from their parents. They were lined up outside, murmuring and wailing to themselves, swinging to the strangers beside them in a desperate search or offering of sympathy or empathy or anything else. Sudden prayers and pleads from all that is and might be, and whoever might listen. At once, the General shouted his call and everyone went silent, clenching themselves as if to deflect. He fired. They all fired. Every man, every woman, every child, lifelessly whimpered to ground; some gently, some slamming the earth, others rolling back into the trench behind. The air left him. His reddened face cooled and the tenseness of his body simmered away. The job had just begun.