by Agatha Rae
“I’ve been doing my best to stay true to myself, to live according to my needs and my desires, because I have only one life, and I believe I need to live it the way it’s fine for me,” John replied, his voice was trembling, but he was able to say it quite loudly and steadily.
“If that’s your philosophy, Mr. Smith, then, by all means, you should have chosen a different life, and became a hermit, or at least never engaged in any relationships with people. What you have done along the way was hurting everyone, left and right, people who trusted you, who were counting on you, who got attached to you, who you wooed, who you promised a different life than you ever wanted to give them. That’s not a life philosophy, that’s simply being cruel.”
There was such silence, John actually thought he heard his own heart-beat, that it was beating so loud it was about to jump out of his chest. He had a feeling everyone heard it, too.
“I therefore, sentence you, Mr. John Smith, to death by hanging. The society doesn’t need such parasites as you,” she said and hit the gavel on the wooden tray. “The trial is closed.”
“What? WHAT?” John screamed, petrified. “Oh God, oh no!” he cried. “What now, good Lord, what now?! It’s a dream, it’s only a dream!” he kept on repeating while holding his head in his hands. His breath was hectic, irregular.
The cage was opened loudly and the creaking sound gave him goosebumps all over his body.
John looked at his forearms, they were covered with goosebumps.
“Get out!” the guide said and reached out to grab him. John instinctively took a step back, inside the cage.
John took a step back, almost falling down as he hit the armchair with his calf.
-but the guide walked after him, and took him out by his shoulder. His grip was very strong, and quite hurtful.
“Where are you taking me?! Stop! I never had a lawyer, I was unable to defend myself! It’s not justice, it’s a joke!” He was screaming, trying his best to loosen himself off the grips of the guide, but soon another one appeared and now there were two of them taking him, leading him to the edge of the platform. He finally understood why he was up, kept so high, why there were stairs leading to the courtroom. At the end of the platform there was a wooden arm stretched about five yards away from its edge. There was a long rope attached to the arm’s end, long enough for it to lie on the floor of the platform and wait for the time it was needed. At the end of the rope there was a loop.
John was crying, feeling his arms being squeezed and his shirt being pulled. He was waving his arms, trying to set himself free, but he couldn’t. In the frenzy that was burning inside his head, he threw down a TV set and a TV cupboard it was standing on. The TV’s screen smashed into pieces and the cupboard broke in half.
“Oh God, no, NO!” John exclaimed and tried to brace his feet against the floor, but they were slipping. He felt a warm, delicate trickle of urine dripping down his thighs. An ultimate humiliation, he thought.
“Don’t let them win, John!” the voice said.
“How can I stop this?! What can I do?” he replied, weeping.
“Well, there is one thing you can do.”
“What, what is it?”
“You can be faster.”
John turned around, became immediately silent and dried his eyes. His sight was now focused. He saw the belt lying on the armchair. So this was it, this is why it kept on appearing everywhere. It wasn’t a punishment, it wasn’t anything to be afraid of; it was his only chance to make a choice, to choose how and when he wanted to end things, and not allow the farce trial and the farce judges to do it for him. He started trembling as if he had a flu. A very strong stomach contraction went through his body and he vomited so rapidly, he almost fell on the floor. Since he hadn’t eaten anything in practically two days, the only things coming out of him apart from bile were three small, half-digested pills. John dried his mouth with a sleeve, reached out for the belt, feeling the invisible arms squeezing his arms even harder, and felt some kind of a knot around his ankles.
As they were tightening the rope above his feet, he looked at the witnesses silently observing the situation. Cindy was silently crying, otherwise nobody had shown any traces of empathy or sorrow. They were just standing there, emotionless looking at his soon-to-be execution.
“You know what? I don’t regret anything! You hear me? Anything! I spent years of my life as a husband to a woman who was clearly out of her mind, whom I never loved, but I loved her son, and decided to be with her so the three-year-old boy could maybe smile a bit from time to time. I did it for you, Mick, you hear me? And you don’t even have decency to call me dad anymore? I’m fucking John to you, huh? I wasn’t a perfect husband, sure, I wasn’t also the worst one, and maybe if we both tried, things might have been different! Rhonda? You’re as dumb as fuck, you hear me? There’s just no hope for you, that’s the truth.”
“Wrap it tighter, will ya, I still feel some blood in my veins in my feet,” he said to one of the guides bending to tighten him and spat on his neck.
“This is it, John, you have to work fast, because they’re doing it! They’re about to execute you!” the voice said in an urgent manner. John snapped out of a lost-on-one’s-thoughts state and took the belt in his hand. He walked towards the kitchen area and took a wooden bar stool standing in the corner, then walked to the hallway. There was a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, its chain wasn’t very long.
“Molly, you’re as spiteful as I am, you just like to think you’re not. You pretended to like me, to fall in love with me, but you were too shallow to change your life for me, and allowed me to twist my life upside-down for you, but gave me nothing back. Cindy, you are the only person I loved. I really did. And I’m sorry I was such a shit of a boyfriend. I didn’t appreciate you, I took you for granted. God, it’s such a cliché…” he said. He was no longer angry, he felt resigned, he was crying. “I’m sorry, Jack. I was greedy, it’s as simple as that. And by the way, I hope they get you for all the money fraud,” he said and showed his ex-boss a middle finger.
John, shaking, trying to calm down, tightened the belt to make sure it was strong enough not to pull the chandelier down as he was about to dangle from it. He dried his face and eyes with a sleeve, checked it again and decided it was fine. He took a deep breath and looked around the apartment. Molly was going to have such a surprise, it was going to blow her mind, he thought and burst out laughing.
The rope was tightly wrapped around his neck. He was standing at the edge of the platform and the only thing that was separating him from death was one step. One step. One step, and everything would end, the fear, the anxiety, the shame, the remorse, the humiliation. Tempting, it really was.
John was standing on the stool with the brown leather belt wrapped tight around his neck, thinking it was just a matter of kicking the stool from under him to silence the voices, to finally rest, to finally get some sleep. One step. He took a deep breath.
John took a deep breath. He was about to make the step, when he felt the wooden stick poking him. As he was losing his balance, the very last thing he thought to himself was that no, he wasn’t ready.
A thought shot through his mind which was now sinking entirely in despair. A chilling thought.
He wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
Gdynia, Poland, July 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Agatha Rae, (real name Joanna Bogusławska) lives in the beautiful city of Gdynia in Poland. A co-author of ESL books, and a collection of essays analyzing popular culture, she made her fiction debut in 2013 with a novel “Oenone”. Her articles have been published both in English in Polish in numerous magazines, for example: Forum for World Literature Studies or The Teacher.
A huge fan of Canadian rockers The Tea Party, cinema-goer, CD-collector and a proud owner of the cutest and coolest mutt on the planet, who is trying to put together a Charles Bukowski PhD (Agatha, not the mutt, the mutt decided to quit her education and focus on searching the
purpose in life). Agatha is currently working on the second volume of Tangents for Firefly and Wisp and another ESL project for Polish market.
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Also available from Agatha Rae:
Oenone - a romance full of drama, served with a sprinkle of the supernatural
Tangents vol. 1 – the first volume of one of the most original adventure/mystery novels out there, published also in Sweden by Löv & Craig Förlag , becoming Firefly & Wisp Book’s very first international release
Coming Home for Christmas – a Christmas story collection, co-written with Danielle Lee Zwissler
Coming soon:
The Garden – a romantic story of finding one’s home, love, and the courage to begin a new life
Tangents vol.2 – will Rick, Anna, Dan, and Matylda find their ways back home?
Agatha Rae The Belt 182