The Post

Uhh. Huhh. Uhhh. Catch your breath. Uhh. Huhh. Uhh. Doggone it breath in through the nose, deep now. Blow slowly through the mouth, silently. Again. Again. There now it is working. Heart beat down. More shallow breathing. Again.

I'm in the shadows of a building at 1st and Main. The shadows are deep because the night is without starlight or moonbeams and the street lamps have been dead for some time. I slide down the wall to rest. Drawing my knees to my chest I wrap my arms around them to rest my head on the cushioning lower arms. I close my eyes. Breathing almost normal now. I am completely invisable.

After a few more minutes in this position I raise my head. Opening my eyes I find it is still dark. I decide to take a peak around the corner of the building. Let's see now, should I stand? No No. I think in CSI or was it NCIS, no not them, it was Bruce Willis in one of those Die Hard movies. Stay low. Then peek as fast as you can taking in as much as your eyes can gather. I do and see nothing. Good.

It's a good night so far. I was able to get a few items on the list. Reaching into a very large pocket in my pants I withdraw the night's haul. Wrapped in newspaper I hold 2 uncooked weiners. A great find them. Reaching again into the pocket my hand falls onto an apple. An apple! Woo Hoo. But the greatest find of all, by far, is what comes out next, a bottle of ASPIRIN!

Suddenly a most intense pain above my right eye, a blinding flash, and then blackness.

O man, I hurt. Feels like someone tranplanted a grapefruit behind my right eye. I reach with my right hand to feel the swelling. It's tied! I try my left hand. It's tied as well! Wait a minute, I'm sitting in a chair. What the hay is this? I slowly open my left eye, the right is swollen almost shut. I don't like what I see.

Before me, dressed in the black patent leather some cronies wife thought cute, sat a big man behind a folding table. He is talking to me. I better try to make out what he is saying through my pain.

"You have been caught red handed with stolen contraband. The food items would have gotten only few years in the prison. The aspirin however brings a more onerous penalty. Death."

What! You can't! I was also gagged. He could not hear my protests.

"By the powers invested in me by our great and benevolent leader, you are to be shot at dawn."

The smiling face of President Barack Hussein Obama beams over the right shoulder of the big man.

"Take the prisoner away."

The next morning before sunrise I'm given bread and water. No need to waste a good meal on one not long for this world. Two guards come later and take me to the yard outside the building. I'm led to the post, the killing post in the middle of the courtyard. I kneel at the base. The two guards tie my hands behind the post at my back. They offer me a blindfold. I refuse.

Before me are four men, one to give commands and the others to fire the rifles. It is a few more minutes to go now, the sun not ready to peek above the roof of the courthouse, the signal to commence. A cigarette is offered to me. Where in the heck did they get that in this world of do's and don'ts? I don't.

The sun peeks above the roofline. The command is given; Ready! The second command is given; Aim! I don't hear the third command. I see a flash from the gun barrels. Then . . . Blackness . . . eternal blackness.