I fainted. As I was returning to reality I felt as if I was floating in a rocking and rolling boat. My head started to clear, but now I felt a nausea like seasickness. Before clarity retuned to me, I was laid on a hard, wooden bed by four large, rough-looking men who were wearing black hoods over their faces. The eye holes gave them a bug-eyed countenance, the whites of their eyes contrasting sharply with the black cloth. As my vision began to clear, and the weakness of my limbs relented I could feel that my wrists, waist, and legs were tightly bound. I could hardly move. It was scary being helpless and not know why this is happening.
What kind of rock-hard bed is this? Was it a bed?
I struggled, but it was too late to help myself. I was restrained with leather straps that were so tight that they buried themselves and my clothes into my skin. I felt myself panic, then became terrified. My screams went unanswered. What had I done wrong? God dammit! What was my crime? I live peacefully. I’m not a criminal, I thought. I had a difficult time thinking. Cotton seemed to be stuffed inside my head, and insects were voraciously eating my brain. My scalp and face became heated. The heat went to my ears, then cheeks, then neck before I calmed myself down enough to realize that I was in the midst of a delusion. My imagination, my terror, my screams, my confusion all led to the feelings of hopelessness, hotness, profuse sweat and tears. I went into a rage and screamed “Help! Someone help me! This is a mistake!”
It was impossible now to calm myself, to be rational, and logical, but my situation seemed to defy both reason and logic, especially when I stared upward at the wooden-framed tower that seemed to float into the sky. Then the board at my feet was lifted about a foot. This inclined plane position made my whole-body side downward onto a vertical board that ran under my neck and that allowed the back of my neck to slide into a half-circle of a vertical, wooden yoke. I could see it clearly at my shoulders. Then I was startled as the other half-circle, wooden yoke came down to enclose my neck between the two half-circles. My neck was trapped in a way similar to the Puritans use of stocks and pillories to humiliate people who were judged guilty of committing minor infractions in their community.
But this was no minor infraction? It couldn’t be. Did I commit a major crime? Did I kill someone? It had to have been extremely serious.
I gazed upward seeing the sun’s rays gleaming off shiny metal, the shiny metal of a sharpened blade at the top of the tower.
Above my head, about ten to fifteen feet was an angled blade of heavy metal. The blade was attached to a rope that followed the towering wooden frame down to the executioner’s hands.
“No! No!” I screamed as salty sweat ran into my eyes and stung, making me squint hard to clear my vision. But nobody reacted to my screams. Not even the people watching my execution. What? The people were sitting. They were not watching calmly, but with bright eyes and expressions of excitement. How the hell could that be? So many cruel sadists in town? How could this be happening? What could I have done at ten years of age to deserve this kind of punishment?
Was I in France where the guillotine was invented? Beheading? Decapitation? What have I done to deserve this? Where’s my mom and dad? Where’s God? Please have mercy on my soul. Do the innocent go directly to heaven? God, let these people know that they are executing the wrong person. Please stop this from happening, Please.”
I focused on the terrifying blade, not the grimly smiling goth dressed executioner. The blade’s edge reflected the sunlight making it look a dull, buttery yellow. Newly sharpened, I thought, which did nothing to assuage my increasing terror. I felt faint. Maybe that was good.
I heard a voice murmuring words from a man who was holding a black book that was open. The bible? Yes, a clergyman. But that was not comforting knowledge and certainly did not reduce my rapid breathing. It was so rapid that I could feel the pain in my chest bones. I could also feel my mouth being as dry as paper.
What are they waiting for? I thought. Waiting is worse than the coming punishment. The blade, oh my God, that blade. So cruel, ugly, and unjust, but I could not look away. It was a person looking down the barrel of a gun held by an assassin. like looking down the barrel of a gun. It’s a paralyzing moment of pure terror.
I started to laugh, then giggle when I saw flaws in the blade. Look at the blade,” I said loudly to the executioner. “It has tiny chips along the edge. Look at it. The blade’s edge looks like a piranha’s teeth.” More delusional silliness set in as I shouted, “How much does the blade weigh? How high is it? Hey you. How long does it take the blade to reach my neck? Also, did it take more than one man to raise the blade to the top? Another silly giggle, then I told myself that panic, terror, and silliness should not be partners, but my mind had been captured by a surreal mixture of fantasy, unexpected comedy, and the terror of reality.
I noticed the executioner holding a dirty, greasy, grimy rope. I screamed at him, “That rope is dirty! It’s too dirty! You can’t hang someone with a filthy, oily, grimy rope! It’s against the rules.” Now I felt as if I was losing my mind. I screamed whatever entered my head. “Unjust. Unjust. I’m innocent.” I think that’s what I was shouting. Instead of a desert mouth I was salivating so much that I was drooling, or was I imagining it?
I tried to scream, again, at the audience for help, but I could only see the people sitting off to the sides by looking over each shoulder. Most people had front and center seats. Better to see the blood spurt and the head fall. Are they without feelings, without sympathy or pity?
The executioner grunted as he rose from his chair. If I can hear him, how come no one hears me? With his uncharitable grin and his gross, goth appearance he looked like a morbid funeral director from days long ago, goth dressed in a long, heavy, black coat, black pants, shirt, and top hat. All dirty. Even his eyes appeared black to me. I imagined his black boots. Silly me.
I began accepting my fate, so I calmed myself down to just a mild terror when the executioner, with his black gloves grabbed the rope. He bent over, came close to my head, and paused. The clean-shaven face startled me. I expected it to be goth stubble and gross. How could an executioner’s face look distinguished? Not only distinguished, but familiar. “Go ahead, asshole, do it,” I shouted. I heard mixed laughter. Laughter?
The guy had a strong chin, penetrating eyes that suddenly became kindly, followed by a smile, followed by the words, “Happy Birthday, Billy. Don’t you worry. The blade is fake. It’s a trick in your birthday magic show.”
I closed my eyes anyway, as if I hadn’t heard his words. Then I heard the friction and grinding sound of the descending blade. I felt no pain in my neck, but I still felt shocked and dazed, though Unharmed. I opened my eyes and saw that the guillotine was much smaller that I had thought, maybe three feet high, the blade, somehow, looked frail and harmless. My imagination had run into a rampage of outlandish, but realistic visions. The audience at my birthday party were still laughing so I smiled with them.
The magician was a teacher at my school. That’s why he looked familiar. But I was left with a strange feeling as if I really were strapped into a guillotine, perhaps in parallel universe.
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