My Final Hour
An Unfinished Manuscript
It's almost 4:30am. Dawn arrives, officially, at 5:30am at which time I am to be executed. In a couple of minutes I will be facing my last hour of this existence.
It is only now that the full impact of my situation has become real. Until now, I had imagined some sort of final stay of execution or some accident which could result in my freedom. I thought perhaps, I might awaken from this horrid dream. But at 4:26 this morning, I realized that my fate was sealed and I stopped playing make believe with my future. So I sit here as my last sixty minutes unwind.
It's too late to recount the twists of fate which brought me here. It's too late to argue over right or wrong, guilt or innocence. Regardless of who is ultimately right or wrong, what my sins are, or their magnitude, the truth will unravel at the end of the long corridor where I will meet my executioners. The reality of the end for me will be death, regardless now of guilt or innocence.
I had often wondered why executions were carried out at dawn. When I was very young, I believed it was so that the respectable, law-abiding citizens of the town could rest easy knowing justice was being served.
Later, as I began to appreciate my freedom and the beauty of the world, I thought that dawn was the best time to be executed. Everything was still and quiet -- at its most peaceful. You could almost go in peace.
But now, now that I face it, I realize that it isn't meant to be easy on the convict. Indeed, it is a most cruelly calculated trick. To be executed at midnight or 2am would be easy. Everyone is lying down. The day is completely over. The day feels done! And, as the final act, they kill you. You almost get to turn the lights out, so to speak. It all brings a kind of finality -- closure.
But dawn, the most beautiful time of the day, full of awakenings and beginnings. And you, with the knowledge that you won't share the day with anyone. All of the anticipation of the new day is tragically wasted -- heartbreaking.
They offer you the best part of the day, full of new opportunity, and you know that they will soon take it away -- this morning and all the rest.
Man can suffer through any hardship or deprivation. To never have something beautiful is to never have to be without it. But to receive something beautiful and lose it, before you tire of it, is tragic.
So, soon, they will perpetrate the ultimate cruelty on me by offering the fruit of the day -- morning of flowers -- as the Arabs say. And then they snatch it all away.
Mike Allison (1992)