Inspired by Mika's Over My Shoulder. The music is very haunting, and yet it's so alluring. I suggest you at least listen to it once, it's the second half of Happy Ending.

Fall From Grace

I stared straight, taking my first step into the aisle. Immediately I was knocked to one side, my jaw stinging, and then the other. I heard laughing as my feet tangled and I fell to the ground, my hat straying from my head. Just one step and I believed my jaw was already broken on both sides. It was hard to keep my lips together, pursed, as I stood and tried to continue. I left my hat where I had fallen.

I trained my eyes straight ahead again as I continued to walk, feeling my shirt and cape splattered with rotten fruit, my only indication being the smell that rose from it. I would not look away, I would keep my contact. I stumbled, my hands torn by the rough stones on the ground and my clothing torn by the hands on either side of me.

I would not cry. It was not the face I wanted to leave this world with. The jeers from the side could not penetrate the trance I had entered in. Barely either could the pain. A dull throbbing all over my body was the only thing I felt. I created a tunnel vision and blocked absolutely everything else out. I blocked out the agony from my wounds, from my broken body. I blocked out the ailing of my heart as I stumbled through the sea of hateful fists and words. I ignored my own thoughts of how unfair it all was, my anger at them for not understanding, my despair that it could not last just a moment longer.

The gallows were up ahead, one noose slightly longer than the other for I was taller, and no stools. They didn’t want there to be a chance we would survive a second longer, wanted no doubt in their minds our necks would snap, so they made the plunge longer. Instead of a stool, there was a trap door that would stop us just three inches above the ground.

My throat tightened at the thought, but I continued my walk of shame. Halfway there, I thought to myself, tripping against the blows, and fell to the ground again, my connection lost, my source of strength. I coughed and watched through fading vision the sight of red slime dripping to the ground. There were triumphant screams on either side, men and women alike, and for a moment I felt every emotion there was to feel in a sickening reel that spun like a top. I whirled, standing again and willing my head to lift just an inch so I could stare again. It felt so heavy, like someone had strapped an anchor about it, and I reached out for some sort of support only to have my hand grabbed and pulled so harshly that I stumbled and fell again.

My knees landed on a broken bottle that ripped through my pants and tore into my skin. I stood again, feeling the edges slice further. I coughed, feeling something slide down my chin, and struggled to keep my balance. The cape I wore around my neck was pulled and I landed on my back, my lungs shocked by the impact, and closed my eyes, struggling to regain my breath even as I felt the impact of boots against my legs and ribs. I somehow untied the strings with my failing fingers and left it on the ground as I rolled away from the offensive blows and got onto my knees.

Jeering, taunts, insults, the most foul of names, I heard them all. I had no support as I stared at the ground, wondering what to do now that I felt I had lost all energy. My sides hurt, my face, one eye was already swollen shut and the other was practically blind from tears that I had never wanted to fall.

I gathered my courage together and stood again, stumbling backwards and turning around. I saw him there, standing stiffly before the backdrop of the platform that would soon be our death, wanting to help and knowing he couldn’t. A frown turned his face to stone, his skin pale. A ghost, I thought to myself, even before his death. I felt a laugh escape my throat, a hand coming to my face as I was pushed to one side. Almost there, I thought, and even as I thought that, there was a beating upon my head. Through the angry screams of the crowd that had closed in on me, I could hear the yelps of a small child, mimicking the words their parents said, and even the vision of him standing there couldn’t stop the emptiness I felt inside.

Almost there, I thought optimistically, standing up again and trying to breathe though I was sure something inside had collapsed, and fell into the open arms of the one I loved. I looked up at him, finally admitting defeat and sobbing loudly. I held onto him with the remains of my strength, telling him, “I knew, I knew,” though I was sure he had no idea what I was talking about. But I had known.

I had known that when they asked which of us was to walk through the aisle, which of us was to take the walk of shame, I knew that speaking up would only put me at the end, waiting for him to make his way down as I had. I knew staying silent, while he volunteered, would give me the pain to endure while he waited. I couldn’t bear to see him, bruised and bloody, at the end. I knew at the end, when we looked at each other for the last time, I wanted to see his beautiful face smiling back at me and I wanted him to be able to say he would see me in the afterlife, wherever it was we went when we died. So I said nothing and bowed my head while he stood and bravely offered his wellbeing for my sake. I wondered if he thought me a coward for doing nothing even though I graciously accepted the punishment when they told me it would be mine. I still remember his bewildered face when they told him he would be the one waiting. They did it all for our own dishonor and for our own torment.

Before I could manage to speak another word to him, to perhaps breathe my love for him, they broke us apart, him struggling, me to weak to do anything but to be dragged at a quicker pace to the platform. I knelt before my noose, staring through it to the crowd I had walked through. There were more people than I had thought. I smiled forlornly and bowed my head as they fitted the loop about my throat. Everything would be over and done with in a moment.

I gazed over at him as he was fitted, his face pale and straight, frightened I supposed, but I didn’t blame him. I had accepted it long ago that I would die in this way. I blamed myself for dragging him into it. He shouldn’t be up here for my own indiscretions, but they thought me a liar when I said I had been too clever for him, the good doctor, and had tricked him into doing what they termed profane acts. As if loving someone could ever be considered profane. I scoffed at the thought, earning myself a smart flick from the man who stood beside me, making sure I didn’t try to flee.

“This is the end for you both. What foolish lads you are,” the man said, and walked away just far enough to be away from the trapdoor we would both plummet through in just a moment. I could still feel myself bleeding and my best white shirt was covered in dirt and blood, shoe prints and hand prints, spoiled fruits and vegetables and both of our tears. If I had had any strength to feel anything, I suppose I would have been crying like he had been, that good doctor, the doctor too good for anyone in this town.

“Benny,” I whispered hoarsely and he brought his face to me and smiled the best he could, though his fear of death made it somewhat weak. I gave him my best, something my hardened being could muster, and reached out for him. He did the same and, despite the disgust that poured from the crowd, we held hands where they could see it, where everyone could see it. For the first time, we displayed our feelings out in the open instead of hiding away in darkened rooms or cluttered alleyways and dark passages. And for the first time, neither of us cared what it was they said or the dirty thoughts they had in their heads of us. It was dishonorable, but honor meant nothing when you had a rope about your neck. And what honor did they have? Beating us and breaking us down just before they sent us on our way to the river Styx? If that was honor, then I’d rather be the wretch who begged through a broken cup for spare change, the dirty drunk who spewed forth great amounts of filth from his mouth, the most honor less of beings in this once great town that was reduced to its very purest of forms in the face of adversary. The town that turned into the demons of hell, the town that knew no mercy, the town that would tear at the very flesh of their neighbor if they saw fit.

“I will see you again. In the afterlife or another life.” Benny squeezed my broken hand, but I gave him no indication of the sting I felt from it.

“I will find you. And when I do, I hope you are prepared.” I squeezed him back to the best of my ability. He shook his head at me and grinned.

“To joke at a time like this,” he murmured and I would have shrugged had the bones in my shoulders not been shattered.

“There is no better time to joke than this,” I replied and I could see that he agreed by the dying twinkle in his eyes. “But I joke not about finding you. Wait for me, I would find you in the most populated of towns, in the largest crowd, even if you were born into quintuplets, I would know which face possessed your soul. Have no doubt in me, for I have none in you.”

Benny, biting at his lip, nodded his head. “I have no doubt. And I will look as well. Even if it takes millennia, I will find you.”

His promise was enough. I knew even if I was reborn and had no recollection of this time, of this place, even of Benny or the words we exchanged now, I would know him. You never forget those you love, even if they have a different face, and I knew for a fact, even if Benny’s entire appearance changed, his soul wouldn’t, and I would know by the first word he spoke, the first glance we made towards one another, that I would know it was him. I had faith in that.

“I’ve never been more proud to love someone,” I said loudly, so the crowd could hear. Though his face colored, I knew he was happy to hear it.

I heard the creak first. Benny’s reply died in his throat and he looked towards the board he sat upon as it gave way beneath him. Our hands still connected, we fell that distance, each second bringing us closer and closer, and there were very few.

And even in my dying moment, I wondered at the people before me, brothers, neighbors, friends and family, as they let their eyes cascade as my body did, jolting as my body did, widening as my body went limp. And I hoped, for their sake, they regretted what they had done.