An Old Man and a Bloodied Candelabrum
Death follows me now. As I walk along the avenue behind the scaffold, he walks with me. With every step my feet drag and his follow, with every gasp I taste his breath upon my lips. I feel his hands in mine, urging me, pulling me onward. Is that his whisper in my ear, or the rattling of my shackles? I cannot tell them apart. He walks with me not as an enemy, but as a close friend. It is not only because I am old that we are so close, but because today is my execution day.
Escape? I never thought of escape. To escape Death would be simply to run into his arms. And why do they cringe at the word execution? It means little to them, the onlookers. It is meant for me, and me only. It is not a bad word, quite the contrary. It’s a cold word, but to me it is hopeful. Perhaps you do not believe me, that Death walks beside me, but you will see. You will know, as they all will know.
The eyes of the guard are upon me now as I stumble, bound. Perhaps because of what I have done they think me alien, not to be considered a human. They all stare in righteous disgust. Of course if they walked with Death as I do now, they would know that to be near Death is to be human.
And why do they say that to be alive is to be human? Are we not dead longer than we are alive? Perhaps this day is truly the day not of my Death, but of my birth. My birth into humanity, that is. The gallows will be a comfort to me, they will be a mother to me.
It is thoughts like these that plague my corrupted mind. I am old and my years are many. As I have aged I have forgotten myself. I have forgotten who I am, and what it is I have done. But now I know, I am reminded every day as my end draws near, or should I say my beginning.
You are curious? I have always been very keen to read people, their emotions, their thoughts. What you wish to know is simple; you wish to know who I am, and for what crime I am to hang. Does it matter? Not to me, but to you perhaps it does, in some way or another. It all rises to my memory now, I see it clearly, like a patch of blue sky on this dark and cloudy day.
How this all started I do not know well; my memory is poor. I lived in a small, simple flat, void and empty. The front of the building was as the face of one who perished. The windows were his clouded eyes, and the door his gaping mouth. Even the smell of the place seemed to remind most of a rotting corpse. The place complimented me well, as I am one who is and was close to Death, as I have said.
The body I found was that of a young man. There was nothing particularly interesting about this man. He was barely a boy, young and full of life. He was, but now he is dead. I had stayed in my room since the night before, then finally gone downstairs to kindle the fire in the stove. To my surprise, it’s iron mask was rather bloodied. I followed the trail from my stove and found the man in the alley between my flat and the factory, lying in a pool of blood and filth. He lay there upon the cobblestones, he had been dragged out of my door into the open. His sandy hair turned from blonde to crimson towards the back of his head. His skull had been crushed, caved in from behind.
He had worked there, at the factory. Well at least he had worked there up until now, I thought. I stood, in shock, completely befuddled. At first I knew not what I ought to do. Finally I walked into the street and called for a constable. It was late in the evening, and all the riffraff of different sorts were at the their posts, as always. So, it took me a while to find a constable, they all must have been busy. But finally I had spotted a blue-coat walking along, twirling his baton. I implored him, begged him to listen. He took me for a madman, as I certainly looked one, and do look one now. But still, he listened. It is the job of such fellows to listen to old bumbling wretches such as myself.
Perhaps it was the rags I wore, or the look in my eyes that caused doubt to arise in him. My face was a mostly blank one, the look of an old man who was confused. An innocent expression I am sure. One so innocent, the young policeman never would have thought of me as a murderer.
You would be surprised to know that truly I do not feel as though I am one. I am quite feeble. It has been that way as long as I can remember, but that is not very long.
My house is small. I sleep upstairs, and only come down in the mornings to my living room, as it is so ironically called. It’s modest space is as barren as my fragile mind, its dank, dark corners occupied by creatures and their webs. It is empty except for the large mirror that stands guard by the door, the wood-lit stove on the opposite end of the room, and the small table hung over an even smaller chair. In the mirror I greet myself every morning, as I stand at the foot of the stairs. I stare into it blankly, and it stares back, for hours at a time.
I do this not because I expect to see anything new in my appearance, or the appearance of the things around me, no. I would say to you that I stare into the mirror because when you fall upon years as far apart and vacant as mine, you wonder what has become of you. You find yourself frighteningly unfamiliar, and so to prevent the thought of this dreaded notion you might lie to yourself, as you would to a friend. Ah yes, there you are, you might mumble to yourself. But the man in the mirror is not an old friend. But who else do you have? No one.
Once I had someone besides myself, to know and love. I had a family of some kind, I suppose. But it has been long, and the only thing I have much of is my years. It is only the faded picture of them, lying upon my small table, hung over my chair, that reminds me. That is all I have left of them, whoever they are. I see their faces in my mirror, over the top of my hunched shoulder. We are as separated now as though we were separated by Death, and ironically soon we will be. But I have lost track of the time, and although it once was cheap, it is now much more precious to me than it used to be.
Perhaps it is the fault of this deceitful mirror that I was convinced that I knew myself. I did not know then what I know now, as does the constable with whom I pleaded know; I know that there is much more to an old man than meets the eye, even the eye of the old man himself.
Of course by this time my poor memory had set in, and in all the excitement I had forgotten what it was that was so urgent. The constable found my startling presentation quite unsettling. Pushing me babbling to the side, and to my frustration, he continued walking. By now it was dark out, and the stars were shrouded. Bewildered, I walked back to my flat. The shadow of the man‘s body was to me only a peculiarly shaped hill of trash in my path. The stench was easily concealed by the already foul smell of the alley.
I was shocked awake the next morning by the sharp wrapping of knuckles on my door, and the form of another blue-coat, but this time upon my doorstep. He had many questions, all of which I answered honestly to my memory. But as I have said, my memory is poor. The policeman had followed the trail of blood to my door, and as I opened it he looked up, surprised. He was not expecting an answer to his beckoning knocks. It is not normal for a murderer to linger, I suppose.
He stormed past me, watching me out of the corner of his eye, listening intently to the story the sanguine smears had to tell. They led to my stove. The floor below the smoldering range was littered with fragments of the man’s skull, caked in dried blood. I may not remember much of the horrid task itself, but this I will never forget. He met my stare and whispered as to himself, “Surely, not you.” But who else? I thought, and so he had also thought, for he said again, “But who else could have been here… but you?”
I had no answer for him. It was only then that I noticed the blood on my cracked hands. My skin had grown coarse with age, and had soaked up the scarlet draught like an old sponge. But how had I gotten blood on my hands? I wondered, but I would soon find out.
The constable raced upstairs. I followed slowly, in a daze. As I finally reached the door I heard his voice come from within, “Good God!” he hissed. As I pushed open the cracked door I saw that he held in his hands a candelabrum, bloodied at the base, and a look of horror on his face.
It was obvious to me that I had killed this poor young man, who had been so full of youth and potential. I must have carefully placed the weapon under my bed, and after having bloodied my hands fallen into a drunken slumber, in an attempt to escape the horror of my actions. My memory is poor, but to recollect the specifics of such an event would be only trivial; I am as convinced of the truth as the magistrate was.
I finally have reached the end of the path, and the crowd surrounds me with the gallows at their core. The faces in the crowd seemed to fade against the the rigid stature of the ropes. My legs have become somehow weaker than they already were, and my senses dull.
I hear only a ringing now. The ringing seems to be an audible sound, but it‘s a cry only I hear, a wail that reverberates upon the walls of my soul, which was before now voiceless. It blinds me with it’s intensity and tears at my eardrums. Somewhere far away I am commanded to scale the short, rough wooden stair in front of me, although I have little control over my body I must go forth now.
As my foot touches down on the first of the wooden stairs, a shudder runs through my body. I have begun to feel my life flash before me. This is quite an unnerving experience, as I remember nothing of it, my life I mean. A slough of raw emotion and feeling flood my weak mind. If these feelings had a voice they would speak of the ages, and the emptiness of one man’s life. Oh, the waste. The time I squandered, it has all overcome me now, I am convicted. I stand before all, convicted. It is true, I have done it. I remember it, the sandy-haired boy, drinking the tea over my stove. I had seem him there before, but now he would be warmed by my stove no longer. His back must have been turned to me, it was my opportunity to strike. I had done it… I groped for the table in the dark, and grabbed the empty candelabrum. I do not need a clear memory to know.
The second step bends under my foot, as I lunge forward once more. It sends quivers up my leg, rattling along my tired bones, and awakening my worn mind. I remember more. I remember it. The candelabrum, I had held it by it’s many arms, swinging the weight of its base over my head, and down before me vigorously. But what had been before me? The man, of course. He didn’t have a chance to scream. It was me. I am a murderer. I am the murderer. The words echoed in my head. I am… I must be. My loneliness must have driven me to insanity.
Again another step, this one the last, but my legs fail me. The guards beside me hoist me up onto the platform. I see death in the faces of the crowd, all around me. The noose drifts lazily in the wind before me, pallid in the light of the mid day sun as it breaks for a moment through the clouds. The crowd hushes. I may collapse now completely, my blood turns to ice in my veins, my heart turns to a stone.
The man drawls on and on, the edict is read. I hear not what he says, the ringing is too loud, its too loud. At this point I am losing the use of my senses. My body cringes, it knows my end draws near, and rather than cling until the exact moment of Death it instead releases it’s life early, slowly and willingly.
The man’s words reverberate slowly, his eyes stare blankly ahead. His words are strange to me. They move through the air as only words do, full of meaning, but as they reach my ears they are transfigured. Death bends their syllables into long and distant vibrations, only whispers. He speaks in a strange dialect, one only known to the man who dies, a language foreign to the living. He speaks of the coming of the night.
If only I could remember, oh if only. But then, it flashes before my eyes again. My heart races. I saw him do it. Death, that is. Of course, it was Death himself. Who else kills beside him? Death was tall and pale, there was no mercy in his eyes. I saw him with the candelabrum in his hand. I saw him stoop over the body. He wore all black, as Death does. He wore clothes… Yes. Does Death wear clothes? Would Death wear clothes? Oh how my memories writhe and twist inside me, just outside my reach.
The noose is around my neck now. Only silence ensues. The turmoil settles, my end has come. I look out over the crowd, one last time, searching their faces. They are so full of life. How could they not be?
They lust for this, my death sustains them. I close my eyes… but wait! There! In the throng! It is Death! He watches me, he gloats over me, he mocks me! A strange being, wearing an ashen cloak. His eyes, his face, I know them! They are hooded, but his pale face, his frozen sneer, his burning eyes, I know them as though they were my own! Justice! Harken! But the words do not come, I am choked. It’s all wrong, I was wrong, but Death has taken me…
