Would You Die for Me?

Stepping up the scaffold next to the hanging rope, with my arms and ankles now firmly secured, I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Given my druthers, I would have preferred the calm death of lethal injection, the normal method of execution in most states, but this backwards southern state still did things the old fashioned way. At least this was slightly better than an electric chair. I don't think I'd have liked going out that way on 'Old Sparky' at all.

Now it was time for my short final speech, my last words. In my fingers I still had Vanessa's strand of hair. Holding a tiny piece of her gave me the comfort to accept my fate, to die for her.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the audience and everyone else in attendance, I'm truly sorry that you have to be here so late this evening. It was unnecessary. Please don't blame me unduly, I shall instead put the blame where it actually belongs... on the heads of the Granger family of Gilbreath County, where they, not I, murdered poor Vanessa Lea Miller and dumped her into a hasty grave. I learned of her murder and sought her killer, Ralph Granger and, after I faced him in his office with my evidence before an abundance of witnesses, he committed suicide. It was the only honorable deed of his entire sordid life. His family, the malevolent Granger clan that oppresses Gilbreath County, felt otherwise. The truth was dangerous to the prestige and power of their family, and, like all other challenges to their excessive unlawful and immoral authority, I must be done away and made an example of. Even though I was already in unlawful custody by the police long before the suicide of Ralph Granger, it was determined that I should be held accountable for his death, and by means of lies and forgeries I was framed for his alleged murder. Not satisfied with this outrage of justice, I was convicted for poor Vanessa's death as well, despite the fact that if questioned, I could prove that I was living in a town four states away at the time of her death. Naturally, not a single word in my defense was allowed. So here I am today before you. The truth will come out. It must! It shall... and soon! I go to my death now as another murder victim of the Granger's, but not unwillingly. Although I am innocent of the crimes I was sentenced here for, I accept this fate willingly, if not quite cheerfully, if it will hasten the end of the Granger reign of corruption by even a single day. It will take many steps to accomplish this worthy goal, and my single step off on this rope tonight is but the first. Except for the Grangers, I wish you all the best."

Refusing the hood, I allowed the rope to be tightened around my neck while my fingers caressed Vanessa's brown hair strand to find the strength to keep the tears from my eyes and the smile on my face. It was now all over... I had done everything for her that I could do.

I thought of the many dashed hopes I had dreamed of for my life. To find a home, to find a loving wife and have us build together a future. Since this had been impossible for me since my promise to Vanessa, I instead thought of my dreams for my next life... with her. Of growing up together as childhood friends and neighbors, to our growing love while in school, then our marriage and our wonderful children and then finally our golden years in retirement walking together on a sandy beach hand in hand. Bereft of everything I had yearned for this life, I prayed that find my contentment somewhere, somehow in the next one. Now that my oath was fulfilled I had oh so many regrets.

I heard the sound of the wooden door under my feet opening but I never felt the impact of my neck snapping. There were many worse ways to die.

*******

At first I thought something had gone wrong. I looked around and saw that I was still standing on top of the gallows. The warden and the executioner were standing next to me looking down into the open trapdoor and at the taunt extended rope that bore my lifeless body. I gave it a quick look to make sure that I was still hanging there, and I was. It was really quite disconcerting actually.

Ok... I was dead. This was to be expected, but I had rather expected that I now would be somewhere else entirely. This was now very disconcerting. No one looks their best when dead, but I thought the wane little smile on my face made me look at least contented with my fate and death.

Looking back over to the witness room, I was moderately amused to see that the Granger brothers were now at the center of the media attention. The two formerly bored newspaper reporters were now delighted to be at the center of some Pulitzer wining investigative journalism, and they were getting some first hand experience dealing with the stench of the Granger corruption. Another local TV camera crew was getting right into their faces and repeating my charges against them and not receiving much in the way of any replies. In fact, looking at the two brothers with my ghostly eyes, I could see that Vanessa's plan would indeed work to perfection.

Their age of misrule was already over. There would be newspaper stories, state investigations, FBI and DEA agents turning over every rotten leaf in the county. Witnesses could come forward in droves to hand over hidden documents that ought to have been shredded or burned long ago... but instead held as insurance for a future day of need, and now that day was near at hand. Vanessa would receive her long postponed autopsy (they would find her wearing my jacket inside her coffin), as would Ralph's body, both confirming my claims of murder and suicide. Both Granger brothers, and several of their uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins, would soon face federal trials and a few would eventually face long walks from death row to their own eventual scheduled appointment with the executioner. Vanessa and I had been avenged.

I should have cried tears of happiness, but apparently the dead can't cry.

I looked to my right hand to look upon her hair once more, to gather the strength to find my path in this strange afterlife but it was now gone. Instead, Vanessa had now appeared and was holding my hand, as beautiful as she ever was in life. I had only seen her under the veil of shadow, but now she shone as the sun.

Her touch, once freezing to me, was now warm and soothing and I fell into her arms. Apparently the dead can cry tears of love and joy, and I let them flow for a very long time.

"Would you live for me?" She asked.

"Yes. All of the days of my next life! Can we be together, in happiness? To live and love and marry and raise our children... and live the life that we ought to have had here before it was taken away from us?"

"Come with me then, it's time to go. We have a new future together just waiting to begin!" She said, holding my hand tightly as a lover would, and with a smile we disappeared in a flash of warm light. Going to a better place, and a new happier life... together at long last.