Little Buttercup

By Ari Keski-Loppi

There are things one can solve, reason, even understand. 

Then there are things one can not. 

Can one be born bad?

Who deserves to die?

What would it take (for you) to end somebody's life?

There are those 

who do it for pleasure.

Because they have to

Because they really want to

...because they can't be stopped.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ari Keski-Loppi
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393822844

Book preview

It grows in the high mountains of Sardinia. Just aside with them beech wood forests that make their little lines on them hills. There, high up in the mountainside where the cool Mediterranean wind sway it gently making it stick harder to the harsh ground. Up there it grows, a little buttercup, pushing it’s roots deep into the ground, into the soil that was meant to provide  that little flower with it’s very few demands. It only needs a place to be, it has every right, a little nutrition and the sun to give it’s light and warmth to help it stay alive up there in that hard environment., that’s all. All it asks for. It just wants to swing around in the wind, to feel itself beautiful and to be free.

To be free, like the little horse that also lives up there in them hills with the flower. A beautiful,  spotted mare with her two foals, a filly and a colt, galloping aside their mother with the wind on their bristles. They run in the middle of them high mountains, in the green meadows and shady forests all together, all free, the way horses at that time and before have been doing. The mare takes pride in her two lively foals, running on one moment beside her and the other, further apart chasing each others. It is the way life is meant to be for them horses up there. A steep rock face reaches out high up there in the blue sky. It is like the time itself had stopped in that high altitude they all live in.

The mare neighs aside the beech wood forest as a sign for her young one’s to stop the horseplay and come to have some dinner up where she had moved along. The youth, both the filly and the colt come flying to their mother. A more eager colt is already getting ready to eat something from the ground when his mother pushes him aside from the flowers he was about to have for his meal. For a while those animals  communicate in a way no human would ever understand. It looks like they are just staring one another but somehow the mare gets her message sent out to her lively and very enthusiastic colt. It had been that same flower, the same little buttercup that just wanted to it’s place to be in them hills as well. It is like the mare had told her young one that he already had a long face, he didn’t need it to be lengthened anymore. That was just one lesson she gave to her youth but probably one of the most important, don’t touch the little buttercup, ever. It tastes bad and it gives one a horrible impression on one’s face. That was the secret of that little buttercup. It sure looked beautiful, swaying  there with the wind but it sure had it’s ways to defend itself and it’s right to be in there, up in them mountains.

The mare guffawed loudly, so that the whole mountain valley echoed for some time. It was time to move along and after their little dining moment by them beech wood forests, they all went at full gallop across the meadow and higher up to the hill. The mare runs in the lead and her young one’s follow  a few hoofs behind. Just like the little buttercup, they want to feel the wind, the sun and be free as well.

CHAPTER 1  THE END

Yet another of those huge metallic monsters open up. The sound it makes can’t really be described. It is the same everlasting yell that whales let out in the deep blue while yearning their loved one’s, longing for their companions. In this place it only means something so very different. In there, it is the sound of lost hope, the sound of the end. Behind those iron doors and enormous gates are sealed off the very worst of us. Inside those rooms are individuals just waiting for their day to come, their number been chosen. This is the death row in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is one place time actually stops...and never starts again.

She must slow her speed once more. Not just because she’s almost 70 years of age and her legs won’t carry her yet another step. Neither because she feels like this is one place she never thought she would visit on her life. The real reason is somewhere behind these ancient and rusty gates. The reason she’d come over in the first place, the reason she now had to stop her walk for a while. It is time, one of those days has come, one number has been chosen.

She has walked these endless aisles already on her mind several times, over and over again. Trying to gather the courage to actually take those steps. Steps that will get her close to the one person that broke her heart for eternity. On her mind it had not been easy and she had known from the beginning it was going to be one long walk eventually. She had no idea of how long it truly was. She knew her request to come in there had been wondered. Some even had come in to the  open and said it out loud. She had no business of being there or at least that’s what she thought they were thinking then. They had been all wrong, she had every right to be there, every right in this world.

Guards were all professionals and didn’t bother her in any way. Each door got opened as soon as she reached there. It took her quite some time to walk them long aisles. Not that she was totally out of shape but the further down them aisles she went , the colder the air around her got and her legs begun to weight more and more each step she took. Not to mention the pressure inside of her. She had a huge junk of something on her throat and she was afraid it might pop out if she would stop walking. Although all of them guards let her go nice and easy, she could feel their eyes on her back after she passed their guard posts. Nobody looked her in the eye, not one. Everyone just nodded their heads, saying something like Ma’am or so and let her pass them as quickly as she could. She was not really paying any attention for them.

She was wearing her better shoes. The one’s her daughter had bought for her, for her 65 birthday, few years ago. They were dark blue, like the Mediterranean Sea on the coast of Sardinia, an island she was from. Like some promise that had come to life in the hand of some skilled shoemaker. She loved those shoes, even thought she normally disliked shoes that had higher heels like them did. It had been a gift from her daughter and she felt like it was her obligation to wear them for her that day. Shoes weren’t the only better clothing on her there on that very day. She was wearing her very best dress, which had been hand sewn by one great dressmaker in their town. She had worn it only once before, on her daughters graduation day from the police academy. Although it was in fact a bit older than them shoes, she wore it perfectly. She was now 69 years of age but had kept her figure very well, better than the most of her age. She had once been a very beautiful woman, a tall, black haired beauty and her blood relation for them proud people of Sardinia could still be seen easily. She kept her strong chin up and walked proud and tall. Her grayish hair was just wrapped into a bun and she had covered her head with a hat. A hat that she had just bought for that particular occasion. It was kind a funny looking, old fashioned and even thought she wasn’t a young woman anymore, the first impression one would get if seen her wearing that hat, would be that it wasn’t really her style. Then again, she had never been a so called hat person, what ever that meant anyway. She had read that there was in fact some that were those hat persons and the rest that then of course were not. It had sounded very peculiar to her. She hardly ever wore a hat, well maybe in the church but that’s it and she knew it made her kind a out of style at that period of time. A lady should always wear a hat no matter what the occasion. She really wasn’t interested about the latest fashion and of how stylish she was in every minute. She made sure she never went out on dirty or broken down clothes but the make up stuff etc wasn’t really her pack of candies at all. Her hat was just fine, she thought to herself. It matched her dress and her shoes and was comfortable to wear. She knew she had bought the right one. Maybe the brim was a bit small for the woman of her size, the sales woman on the store had told her to get one with a bigger brim but she liked better the one she was now wearing. What really made that hat special, was one little thing that had been sewn into it afterwards. It was a small policeman’s badge, the same kind that is seen in each police movie or series, the very same that those fake cops on the screen keep waving around. That particular one was now trimming that old lady’s new hat. One might say it looked horrible and was a fine example of the bad taste but on that very day it meant everything for her.

She had in fact two hats on her. The thing was that she was carrying the other one in her hands as well. The one she had on her hands, was a real policeman’s hat. The very same men and women in blue actually wear out there. It was as real as they can get. It used to belong for her daughter, her police daughter, that is.

Finally, after a quiet long walk, she reaches the corridor she knows will lead her to where she was going. She’s now in the very heart of that prison. She knows that behind that next large iron gate lies souls waiting for their freedom out of this world of which they didn’t manage to cope with. Souls inside them persons of which had acted against humanity, against the society we all live in. For their actions outside those prison walls, each one of that last corridors temporary flat holders were running out of their lease. Day by day, their rent was going to be collected. Their landlord took the payment in one lump sum, rather than money it was gathered differently. The man in charge, the society of ours took what it felt the one owned and took what we all can give only once, as well as have only once, our life. After that payment, well landlord did what felt necessary, after that it was in the hands of the other Lord, the big guy himself. Out of sight, out of mind and troubling the good people that just wanted to live their life in peace.

Inside those little rooms there were persons waiting to be executed. There were only few rooms on the corridor because this place is not their regular room on that large, hopeless facility. They got brought there only few hours or days before the actual execution, so that the other prisoners  around them would stay a bit calmer. Even the toughest one’s had lost their nerves when the day had come. The state of Louisiana uses the poison, injections including venom inside them, for the death penalties. a person is also brought there so they could shave their heads. Every prisoner gets a fine meal if so desires, for the last time and a chance to talk to a priest if requested so. Normally nobody is let into the last corridor on a day when there was going to be a execution but that day it was different. She had got a permission from the governor himself to enter the death row on the last day, few hours before the actual thing.

Not like the other prison corridors, that last one there, the one in death row, it was very quiet, very scary silent to be exact. Not a sound comes from there, not one. It is said to be the final place before the FINAL PLACE.

A tall black man opens up the last door and says to her without looking at her direction;

The last door on the left Ma’am

and then he salutes her like in the Army. She walks by him and quietly keeps on going towards the door last on her left. She feels like she is in some old soundless movie but in fact in slow motion also. Each step takes her forever, allowing her to go through her motives to come around yet another time. She tries to think as hard as she can but it’s like her brain is on half speed also.  All she sees is pictures, pictures about her life, her daughter, things that had made her come there, and so on. She keeps asking herself that most important question inside her head but can’t find any answers. Maybe that’s why she is there?, looking for the most important answer, one that only one of these individuals could give her. The answer in the question she had had for some time now , the answer for the question why?

She is now finally there, behind the door that holds all her answers. Well, if not all of them, at least the biggest one, the one that made it happen, the one that she was hoping to get, hoping could provide some ease for the pain inside of her and fill in some of the blanks, so to speak. She stops in front of the little door and takes a long breath. She inhales the cold and moist air around her and pulls herself together, so that she has finally the courage to step forward toward the small window on that door. In there, on the dark corner of that tiny room lies a person facing the wall. Just lying there, on the floor clean shaven, on a orange prison uniform. No sound, nor a single movement on that body, it’s like looking at a dead man for her. She can’t keep them tears from not coming and silently as she stares through that window, she begins to cry out. She doesn’t know of how long she’s stayed behind the door exactly but when the guard taps her on her shoulder and tells her that;

It’s time Ma’am!

she comes out from her memories and back into this world and moment in time. She doesn’t say a thing, just nods her head a bit. Then she touches the hat on her hand and takes one last look through the window. The person behind the door stays still and the old lady quietly turns and starts to walk away. She slips away from the door each step she takes and she feels like her whole life keeps sliding away from her too. As she reaches the door where that tall, black guard stays at, she suddenly stops and looks once more over her shoulder at the door she just visited. She had stopped crying already and tears have dried on her cheeks and on her dress. Still, she now has a totally different look on her face. It’s like her sorrow has passed on and instead of being sad, there was now pure determination on her eyes, like the mind had finally accepted the inevitable and moved on.

The guard opens up the door for her. She looks at this tall black man and gives him the best little smile she can under the circumstances. She knows that these guards aren’t impolite or anything like that. They just work in a place where all the hope is gone, being surrounded with hate and fear, each and every day. They have to become callous for the people around them to be able to survive through each day. All the bad things in the world can be found inside those walls as well as other institutes like the one she was now a visitor in. One can only hope that while working in there, all the bad things stay in there. It must be a hell of a job, she finds herself thinking while the guard closes the door behind her. Just like being a cop, like her daughter was. Going after and dealing with the worst and twisted of us. In the long run it must leave it’s marks for each of them, that’s for sure. Nobody can harden oneself so much that endless tubes of horrors that they see and witness every day, wouldn’t get to them somehow. It’s one hell of a job, it surely is.

When the door behind her is closed and all the necessary locks have been set on, the guard suddenly turns toward her. She had been thinking this and that and his approach really surprises her. She had taken few steps from the door already and was on her way down the aisle when the guard walked by her and turned facing her for the first time. He saluted her the way he did earlier when she came there. She gives that big black man another smile but it must have looked like she was trying a bit too hard there.

It was a very tired smile from an old lady, she says quietly to the guard. It was like the whole thing didn’t want to come out anymore. The guard stood still in front of her, he opened his mouth and words came out flying, like in the roll call in the Army.

Ma’am, may I shake your hand please?.

She looks at this enormous man in front of her and realizes that this man, although brave and fearless, he must have been struggling with that line. She doesn’t hesitate, she offers her hand , her right hand of which is covered in calluses, to the man. Their distance between them is too long to shake hands, she realizes when she holds her hand out for the man and she is about to take a step forward when the guard just stretches his that huge hand of his. His hand is three times the old lady’s palm and when they silently shake hands, she understands that she is in fact shaking hands with the long arm of the law there, literally. She feels compassion for this tall man and when she looks upwards to finally catch a glance of his eyes, she realizes the size of him. He must be 610, 611, maybe even 7" tall. His uniform is fillet with muscle, the fabric on that uniform could have easily clothe 3-4 normal sized men. The little plastic bar they kept on their sides looked ridiculously small for the man of his size. She knew he had to wear it too, although he probably never had to use it. His size was enough to ease them prisoners, that’s most likely the reason why he had his post by the most desperate and dangerous one’s.

All the other guards had been very careful not to take a single look on her eyes but now when they were shaking hands, they both looked straight into each others souls. She saw immediately what a good heart that large man has. She notices the depth in those dark brown eyes which makes her smile once more. Even in a place like this, there is still hope around she thinks. If a man, surrounded with these lost one’s can still feel something, maybe there is hope for the rest of us too. They stand there facing one another for quite some time. He lets go her hand and says to the old lady again;

I knew your daughter Ma’am. She was a fine woman and a true lawman as well.

When he spoke, the tension on his voice was gone. His voice was smooth, yet masculine and for a moment there it was like they had known each others for ages. She took a long breath again and started to turn around, when all of a sudden she looks back at the guard of whom had been also turning away and was in fact starting to walk back towards the little room he kept his post into.

Yes, yes she was, the old lady answers to him and just for a while their eyes touch once more. Then they both turned around and kept on walking to the opposite direction.

As she walks through them empty corridors, all she can hear is her own words spoken earlier for the guard. Her soundless whispers kept echoing the walls as she went along and she couldn’t help of falling into her memories.

––––––––

Even thought her mind was all gloomy and fillet with everlasting pain, all she could remember was the very different pain 37 years earlier. The one that only made her happy and proud afterwards. The kind a pain only mothers of this world would feel when giving a birth to their children. The pain that provides yet another life, yet another little soul into this world. The pain that ends the months of sleepless nights, worrying and hoping that everything would be alright in there. The pain that bonds those two together forever.

Breath! Breath!, Push! Push!, she could still hear the midwife’s orders. And all she did was pushing, she just could not understand of how she was able to find more and more power to do that. She did, nevertheless and the pain was getting so horrible that she remembered feeling that she was going to die for sure. But she wanted to make sure her baby was alright, even if she had to die, she needed her child to come out safe and sound. It had been a very painless pregnancy for her. She had felt great all the way until the time for that actual thing, labor. The pain took her sight and she remembers yelling My baby, my baby, take care of my child, without a vision. She was certain then that she was going to die for that childbirth. She had been like a huge balloon and the crazy medicine man, a hermit whom lived in the mountains had told her that it was going to be a 10 pound boy in there. She remembers thinking then that there was no way she could give a normal birth for something so big, if that so very deviant man somehow happened to be right. She had hoped and prayed