Last Man

The execution platform is set up in the city square before the capitol building and surrounded by skyscrapers. People fill the space, crowded up to the edge of the platform. Shouting, jeering, phones out taking pictures, video, streaming. Three noosed men stand waiting for death but the crowd is there for the last man in the line.

The last man doesn’t hear the shouts. He stares at all the faces in the mob. Every expression of hate, fear, disgust, judgment. Why have you left me? The words echo in his mind. A priest approaches him and asks if he has any last words.

“It’s finished.”

The first man drops. Then the second. As the trapdoor drops from the last man’s feet, new expressions leap out from the throng. Grief, love, hope. Whispered in his mind, I am with you.

*Snap*

The last man dangles limply, and the multitude is silenced. A sense of gravity crashes into the square. And in the quiet rings out, “My son!” A woman shakes, barely able to stand if not for the man beside her who squeezes her shoulders tight. She shouts again, her sorrow echoing about the plaza, “My son! My son!”