The Chair

The chair stands just under 5ft high, and has a girth of 20 inches at its seat’s widest point. Upon its 6 inch high concrete pedestal, it sits, bolted down, for stability perhaps, but appearing more like it’s in some danger of walking away, the chair was joined from the solid white oak wood posts of the hangman’s frame, back in 1917, when the state ordered it chopped up, in favor of a better, more human means of dispatching those who are believed to justly deserve it.

In 1920 it saw its first blood, a man, not a murder but who was found guilty of wrongdoings some think equally as vile. He spent 15 on death row, then finally one day, the guards strolled in and took him away, sat him down in the wood frame, and strapped him at every point, waited for a reprieve but none there came, in his last breath he begged for mercy in God’s name, the order was given, the final blow, into this man 2,100 volts did flow, once then twice, voltage high then voltage low, shorting out his brain and stopping his heart, the chair had only just got its start. A hood overhung the “dead man’s throne” sucking up smoke tendrils into that hole, looking as if they could be the dead’s soul.



Months went by then years, the chair remained a mortal fear of any man who may consider an act of cold blood. From 1920, on to 1960 some 130 men would meet their ends, then the men in charge were forced to grant reprieves, for questions once more there came, for the chair, questioning whether less pain happened there, the chair’s reign ended in 1960, it remained on it’s raised square of floor, becoming the subject of the prison guards lore. For many have claim they’ve heard it freak and grown, sitting inside that dark room on its own.

They say it’s better if it’s left alone.