He was mostly thinking about orca whales. When they hunt, they often rip out the tongues of blue whales. It’s a strictly evolutionary advantage, because tongues have very high protein content, and if you’re a whale then that’s pretty important, but it also keeps them from calling out to their herd. He liked whales. When he and I were in a concrete room, he carved some on the wall with his fingernail. We were never really friends, even though we lived together for years, so when he drew the whales he didn’t include me. It made me mad at first, but now I’m pretty happy. Happy in a way that I hadn’t been since I killed the two tellers at a bank I robbed and burned, except now I’m already in prison. They only let me out to see how they were going to kill him.
There is a particular brand of cruelty that is limited to humans, and I saw that when they came for him. They asked him how he wanted to die, and while they did it they were smiling. I knew what I would have said but they didn’t ask me, and mine wasn’t as funny. He said he wanted to be hung from the thong that belonged to the woman. I thought it was so funny I didn’t even correct his grammar.
So they brought me out there with him, because I laughed and they wanted to show me what was going to happen to me one day. He stood up against that funny tree that grows outside of every town everywhere. They wrapped the left leghole around his neck and put the other leghole around the sawed off branch. The crotch covered his mouth, and when they shot off his legs at the kneecaps, it choked him so he couldn’t speak, but I knew he was laughing.