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Short Story: The Last Minute

The following short-short story was written in the Second Person (where YOU are the protagonist... or antagonist, as the case may be). It was written many years ago, and is a prime example of the type of "purple prose" one should endeavor to avoid in any kind of writing.

To be frank, it's a bit meretricious. But I have an affinity for the story, which is something one could only imagine existing in the deepest, darkest places of the psyche.

Enjoy!



THE LAST MINUTE
A super-short-short by
Eric Shawn

You awaken.

A glance at the clock indicates that the low, rumbling bombs are no earlier. No earlier than the last time.

Three twenty-nine. And this is Hell.

Surprisingly, you aren't as horrified this time around.

The first times -- uncountable in number, infinite in measure -- have in fact begun to take a complacent berth in your dimming perception. The blur of the circumstances rotate in a nauseating carousel. This, you note with a beggar's lust, gives hope to the notion that it must be a dream. All a terrible nightmare.

A smile you cannot see but can feel stretched dementedly across your face signals its presence the second it dissolves, as you once again snap away from the sight of Eva's corpse draped across the sofa. The dead stare on the young bride's face is now no longer a ray of stolen hope, but instead a harbinger of a sealed doom. And, you now begin to dread, a merited one. Just as before.

The bitter scent of almonds rises from her and from the low table with its twin glass containers... the bottles that are so much the same as the ones containing the doctor's cocaine eye drops. Only these have no labels. But there would be no confusion, no temporary and anesthetizing rinse of artificial joy, in taking cocaine orally in place of the prussic acid.

No, there would be the poison. Then there would be the Walther. There would be the 7.65 millimeter slug entering your brain. There would be no more of the thoughts of inordinate, dishonorable shame at what amounts to mass murder in the eyes of the enemy. The murder of millions. Sickened at that, you shake your head and the aching sewage of your brain languishes inside your skull. How many times now have you endured this torment?

Another salvo from above ground and you jump. The walls shake. Closer than ever. Dust rains down on the pant leg of your uniform. The sound of the Victrola from somewhere beyond the bunker door has stopped. The clock which had been hanging on the granite wall has fallen to the stone floor, broken. Its hands are stopped at 3:30 PM. It is time.

Again.

You upend the jar of vitriolic liquid-- its ghastly flavor sends a shivering wave of chills through you. The muzzle of the gun is icy against your temple.

With trembling resolve, you fight the racing terror that accompanies the single tear that now traces its way down your cheek to the small crop of thick hair that stops its path. You pull the trigger...

You awaken.

A glance at the clock indicates that the low, rumbling bombs are no earlier. No earlier than the last time.

Three twenty-nine.



[end]