Voices of the Beheaded
Robert Olen Butler wrote a stunning book called Severance, which I have been fortunate enough to read recently. If you enjoy flash fiction, I highly recommend this book of sixty-two 240-word stories. Butler started writing these stories after visiting the guillotine at the Saigon War Crimes Museum and contemplating these two somewhat unrelated concepts:
After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes.
In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it spans history. The stories convey the voices of people, historically significant and insignificant, from 40,000 B.C. to AD 2004 who were beheaded intentionally or in some freak accident.
Butler's book was published by Chronicle Books in 2006, so his stories end with Vasil Bukhalov, a Bulgarian agricultural aid worker, beheaded by the Iraqi Salafist Brigade of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq.
When I finished the book, I felt sad that it ended, so I solved that problem by writing my own continuation. In the spirit of Butler's work, I wrote a 240-word piece that immitates Butler's approach and style in his thrilling, poetic, and spine-chilling collection.
I was thinking about what Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti's head might have been "thinking" in the final one and one half minutes of its consciousness.
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s Half Brother beheaded by the hanging noose, 2007
he hugs and kisses me, entrusts me to lead his secret police, His Excellency the Deputy assigns me the most glorious tasks ever to take place behind sentry posts and razor wire and I rejoice that my first detainee is that poet Yasin whom I wish would rot in solitary confinement, I eat juicy grapes while guards stuff torn copies of Alif-Baa into his pried-open jaws, the face of a poet never looked so beautiful as when he chokes on left-wing arts garbage but the poet is lucky, we use the meat grinder while interrogating Safavids’ and throughout the village of Ouija we celebrate the revenge upon those who attempted to assassinate my brother yes here I have so much rewarding work to do the screams of pain are as musical to me as the wind that sings over the banks of the Tigris and I go home to my wife who has recently given birth to our sixth child neighbors bring delicate gift boxes containing trinkets and gold charms of the Qu’ran and we’ll eat a full meal Bamia, rice, meshi, and steaming bowls of kubba, and succulent quzi spread out on floral plates, together the family prepares juices from rose petals, orange blossoms, and apricots and we toast to His Excellency the Deputy and praise Allah we drink refreshing beverages while those who proclaimed the Communists the “lapdogs of the Ba’ath Party” choke on tea laced with Thallium
After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes.
In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it spans history. The stories convey the voices of people, historically significant and insignificant, from 40,000 B.C. to AD 2004 who were beheaded intentionally or in some freak accident.
Butler's book was published by Chronicle Books in 2006, so his stories end with Vasil Bukhalov, a Bulgarian agricultural aid worker, beheaded by the Iraqi Salafist Brigade of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq.
When I finished the book, I felt sad that it ended, so I solved that problem by writing my own continuation. In the spirit of Butler's work, I wrote a 240-word piece that immitates Butler's approach and style in his thrilling, poetic, and spine-chilling collection.
I was thinking about what Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti's head might have been "thinking" in the final one and one half minutes of its consciousness.
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s Half Brother beheaded by the hanging noose, 2007
he hugs and kisses me, entrusts me to lead his secret police, His Excellency the Deputy assigns me the most glorious tasks ever to take place behind sentry posts and razor wire and I rejoice that my first detainee is that poet Yasin whom I wish would rot in solitary confinement, I eat juicy grapes while guards stuff torn copies of Alif-Baa into his pried-open jaws, the face of a poet never looked so beautiful as when he chokes on left-wing arts garbage but the poet is lucky, we use the meat grinder while interrogating Safavids’ and throughout the village of Ouija we celebrate the revenge upon those who attempted to assassinate my brother yes here I have so much rewarding work to do the screams of pain are as musical to me as the wind that sings over the banks of the Tigris and I go home to my wife who has recently given birth to our sixth child neighbors bring delicate gift boxes containing trinkets and gold charms of the Qu’ran and we’ll eat a full meal Bamia, rice, meshi, and steaming bowls of kubba, and succulent quzi spread out on floral plates, together the family prepares juices from rose petals, orange blossoms, and apricots and we toast to His Excellency the Deputy and praise Allah we drink refreshing beverages while those who proclaimed the Communists the “lapdogs of the Ba’ath Party” choke on tea laced with Thallium
posted by Rebecca Jane at 2:10 PM
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