Quick and Painless: A Satirical Reimagining of the Invention of the Guillotine

May 5, 1792

May 5, 1792

My dearest, Lonnie,

Antoine didn't have money in a bank. He kept it all in a locked chest at the end of his bed. I think he's insane for doing so, but since when does it matter what I think.

This morning instead of eating lunch Romeo, Étinne, Antoine, and myself sat in a circle on the floor, counting it and trying to decide if we had enough to buy Anaïs out of jail.

I've been having a hard time deciding if I hate her. I definitely don't trust her. And I wouldn't say I exactly enjoy her company. Still, hatred isn't precisely what I'm feeling. A subtle dislike is more or less the thing I need the word for.

Anaïs needs help. I say that as both insult and fact. She needs someone to fix her, make her human. If only there were a doctor for emotions and mind mishaps.

"Who would've thought bailing a girl out of prison would be so costly?" Antoine laughed as he counted coins and paper bills.

Antoine isn't poor. He just acted like it. The renowned surgeon-doctor-inventor had enough money to feed four servants, pamper his mistress, move to Paris on short notice, and buy dead bodies from a mortician. He isn't on the streets begging for scraps, nor was he living in a palace eating cake and drinking tea. He's rich to someone like me but poor to a typical aristocrat. He's a poor rich person.

He's also a smart person. He knows that acting too rich will get him arrested, so will acting too poor. He has to pose as the middle class that has been erased from this country in order to live.

However, bail was expensive.

You see, arrest, imprisonment, and execution don't exist for punishment. They exist only as a threat. Like Anaïs said, "break the law: lose your head, it's a compelling argument." Plus, its good entertainment, like watching your sibling get in trouble.

This is what I thought of during today's executions.

The crowd was a few hundred people, nothing unusual. Fifteen criminals were to have their heads removed by yours truly.

I didn't learn their names this time.

The people who watched smiled. The looked at the condemned and saw a fun afternoon. Though their smiles didn't fade, you could see the fear in their eyes. They knew this was murder. They knew this could be them. All they had to do was own a violent goat or join a protest, and their heads would be in a basket.

There was something else I watched too. That being the faces of those who were losing their lives. I could see nothing but peace. Happiness even.

I wondered if life had been so hard for the criminals that dead was almost enlightening.

It's not a punishment if you don't learn a lesson. Therefore the death penalty shouldn't even exist, considering you can't learn after having your head detached from your body. Yet it's still considered a terrible consequence because it teaches people who witness it. It teaches them to fear breaking the rules. It teaches them to cower before the lawmakers because they have the power to kill.

It doesn't make much sense. But the human race is utterly stupid. Thus, it works.

Yours truly,

Andreas Moreau