The Book of Weston

Jostled awake by a bump in the road, I'd wipe my drool if my hands weren't shackled behind my back. I squint into sun stretching desperate beams through dirty bus windows before it is eclipsed by cold mountains, the bus dropping into shadow. And even the guard looks mournful when she thinks no one is watching. She sees the pointlessness of it all, but she plays her role because - The bus stops in a muddy field, and she shoves me out, and I fall into thick mud. I wear a heavy helmet to restrict my view, but I tilt it off in a final act of defiance no one notices. I'm led to a circle of white-haired men in heavy wool uniforms. They spit gibberish and surround me, and one produces a revolver and runs its barrel through my hair, laughing. I think of running but know they will shoot and tear my flesh with bullets, then they may force humiliating acts. Death is near; I smell its musky scent. The man cocks the hammer with callused thumb, and I think not once of god or afterlife, only the silence of annihilation. I breathe deep, holding the moment in my lungs, but laugh and cough as absurdity squeezes my ribs and burns my eyes like tear gas: the fact that they're in charge, that they're about to exterminate me completely. I thought it would happen in another body, not this one. Hysteria seizes. Everything so fiery real. Losing control. Hold onto this. This cannot be it. No, not like this. And just like that -