The Execution

You don’t really see the body drop. The frame is tight, claustrophobic. There is a persistent wobble in the grainy cell phone footage, material record of unknown hand. Many bodies in a small concrete structure, dimly lit. The man with the grey beard and black hair is quietly defiant until the very end, eyes flaring beneath his sinister black brows. Everyone else is wearing black masks.

There seem to be titters of nervous laughter, though you can’t be sure. The men in masks and other voices from offscreen taunt the man in alien tongues. The strangeness of the language seems to complete the viewing experience. It’s more real because you can’t understand what they are saying.

They put the noose around his neck. The noose seems comically large, like something from a cartoon. The man with the noose around his neck is talking, calmly, when the platform beneath his feet swings open. His body lurches downward for an instant and then the camera wheels and wobbles — whoever is holding it runs down the stairs. The screen is black for a long time as the phone makes its way down the stairs and around a corner. The body is there, magicked from above to below. Head twisted at a wicked angle. The man’s face is caught in a puddle of soft yellow light from the trapdoor above him. Only his face can be seen, dead eyes gazing up through the fragile column of light. The thick cords of the noose tower from where the…