So, I'm imagining this guy who's been condemned to death for making unauthorized shadow puppets of the Pope, or some such thing. The method of execution is decapitation, in the days before the relatively clean implementation of the guillotine, when the axeman sometimes had to chop away at the neck for awhile before the head eventually dropped off. The axeman raises his weapon, and the guy immediately soils his jodhpurs and starts shrieking in terror. The axeman, who's really a decent sort of bloke who is, after all, only doing his job (everybody has to make a living), feels sorry for the guy. And so, he whispers below the clamor of the bloodthirsty mob viewing the proceedings-
"Not to worry, my friend, for I happen to know that your children have been secreted away to a place beyond the reach of your enemies. And so, you see, you will live on through the lives of your children, and their children, and so on, and so forth."
Then the call is made- BATTER UP!- and the axeman takes his swing! Once! Twice! Thrice! Um...Quatro! until the head finally falls loose into the basket. And I'll be damned if the guy's head isn't wearing a smile, face down, there at the bottom of the basket.
No comments:
Post a Comment