I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known. Don’t know where it goes, but it’s only me, and I walk alone. Walking down the path is easy – a simple left-right-left-right pattern – but I’m one of the few that has been able to do it bravely. I walk with my shoulders back and my head up, because if my face is pointed to heaven, the demons won’t be able to find their way into my eyes. Everybody is watching me walk down the boulevard of broken dreams when each step takes me closer to the symbol of their oppression, but nobody was willing to see me when I led a protest in this very street not two weeks ago. My shallow heart seems to be the only human one in Paris. I can feel their eyes on me. The old women gossip, the young women cry, the old men shake their heads in disappointment, the young men hang their heads in shame. I keep my eyes dry and my head high as the road stretches out before me. When I reach the scaffold, they unchain me and hand me to a doctor, who checks my vital signs and takes my coat and shoes to give to some poor soul that actually did the government’s bidding without questioning. He tries to meet my eyes, but I stare straight ahead.
“Nicolas, please, forgive me. I have a sister, she has a family-”
“Then go to her,” I reply straightly. André, the government’s pet physician, had been my second-in-command, until the shots started firing and he found out the true price of freedom.
“I’m so sorry, Nicolas, please, don’t die without forgiving me, for God’s sake!”
“Does your God show mercy to turncoats and cowards?” I snap at him, and he backs away from my face. “I walk alone. You had your chance.”
“I’ll do anything.”
“Join me.”
“I can’t.” He glances between the guards and the guillotine. “I can’t.” I turn on my heel and escort my shadow up to meet the executioner, who pushes me down and positions my neck under the blade. As he struggles to put the cloth sack over my head, André meets my eyes from the corner of the scaffold. “Nicolas,” he whispers.
“Mercy favors the brave,” I hiss at him, and he pales brightly as my head is covered, then severed. I feel neither the blade nor regret.