I found my heaven



I groaned softly as I got up from the hard bench, raising my head to look at the police officer who pushed my food in through the walls of the prison cell. 

I winced as I felt the dryness in my throat and licked my lips trying to moisten them. I swallowed my food with difficulty, my beard prickling my cheek. Each second I could hear the uproar and the shouting that was going on outside. 

I was pulled roughly to my feet and dragged out of my cell to the execution centre, where the eyes of the executioner bored into me. The officers tried to be impartial but they couldn’t prevent the gleam of triumph that entered their eyes at the fate that I was about to suffer. 
One of them whispered in my ear that I would finally pay the price for my crimes and the souls of his relatives would rest in peace. 

I raised my shaggy head to look at the crowd which broke into an uproar and spat at me, incensed with rage. I heard the cries of the mothers who had lost their children. I felt the silent anguish of the wives who grieved solemnly for their dead husbands. My chest heaved with the anguish, despair and pain of so many people which weighed me down. 

You know the fact that upset me the most? I hadn’t done the deed. I hadn’t killed all these people and I didn’t deserve their hatred. The one who was responsible for these dastardly crimes was my own younger brother, a man with family and children. It was not something casual for me. There are some crimes which cannot be reversed. I did not and would not support relentless consecutive murders to satisfy blood lust. Death was too easy for him. 

I had taken his crimes upon my head so that my death would teach him the price that had to be paid for wrong doing. With a smile on my lips and contentment in my heart, I headed towards the executioner, feeling peace as he pulled the rope. 

The darkness engulfed me and the frantic heart beats came to a still slowly as I found an ethereal world of goodness, righteousness and humanity. I had found my heaven. But it wasn’t on Earth. 

Prickle
Casual