Narration: A man paces in his cell, in less than an hour he will be executed. He felt he had been wronged, and was justified in his murder. Others felt they were justified in killing him. But the story does not end in his execution, the cycle of vengenace seldom ends with one death. But this man will now try a different approach, an approach known as mercy, in the Twilight Zone.
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Jamal paced nervously in his cell. He knew what would soon happen, it had happened many times, and would probably happen many more times. Then Benson arrived, in his police uniform as always. He seemed a bit scared, but pretended to be uninterested.
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Benson: You wanted to see me?
Jamal: Yes. I know now what this is, where we are.
Benson: You're going to try that bit again? How you're trapped in an endless loop and the rest of us are just characters in your dream. That insanity ploy didn't work at your trial and it won't stop them from sending you to the lethal injection. You're a murderer.
Jamal: Yes I am.
Benson: So you finally admit it.
Jamal: Yeah. And I see now that I'm in Hell. I thought the first time they executed me, that would be it. I would just go to sleep and never wake up. But someone, whoever does the final judgement, didn't let me off that easy. I get to be executed over and over again.
Benson: And what does that make me? The devil? Or just a demon?
Jamal: When I accepted what I had done, I remembered, everything. You were a cop, and you planted evidence against me.
Benson: You just admitted you were guilty.
Jamal: I was guilty, but somehow I doubt I was the only one you planted evidence against. How many were innocent?
Benson: You're trying to get me to confess, a last bit of revenge against the cop who sent you here.
Jamal: Believe it or not I'm trying to help you. I tried to delude myself into thinking I was an innocent man, just caught up in a bad dream. You are trying to delude yourself into thinking I'm either lying or crazy. You need to accept what you did, and try to make amends. I don't even know if we can do that in Hell, but we have to try.
Benson: So you and I, and the others you talked about, we're all in the same corner of Hell?
Jamal: I think so yes. Even if you lived another 60 years after my execution, you died eventually, so did everyone else. My punishment is an endless execution cycle. Yours is always wondering, what happens when he dies? Do I cease to exist? That eternal fear of extinction.
Benson: For planting evidence against a murderer? Allegedly.
Jamal: The others, maybe this is their punishment for engaging in the death penalty. They could have sentenced me, sentenced others, to life imprisonment. Do they think we were all Magneto type supervillains. They chose vengenace instead of justice or mercy.
Benson: I still think you're trying to get me to confess to something I didn't do. When you're given that lethal injection in an hour I'm going to watch. Then I'm going to the local bar to toast the fact that there's one less murderer in the world.
Jamal: I guess we'll soon see which of us is right.
Benson: Yes we will.
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Jamal was soon strapped into the gurney. He expected to be given the lethal injection, a brief sleep, and then he would be in the courtroom and the whole thing would start yet again. But this time, something changed. When the hell loop started again, Jamal was not in the defendant's chair, he was in the section with spectators, and he was wearing the collar of a priest. And to his astonishment, Benson was in the defendant's chair. Benson seemed as confused by this development as Jamal. The judge ordered Jamal to face him while he pronounced the verdict.
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Judge: Having been found guilty or murder, and having expressed no remorse, I hereby sentence you to death.
Benson: No, no this isn't right! He's the murderer not me! This can't be happening!
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The baliffs dragged Benson away. They thought he was desperate and having a mental breakdown, to accusse a priest of the murder he had just been convicted of. Karen, who in this iteration was the prosecutor, approached Jamal.
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Karen: Are you okay father?
Jamal: Yeah, I guess.
Karen: I guess it's difficult for you, to see a man sentenced to death. But he deserves it.
Jamal: Maybe he does, but that's for a higher power to decide, not me. I have a duty to help him, to help him realize the error of his ways.
Karen: You don't have much time.
Jamal: I might have more time than you think.
Karen: You don't believe that story about how he's trapped in a dream and we're all figments of his imagination?
Jamal: I don't know. I do know that facing my own sins has helped me, it could help you.
Karen: What sin? The fact that I sought the death penalty for that lowlife.
Jamal: Perhaps, I'd recommend not deluding yourself. Trust me when I say that penance and making amends is better for the soul.
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Narration: One man has escaped his cycle of vengeance, and will now try to help an old enemy to embrace mercy. This old enemy is being led away to await his eventual execution. He is still caught up in his own vengeance, and refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions. Thus he has merely traded one form for another. Perhaps he can one day accept responsibility, for he now has all the time in the world. Until that day he is trapped in his own cycle of vengeance, in the Twilight Zone.