The end of us

      "Well," said George, "I suppose I am the last one, then."  He put the rope around his neck, wondered briefly at how itchy it felt, and stepped off the chair.  His neck snapped.  He didn't die right away, but he stopped breathing, and there was no visible sign of life - not that there was anyone left to notice.  After a few minutes, the last activity in his brain stopped, starved of oxygen.
      Six months earlier, George had been just a regular guy driving to work on a Tuesday night.  Something unusual was getting started though, far away, and George didn't seem very relevant to it.

      "Amy?" said Steve.
        "Hm?"
      "Amy, I think I killed someone today."
       "You can't know that," she said.  Steve was a corrections officer.  One of three men who pulled levers at the execution.  Two pulled dummy switches, one threw the switch that energized the electric chair.  Nobody knew which switch was which; nobody could say categorically that anyone had killed anyone.  Amy said as much to Steve.
      "Except that the man died," he replied, cool as milk.
       Amy thought about it for a minute.  "Hmm. You are still innocent, I think."
        "I don't think so," he said.  "I don't feel so, anyway.  I feel guilty."
      "Hm."
      That was as far as the conversation went that night.  But the next day, Steve had the same conversation with his boss.  "We can't say who killed that man," his boss said.  
      "But we can't say who didn't," Steve replied.
      "I see your point.  What do you want to do about it?"
      "Well, I think it's only fitting that I confess to murder."
      And so he did.  And it was a strange day, when the stars and planets were aligned just so, and the decisions people made had a certain consistency they usually lacked.  Steve was Black, also, which made it much easier to find him guilty, and condemn him, and allow him to waive his mandatory appeals.  His lawyer suggested that he might get even better, swifter justice if he were mentally retarded or very poor, but Steve was well enough satisfied.  His execution was attended by many well-wishers.  Amy wore a black dress and cried, and wondered how she might pay for the funeral.
      The next week, the two men who had pulled the other two switches also confessed, as did the three men who executed Steve.  They all got the same as he did.  Two of the guards were White, so they had to appeal their life sentences, but eventually won their cases and were sentenced to death.  By this time, though, things were really coming to a head.  There were three executioners at each execution, and each of them had three executioners, and three more and three more and three more.  Soon the corrections department had to hire more people.
      Americans were poor folks overall.  There were some rich ones, but mostly poor ones.  Folks were more than willing to take the job openings, but they all felt unaccountably guilty and kept confessing en masse.  And the cycle continued.
      One day, the jurors started to confess also.  Since they had found the executioners guilty of murder, were they not also guilty of the murders of those executioners?  The judges had no recourse but to find in favor of the ex jurors, and sentence them also to die - but then the judges decided they were guilty, too.  One day they agreed to find one another all guilty at one time.
      New judges were appointed.  They decided to save some time.  They found all the rich people guilty of perpetuating poverty by being greedy.  They found the government guilty of racism for the War on Drugs.  They found fast-food workers guilty of covering their own asses and not striking for better conditions.  And since racism and poverty and failure to make change were the foundations of all crime - or enough of it to go on with - everyone was guilty of everything.
      That made things simpler.  It saved a lot of time and money.  They arranged a schedule of executions in a logical order reminiscent of a phone tree.  Soon, there were only a few people left in each city, and they had to commute to central locations to execute one another, then to more central locations, and more central ones still.
      George was one of the last ones.  He had never really noticed the population shrinking and shrinking.  The situation was on the news, but George didn't watch the news.  The news was mostly all politics, and George tried to avoid being involved in politics.  He'd caught something a few days ago about Russia and China having trouble finding enough corrections officers to meet their execution needs, but didn't worry about it.  Foreign politics was even less interesting than local politics.  None of it really mattered, especially voting.
      But then a woman named Ethel came to his office, and said, "I need you to shoot me."
      He looked through his window, expecting to see Jessica sitting outside screening his calls and visitors, but of course Jess had gone off to jury duty last week and never came back.  Nobody had come back.  But he didn't have any phone calls or visitors, at least until now, and his boss wasn't there to notice if George stayed out on lunch an extra five minutes or left work a few minutes early.  Lunch was weird; none of the local restaurants were open, none of the stores, nothing at all really.  He’d broken into a local Arby's and got chips and pickles from the fridge, and left a note of apology and an offer to pay for any damages, but there was no evidence anybody would ever come back to read it.
      "Come again?" he asked Ethel.
      "I need you to shoot me," she said.  "There isn't anybody else left."
      "Why not?"
      "Don't you watch the news?  Because everyone is guilty, and everyone is condemned to die.  You will have to shoot me.  It's justice.  You will have to shoot me and then kill yourself - there won't be anyone left to carry out your sentence.  Or I suppose I could kill you first and then myself, but I am guilty of a capital crime and therefore not eligible for corrections work."
      "Are you crazy?" asked George, but he was mostly wondering if he could get the deep-fat fryer at the Arby's to work.  He was getting tired of chips and pickles, and lunch was not far off.
      "No, I don't think so," Ethel said.  "It's in the Bible.  Thou shalt not kill.  I killed someone, so I need to be punished.  You need to kill me."
      "Interesting.  But if the Bible says not to kill, and then I kill you, then I am a killer.  I don't want to kill anybody."
      She laughed at him.  "It's too late, really, fellow."  She hadn't asked his name, and he wasn't important enough for it be on his door.  "You see, we decided we were all guilty of all the murders.  You never did anything to stop climate change or poverty or racism.  Did you know virtually all the people executed until now in America were really poor, and that almost all of them were Black?  You didn't try to stop that.  Equally, you let poor Black people die and rich White people get off and called it justice.  You let us kill all the fish, too.  They're not all dead yet, but by 2048 they will be.  You are guilty, through inaction, of the mass extinction of millions of species in the ocean alone."
      "That's a lot to process."
      "You don't have to process it, hon.  The judges processed it for us.  All we have to do is carry out the sentences.  Sign here, here and here.  We'll waive the background check, on account of there is nobody left to process it or to answer questions about you."
      "What am I signing?"  George was used to signing things, so he was already half done before he had finished the sentence.
      "You have to be hired on as corrections personnel.  Then you can carry out my sentence."
      "I still don't understand," he said.  "If we are going with 'thou shalt not kill,' and don't get me wrong, I think that is an admirable rule, why should I kill you?"
      "Well, killing is wrong, and I killed someone.  So I need to be executed.  Indeed I insist on it."
      "It is wrong to kill, you killed someone who killed someone, and so someone else has to kill you?"
      "Yep."
      "Well, I suppose if that's the law.  Did you bring a pistol?  Oh - would you like a last meal?  It will have to be pickles and chips, unless you know how to work a fryer."
      "No no, I had gum on the way over.  Let's just get it out of the way."
      And so George shot Ethel with the pistol she’d brought with her.  They did it in the bathroom where it would be easy to clean up the mess.  There wasn't anybody to clean up the mess or, indeed, anyone to see it, but the forms had to be observed.  Then, after lunch, he found a good place for a hanging.  Ethel had been efficient in virtually every way except she had brought only one bullet, so hanging it would have to be.
      But before he did it, he made sure to have all his paperwork completed.  It wouldn't do, after all, to upset his employer.