Final Moments

He could smell Oklahoma again -- the waft of warm buttery pancakes for breakfast, mama's flowery scent as she moved about the kitchen in a whirlwind of mania, freshly-picked daisies in a vase at the table, and the old, musky smell of his wooden porch. He could even hear grasshoppers bzzzing in the grass, rubbing their legs together with heated vigour.

Then, with an uncomfortable tug of reality, he was whisked back to present time. The deep, throaty voice of the pastor who stood next to him as he read passages from the bible strewn across his hands resonated in the empty warehouse. He could hear the quiver in each syllable he pronounced, sensing the underlying hatred the man must've harboured for the criminal he was reading his sermon to.

His own hands began to tremble, as if the beat of his heart had duplicated itself in his sweating palms. The air around him suddenly began to thin, and his lungs struggled frantically to heave more into his system. He breathed in and out with exaggerated breaths, wondering wildly if he was having a heart attack. Images blurred in front of his eyes, he could no longer focus on anything else but his aching lungs.

Absent-mindedly, not noticing the man's increasingly-loud breaths, the executioner placed the black cloth bag over his head.

The pervading stench of hopelessness flooded his nostrils. He felt the black bag's string tightening around his neck -- a prelude to the opening act. To no avail, he attempted to resume regular inhalations and exhalations, when finally he saw his doomed end clearer than he had ever expected. His wondrous epiphany, came to him in his final moments: his life was ending. He was no longer going to wake up the next morning in a 4x4 cell, feeding on murky water and stale bread. He would never see his friends again, nor his estranged family. He would never get married, have children, find a woman who would make his coffee for him in the morning, and read him parts from the daily newspaper. This was his inconsolable end.

And as the straining floorboards fell away beneath him, the crrack! of human bone and tissue reverberated from wall to wall in the dejected gloom. The noose seized his Adam's apple with a death clutch, finally robbing him of any air.

A creak of the rope.
A rustling of clothes.
A soulless twitch.
And he was gone.