User blog comment:SOMEGUY123/300 Word Long Stories/@comment-25383866-20150104053912

I wrote one. Posting away. I call it "Praise Be."

He was surprised at how clearly everything presented itself, how sharp his senses were. The feel of the asphalt on his knees as he was pushed down, roughly. The hot, coppery smell of the other men’s blood as it ran into the gutter. The ropes binding his wrists, making his fingers slowly go numb as they cut off the circulation. He imagined the flesh whitening. He was blindfolded, so he couldn’t see anything of import. Just the ground, and his scuffed knees.

It was almost funny, he thought. He was going to die in the street. Above him the sun beat down. It felt good on the back of his neck. Warm, like life. He could hear the executioner’s labored breathing beside him, and all around him the roaring of the crowd, come to either protest or cheer on the spectacle.

His mother would be there. So would his sons. He prayed that they were in the back, far away from the sight of his death. His heart began to pound. There was a scrape of metal and a grunt to his left as the executioner hefted his blade into position.

The warmth of the sun was replaced by the cold sting of the sword’s steel on his neck. Sighting in the strike. In the far distance, he could hear the laughter of children, the bark of a street dog. A car horn blaring in irritation.

The blade lifted from his neck, and he muttered a quick prayer to Allah as it whistled back down. There was a split second of pain for him, then silence and darkness. The crowd roared, and the swordsman wiped his blade on the back of the infidel’s shirt as his body was dragged to the pile.

He muttered a quick prayer, and walked away.