Writing Prompt

The guy next to me was the baker down the block from where I live. “What did you do to end up with a noose around your next like me?” I told him in a calm matter. The man next to me waiting for his kid to end just shook his head.

The Arab-Israeli conflict began in the state in Israeli in 1948. This conflict came from inter communal violence in Mandatory. Palestine between Israeli’s and Arabs from 1920. It erupted into full scale hostilities in the 1947 - 1948 war. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 broke out when the five Arab nations invaded territory. In A.D 73, the Roman Empire forced the Jews to leave Palestine. The Jews were mistreated wherever they went. Lastly

Just one piece of bread. That's all I took. Yet now I face a punishment for my crimes, the worst punishment. The last punishment. Next to me, my brother faces the same punishment, I don't know what he did, I don't care what he did. All I know, is he disserved it. The tight rope binds my hands and tears at my malnourished skin causing a small stream of red blood to trickle down my wrists and into the floor. Beating down on my bare body, the sun cooks my back turning the skin red and flaky.

"Well?" He asks, I try to speak but nothing escapes my dry mouth but a quiet moan of defeat. "Have I annoyed you?" My brother said - the very man who abandoned our starving family and set off to make what looks to be a fortune from the expensive clothes on his back. Yet it doesn't matter anyway: rich, poor, we all die in the end. Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts frets his hour upon the stage. "Ok, if you aren't talking, I will," he begins to open his mouth before the executioner quickly stops him talking with a bull whip to his torso causing blood to steam down his back making his blue shirt red. A whimper escapes his lips. "QUIET!" The tall large man in a black hooded mask yells quickly putting an end to our conversation - or lack thereof.

Ahead of us, the old man in front on the stage ahead of us has the floor pulled from underneath him and is strangled until the last essence of life escape his sad wrinkled face. I pause. It is as if the world moves forward at half the speed. No longer is it the pain that I worry about, it is the humiliation of my lifeless body swinging in front of the sick minded crowd that has come to watch this hanging.

I swallow the lump in my throat and step up as my name is called, I can't control my limbs as they unwillingly trudge towards the gallows as if fate is walking me up there. The hooded man puts the bloody thick rope around my neck as if awarding me a medal and tightens it so that it is hard to breathe. I step on the trap door and look out over the sea of people. All have gathered to see a starving theif die for his sins. I look farther and see the stall from which I stole the loaf that ended my life, the slum like shack that my family had had to live in because of rich scum like my brother. "Good luck!" he shouts behind me. A pathetic attention at humour - gallows humour, and it fills me with rage. I think of the stall, it fills me with rage. I think of the audience, it fills me with rage. I don't feel sorrow, I don't feel remorse, I feel rage.

I grimace internally. If this man’s telling the truth then he’s broken rule number one of the warlock code. I mean, really, rule number one? How stupid can you be? ‘No’ I say bluntly, looking at him angrily. ‘How would that even be possible?’. I turn away and scan the crowd, now eagerly watching the magistrate on the plinth below us, decrying us as evil and children of Satan. I can feel the man next to me looking at me, and he’s irritating me. ‘No, I’ve definitely seen you here before’ he says merrily, leaning forward slightly to get a better look at my face. ‘Were you hanged two months ago in Dorchester?’. I turn to him again, annoyed that he’s a) definitely another warlock, and b) blown my cover, which means I’ll have to move across the country again. ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up’ I say, clenching my fists which are tied tightly behind my back. The last thing I need is a long chat with this clown when I need to focus my energy on stopping my neck from snapping like a twig. To my annoyance, he doesn’t show any signs of shutting up, but he leans towards me. ‘What clan do you belong to? Bit unfortunate eh, both of us being caught twice!’ he says, under the impression that we’re having a polite conversation. My anger crests to boiling point and I feel my hands start to get hot. I need to keep my head here, otherwise I’ll need to fight my way through hundreds of human morons who’ll try and set me on fire or pitchfork me or god knows what else. I turn to him, fixing him with what I think is my most intimidating stare. ‘Will you shut the fuck up’ I hiss, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as every magical synapse in my body readies itself to strike. He opens his mouth to reply, but a booming voice cuts him off: ‘YOU TWO SONS OF SATAN. WHAT ARE YOU CONVERSING ABOUT?’ the magistrate shouts theatrically, his voice carrying to all of the assembled crowd. I look to the irritating stranger, and then back to the magistrate. ‘Nothing’ says the stranger, a smile playing about his lips. ‘We’re just debating how tasty your flesh would be’. Gasps break out from the assembled crowd, and cries of ‘Kill him!’  echo out. The man next to me focuses for a second, and then in a brief flash of light sheds his ropes and bindings, including the noose around his neck. This time the crowd screams, and the screams only get louder as the man points directly at the magistrate, who’s neck breaks with a deafening crack. I focus briefly and shed my own bindings, stepping forward and looking around. My attention snaps back to the stage as I hear another loud crack, and turn to see the magistrate getting to his feet, eyes gleaming red.

He asks. “Yeah probably, I’m here quite often. “ I replied. Well? Are you gonna go through with it today?” He asked with a grim tone. “I’ll go if you go” I told him. He looked at me with his dead fish like eyes. “ok” He put the noose around his neck and stepped off. It was standard, he kicked around, struggled and it even looked like he regretted it. But alas, it was too late. As his body swings around I could see his face, the joy and happiness his face expresses transformed him, I couldn’t even recognise him anymore.

Suicide cliff. A place where you come to end your life. Every major city has a spot. Suicide is considered a once in a lifetime extracurricular activity.

“What?!” He must be insane, surely. The stress, the building terrible pressure of death crushing his brain underfoot. Simultaneously it crushes my heart with shame and guilt for my crimes. I ignore him, choosing to stare into the expectant crowd when I double take and look at him again. Absorbing every detail of his face with shock, fear and confusion increasing tenfold, filling my up and paralysis my lungs trapped within this flood of emotions. Fuck, I’ve seen him before too.

I’ve seen him standing there, with a noose around his neck and dirt on his collar. Different clothes but from the same perspective, same angle, everything. I’m even having deja vu with feeling transferred from the last time we met. “Who are you?!” I demand, and he answers simply.

“Henry,” even his name is familiar, fitting and expected, like I could have guessed it at a push. “And you’re Smiddy, aren’t you?”

Yes, I admit. My name was always kept hidden from the prying minds of others but now it doesn’t matter. I’m about to die and through some power, possibly psychic, morbid visions of my own doomed future on these gallows. Besides, he clearly already knows it, and I guess the dying lose their sense of self-preservation when they’ve accepted their fate.

The hangman pulls the lever, and everything goes black.

Two weeks later, the executioner sees two men shuffling together in the line for the gallows, shackled in heavy chains and looking around oddly, like confusion and not dread is the forefront of their minds. He furrows his brow, knowing it’s impossible he recognises them but he does.

“Try to remember me this time, won’t you Smiddy?” Henry grins over my shoulder, nudging me a little.

“Eight time’s the charm,” I joke and we cordially begin our fortnightly ritual of discussing the circumstances leading to our deaths, which is bizarre and hilariously different every time.