The Least Possible Moment

by Alex L. Mauldin

"Open your eyes," the Lieutenant said, pausing between each word.

The prisoner, on his knees with his hands bound behind him, fiercely shook his head, keeping his eyes clenched shut. The Lieutenant frowned and stared down at the prisoner. Taking his pistol out of the holster, he announced to the men, "I have never killed a man before without first looking him in the eyes. Isn't that correct, Corporal?"

A boy behind the Lieutenant cleared his throat and agreed with the officer. The others all stood behind the Lieutenant and watched as the prisoner kept his head down and his eyes closed.

"And I do not intend to kill this man like a dog, do I?"

"No sir."

The Lieutenant placed the muzzle of his pistol against the prisoner's forehead, pushing his head back.

"Look at me!"

His eyes remained closed. His teeth clenched and he breathed hard through his nose. The Lieutenant pulled back the hammer with his thumb. The click as it locked into placed quieted the prisoner's breathing.

"Open your eyes and look at me." the Lieutenant said.

"Just shoot me," the prisoner whispered. Those were his first words since he'd been captured spying on the edge of the camp.

The Lieutenant looked up at the clouds as they closed over the sun. The wind began to pick up and it started to grow cold.

"First look me in the eyes."

"No."

The officer tightened his grip on the pistol. His finger began to pull on the trigger.

"Then tell me why not."

The prisoner was quiet for a few moments, perhaps remembering a part of his life long before this late October afternoon, when possibilities were endless, and dying was just one of them. Before a war tightened those possibilities, and before all of his senses were focused to the cold pressure of a pistol against his forehead, the nervous shuffling of anonymous boots on the dirt he was kneeling on, and the dry taste of fear in his mouth. All before he knew how he would die. And why.

"Tell me why," the Lieutenant repeated.

The prisoner relaxed, taking his last deep breath. "Because," he said. "This is my death. Not yours."

Last update: 4/26/2005; 10:14:50 PM.