Small Hammer, Cold Heart

Flash Fiction

Part of Ken Allard was thrilled that there were no sobbing mothers. Often, the mother of the convicted thrashed and screamed louder than the bereaved.

Sometimes the two mothers fought.

The young attorneys called him Crucifixion Ken, but he wasn’t the heartless bastard they thought he was.

You just couldn’t get reelected if you didn’t send people upstate, three squares, and a chair.

Didn’t mean it didn’t affect him, just ask his liver enzymes.

Judge Allard had some handwritten notes on this baby blue paper Louise gave him for his birthday every year. The color was supposed to be calming. Louise was calming. He liked her to know he was using his gift.