CONTENTS      THE OLD POND     QUIETUS EST     THE LAST POND     A PROPER CIVILIZATION     PREPARATION     HANSEL AND GRETEL: A DOCUMENTARY OF THEIR LIVES      AUTHORS

The cool night air did nothing to soften the sweat on Javier's face. He lay staring blankly at the wall, wondering what his last thought would be. After many hours he summoned the will to turn his head. Moonlight spilled in through the bars. The prison was deathly quiet.

He couldn't sleep. The night was like walking through eternity. When the rays of the rising sun replaced the retreating moonbeams, he remembered waking up early on his grandfather's farm. How he would feed the chickens and goats and then help his mother in the kitchen. That hadn't been so long ago. The proximity of the memory made it more potent. No more afternoons picking fruit with his sisters or swimming in the lake with his brother.

Eternity moved forward and Javier went with it. Eventually a guard entered the cramped cell for his last meal request. He hardly heard the question and muttered his first sound in days. "Chicken," he said, still thinking about his duties on the farm. The guard asked a few follow-up questions that were met with silence. He hit Javier hard across the face and then left the cell. There was no use beating a condemned man.

Javier knew he had been struck, but did not feel it. He stood with difficulty and grabbed the bars in the window. The sun was nearing its peak in the sky. He thought of Maria and how in this moment he wanted nothing more than to see her beautiful face. He didn't know how long he'd been in prison. He had given up counting the time. Maria was probably married now and had children. Javier smiled at the thought of her being happy.

Over the wall of the prison, he could just see the treetops. He watched as birds disappeared among the branches and then flew out again moments later. Javier wanted to be engulfed by shade and refuge the way the birds did so easily.

His crime was one of protection. He had saved his grandfather from a corrupt official who was trying to take his land. The official came to the farm one day and demanded the title. Javier turned the man's gun against him and in the struggle it went off. There was justice for the dead man, but not for the one who was truly innocent.

A tear descended his cheek as Javier watched two birds dancing in the air. He imagined walking down the dirt road to his grandfather's farm and seeing his mother on the steps of the house, waiting for him as though he had never left. And beautiful Maria was there next to her mother-in-law, with his baby boy bouncing contentedly on her lap. It was the smiles on their faces that caused Javier to shed the only tears he had since first being thrown in prison. He cried because they were happy. They had their refuge and shade.

He wondered how big his younger brother had gotten and how proud his father would have been of his children. If the doors of the prison suddenly flew open and all the guards vanished, Javier would not have had the strength to leave. He wanted to imagine his mother aging gracefully and Maria happy. He feared the reality that it might not be so. In dying, everything in life would finally be perfect.

Before death some men wish that things could have been different, that they were not faced so directly with their own mortality. Javier's only desire was that those he had been taken away from were happy. He didn't think about his own life because they were his life, and if they were as he imagined, he could be content in death.

The official's family had taken the farm as consolation. But Javier knew none of this. He only knew that the ones he loved were living for him. It didn't matter that walls and violence were all around him.

He stood at the window for hours watching the birds flying free. Their music pervaded the air and told of security and tranquility. He smiled again and thought of his two sisters. No doubt they had grown into fine women, managing their own households with quiet grace. He wondered if the children were told about Uncle Javier and his brave defense of the family.

A guard entered the cell and dropped a tray of poorly cooked chicken on the bed. He told Javier one hour and then slammed the door closed. Still standing and looking out the window, Javier prayed for his family and Maria. He asked God to keep them happy and healthy, with all the benefits that he imagined they deserved. He prayed that his brother had found a good wife and had land of his own. He prayed that his sisters' husbands were good men and that they could buy all the nice things they wanted. He prayed for his mother, that she was enjoying the time she had left. He prayed for Maria and the child they never had together. Everything would be all right.

The time came and the cell door was opened. Three guards stood patiently outside. Javier was not done with the birds. There was one bird he had been watching all afternoon. It had never stopped flying to rest. One of the guards shouted to Javier and they came for him. Just as he was pulled away from the window, he saw the bird land in the tree, finally resting.

His legs gave out from having stood for so long. Two of the guards dragged him down the hall. Javier looked into the cells as he passed, praying that each man had the peace that he had, peace in knowing that the people he loved were alive and happy.

The soft orange light of the setting sun bathed the courtyard. He could see the bullet-riddled wall at the far end. A firing squad of five men was standing at attention on the opposite wall. The guards led him across the dirt and told him if he didn't stand he would be tied to a post. He summoned all of his strength and stood where they placed him. A prison official entered the yard and read the charge. Then, he asked for his last words.

Even though Javier was facing death he had never thought about last words. He hadn't spoken in so long he didn't know if he still had a voice. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, giving thanks for the final time for his family and Maria. They had kept him alive all the years in prison, through torture and anguish, and he knew that they were with him now.

The official grew impatient and ordered that the prisoner be blindfolded. Javier had no will to resist. None of this was real. The command was given and the men raised their guns.

Javier said goodbye to the child he never had, to a mother he did not know was several years gone, to beautiful Maria who was now a prostitute, to a brother that had been murdered on the road, and to sisters who were homeless beggars.

There was a shout and the guns went off. Javier slumped against the wall as life fled his body, a smile on his face. Now he had his refuge, and could join his family in their happiness.

Copyright 2006 by M. W. Hamel