Any Last Words

[SexyPanda]

Gray skies for a black mood. Feel guilty. You’re normally not so vindictive but today you’d like a bit of rain for the occasion, perhaps some lightning to spice things up, maybe a little thunder to herald your demise. You’ve always liked spicing things up, it’s what led you through life, led you here.

Stop that thought right there before it goes beyond the wooden beams of the gallows to the noose hanging from it.

They caught you for grand theft, ironically enough. Feel your chest expand in a quick gasp of air, as if ready to bark out that devil-may-care laugh you’ve always turned heads with. Feel it contract as the breath escapes too swiftly. Everything’s going too quickly now.

Twenty paces have never been so long, or so short. Less than a minute of your time please, only going to take less than a minute you think at the somber faces awaiting your arrival. Good. Wait a little longer. I’m not ready.

You could have the rest of your life (you already do, but that’s far too short now) to ponder on this moment, to ponder on your life, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Up the staircase, four short steps, one after the other. Keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Don’t trip. Don’t stumble. Do this with dignity. They caught you for thieving, they convicted you for thieving. So you might not have lived with honor, but you can die with it.

God, where are you? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There was supposed to be a happy ending somewhere, a pretty wife and two children, a small patch of land to call home. There was supposed to be honest work and happy, prosperous days.

Well, you were never meant for honest work anyway.

Thieves don’t retire, you think, and stumble just enough that when the jailor is finished steadying you he is minus one lace embroidered handkerchief and enough pocket change to buy an apple. He won’t realize until it’s too late and you’re too far underground to make a difference anyway.

You’d kill for a morsel right now. You’d kill for a lot of things now, seeing that it all ends in that loop swaying oh so gently on the breeze. You’d kill to have your life flashing before your eyes right now. At least there’d be something to preoccupy yourself with, rather than admiring the way the noose seems to taunt you. You were happier back then, carefree. You miss it.

They said your life would flash before your eyes. Who? Was it the old man? How long has it been since that day, a decade or more? Bite your lip for a moment and try to remember something more than the pain on the man’s face as he finally slipped into oblivion.

Ah, there it is. Memories, so warm you can’t feel the cold numbing your lips and fingertips. Happier times, before you were proficient enough to steal anything of value.

Happier times, when every so often you would run into her.

She was quiet, you recall, and always, always smiling. You smile in recollection even though you can’t stop shaking as the hangman gestures for you to step closer. Let the man be confused, for once. He has the rest of his life to figure this moment out. You have only a few minutes.

Make them count.

The memories flood in then, yet they always involve her. Meeting her, asking after her, trying to steal from her, chasing her. Happy times, even if you were running on an empty belly and living off the kindness of strangers.

The last meeting, when the old man died. Amusei. His name was Amusei. Suddenly it’s important to have his name, that tidbit of memory. If love could save a life--

It couldn’t. It didn’t. That awful day, when the missing nin attacked and killed the old man, the only father you’d ever really known.

She was there, that day. Her eyes were as beautiful and tear filled as they are today, staring up at you from the square in front of the platform.

Start then, at that sudden recognition. Not enough to break away and run for it, but enough to make the guard tighten his grip a little further. There goes that method of escape.

She’s here though, right in front of you. You hadn’t thought there would be anyone to watch you swing from the gallows on this cold and blustery day, but you up your audience of none to four. The executioner, the guard, the victim, and her. Where she fits in, you’re not quite sure. The comrade, the friend, the lover? Who is she, in your life?

Step forward once, not quite within reach. Get lost in the memory of that day. Get lost in the memory, so you will not get lost in the sadness. Her eyes take you back, back to that time so long ago when the old man had just died in your arms and she had just saved your life.

“Come back with me,” she’d said. “You can start over.”

But you were just getting good as a thief, actually surviving off of your own skills now, and you couldn’t imagine a life without the old man (just as you couldn’t imagine a life spent actually working for every mouthful.)

You said no. God, how you wish you’d said yes.

Choke on the lump in your throat, only to have your eyes alight on the man beside you. He doesn’t look at you. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t want to either. To him you are a job, something he puts away when he goes home at night.

Farther away stands the executioner, garbed in black from head to foot. There is a cloth over his eyes, of course. Suddenly, unreasonably, you want him to take that cloth from his eyes and look at you, though Justice must be blind.

Even farther is the victim, the moneybag you targeted and had the bad luck to be caught by. You must be slipping up in your old age now, to be caught by that soft merchant. Pity, really. He’s smiling, and though it’s hard to think you could hate him more than you already do, that smug little expression makes your blood boil.

She is standing closest, and her eyes are wide open. You’re glad, suddenly. You need her to see this. You need her to watch this, even as the tears roll down her cheeks in an endless stream.

Comrade, friend, lover, witness. She was there when you first started, a clumsy bumbling pickpocket. She was there at the moment you hardened into a criminal. Don’t look away, sweetheart. You want her, need her to be here when you make that last, inevitable exit.

The noose settles easily under your chin, rests lightly against the thin fabric of your shirt. They took away your medallions, they took away your weapons, they broke your fingers so you couldn’t steal, but they couldn’t take away your pride. Look straight ahead. Don’t cry, not now Koro. No point now.

The last time you cried was for Amusei. You could cry now, for the life you could have had with the girl who’s still watching, but there would be no point. You threw it away; you said no. Now she cries for you, and something in you is profoundly grateful for this.

“Any last words,” the executioner says, more as a statement than a question. What would you say, anyway? Sorry? Unlikely.

You can’t stop shaking. “This is all going according to my plan, you know,” you say anyway, and medallions or not you are still the ring leader no matter how many chains they put on you. Look back at her. She knows the plan, you can see it in the way she won’t turn her face from you.

From the corner of your eye you see the black figure reach for the lever.

Don’t look away, sweetheart.

You were never meant for honest work anyway.