I was asked what my current state of mind/being is like as I’m now in position to receive a date of execution (which we know is looming ahead). The following is what I was able to express – and while I was unable to give this description in “normal” terms (but what is actually “normal” about this situation?) this was the best I could do.
Sometimes what we go through is hard to explain; other times unexplainable; and then at times we explain things that only the universe can understand.
Imagine if you will…….
The Serengeti. The rawest scene of what is wild and primal. The sun is slowly setting. It exudes a dark blood red glow that heats everything within its reach. Everything perspires; even the trees (so it seems). The surroundings are filled by all sorts of creatures: the silent, the noise makers, the hunters, the prey. Here, survival is the mode of everyday. This is a place where life and death dance across the plains. They are interchangeable joys and pains; smiles and tears; answers and mysteries.
I am amongst a pride of lions. I am in the practice of watching those that always watch me. I’m the feared yet admired. I’m majestic yet cursed. I’m a beast yet beautiful. I am nevertheless a manifestation of what is divine, and I find myself hungry for survival in this circle of life and death.
Without notice and like a flash across the horizon I have caught a glimpse of my object of desire. My eyes lock like radar….. I’m lust and need; intensity and determination; all the while knowing that I too am in someone’s sight. But my eyes cannot be moved from that which may alleviate me from my snares.
Silence descends. In concentration I breathe through my skin only and think through my pupils. I’m motionless, but very aware. My pride is one accord; communicating only through their senses: seeing the stakes, smelling the excitement, hearing the heartbeats of intensity, feeling the heat; tasting the opportunity.
Hunger has set deep within me. In instinct I have gone from crouch to stretch. My claws, stimulated, have extended and my body is tense. Each muscle is a calculated contraction being protruded in a way to win my cause. There’s no sound – only wind and heat rays bouncing from body to body. The environment understands what is at hand.
But, death stirs so delicately and without awareness and the trees hold secrets from me as the 30.06 rifle takes scope of me. I recognize there have been no promises and that in the end I am on my own.
I slide lightly over the ground – the rocks and thorns. There has been no real nourishment for sometime. The days have been cruel and the nights have been merciless. Life has almost become something to dread. Death could be a sweet invitation.
And so I take to movement – flowing synchronized with golden blades of grass that swirl me into a frame of still thunder. I’m possessed with the outcome of this chase as it is now win or lose – there will be no draw.
Recognizing that nothing in life must be easy my target stirs. Eludes me. The object of my desire dances in front of my face teasing me with the cruelest tantalization. The ache in me is like the low hum of a drum and I am now in passionate pursuit of my target.
And from that mysterious silence once again, behind the leaves of the tree, the 200 pounds of iron flesh inches towards its target taking in the human smell with its infra-red forked tongue. Like the death that watches me, death has no biases and even watches the hunter of hunters.
Moving low and in stealth I have found my 2nd gear, I know everything from this point counts: every step, every turn, every breath. The event now exposed to the environment turns the silence into whispers, whispers into chatter and the chatter spreads to pandemonium.
Having nothing else to lose but pain I fire from my cover like an arrow from the bow; and like the most gentle gesture the trigger is squeezed; and from the branch the 200 pounds of iron flesh strikes forth like lightning…
The dust rises…. and death descends. Only god knows what shall be when the dust settles.
