Fruit Tree

Am I supposed to feel guilty?

They stand me here, dictate my deeds to a governing crowd, but what's the point? Ain't no way to take back what I'd done. I'd done what I'd done, time to move on. But they all seem so set on parading me for some sort of entertainment, some sick show masquerading as justice. My actions were my choice; don't seem to be much sense in proving me guilty.

The man beside me don't seem to get that.

He blubbers on and on, sometimes audible, sometimes not, sometimes coherent, mostly not. Something about his wife, maybe kids. Second cousin? Sister? I dunno. It's not important who he's leaving behind. If it was, he'd articulate.

The man in power here steps onto the platform, hugging the edge, as if his pastoral shoes have never touched such sinful ground as this. He mops the sheen adorning his forehead and adjusts the intersecting medallion adorning his chest. His mouth opens; words spill from his nervously coated lips. He must be new. This ain't so rare an event.

Pulling out his little blue book, he lays his hand on the cover, eyes fluttering closed, reverent rhymes crawling from under his fuzz of an upper lip. Addressing the crowd, his arms rise, hundreds of lips mimicking his own.

The man beside me chokes back a sob.

Another powerful figure rises beside the first, announces to the crowd again, begins by pointing an official looking finger at my compatriot. With each recounted tally against him the tears fall a little quicker down his sunken cheeks, desperate eyes widening as the gravity of his fate befalls him. I stand still, staring out into the crowd.

The people stare stonily back.

Before long, the finger migrates to point south, drawing an accusatory line through the middle of my chest. My list is much shorter than the crying man's, but apparently worthy of the same show. After a pause, the judicial leader states our obvious consequence. The crowd's silence is almost enough to make a man falter. He doesn't.

Another bout of formality before the first man clambers quickly to the ground, patriarchal robs fluttering in his haste to abandon the souls engraved in the wood grain. The pointing finger follows, and shortly after the crisp echo of a snare rolls across the dewy lawn. The sun has come up hours ago, but still shines almost gently on the square, avoiding the platform beneath the oak like it, too, is wary of the eternity of the place. The man wearing the cross moves to stand in the light. The sun shines a mite brighter for him.

The platform rattles with the weight of the sorrowful gentleman who mounts it. I nod as he passes, hobbling on bones and leather, a grandfather deprived of any offspring. He refuses eye contact. I'm not surprised. His milky eyes seem devoted to naught but his job.

With well-rehearsed steps, he shambles behind my line of sight and fiddles with his pulleys, checks his knots, tightens his grip. My companion is bestowed upon first; I don't turn to watch, but his broken sob filters through my mounting concern. Seven shuffled steps, before I feel my own gift.

The shadow of a man does his job well and despite my feigned indifference I begin to hate him for it. My searching eyes move quicker, scouring face after face with no sign of my goal, and for the first time I start to doubt my promised savior.

Nah. Doubt ain't got a home in my seasoned mind. I've seen enough—hell, I've done enough to know what to expect. According to the public, I'd done enough to warrant punishment. The man who'd found me—he's good people. I can trust him to prevent this disaster.

So why, then, if I am so certain, why then do my palms bleed salt from their pores?

A sharper wind whistles through the leaves above me, shaking the branches and their rotten fruit, the creaking of wood and thread seeping through my front of steely calm. I muster the courage to swallow; my feet shuffle momentarily on the fragile planks below them. Suddenly I am aware of their temporary nature. My gaze flickers to the lever to my right, to the shivering harbinger's skeletal digits splayed obediently atop of it.