The Last Execution Read Free Page A

doesn’t know if the dog can hear him, but it seems to settle down.
    The boy can see his hand a little better now. He tries to move it. That’s not good. The fly is still perched on what looks to be the back of his hand.
    Niels starts thinking about the girl again, although till now he’s tried not to.
    That day he had met her in the field, a fly, like this one, kept landing on her lip. Again and again. How she had laughed. How she looked at him. How she tossed her head and ran her fingers through her hair—quick, quick, slow. And then the fly again. And the laughter.
    â€œDo you know that fly?” the boy asks now, looking down at his hand. “Is it sitting in the pub bragging its head off?”
    The boy remembers how they had tossed burs at each other. The kiss this led to.
    White shards of pain shoot through the boy’s brain. He’d accidentally bumped his hand against his knee. They dart from the back of his head, to the left temple, and across to the right. The boy bends forward, tries to breathe deeply, eyes closed. He remains in this posture for a long time.
    â€œNow he’s thinking about the girl,” says the fly. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, now he’s thinking of that blond lassie again!”
    Niels concentrates on the pain. Or else I’ll disappear , he thinks. Or else, I’ll disappear .
    The fly is tripping about on the hand in silence. Now it stops dead in its tracks.
    â€œDare we suggest that the lad think about something else?” says the fly.
    Then it struts on. Halts in midstride.
    â€œThat he thinks about something else . . . ”
    â€œBut what?” whispers Niels.
    â€œWhat? What! What?” squawks the fly. “As if there weren’t anything else to think about! What a waste of a life if there were nothing at all worth remembering. Think! For example: How ’bout that time the lad got a peek in that fat book about America?”
    â€œThat time my foot got run over?” Niels asks.
    â€œThe time the lad’s foot got run over by a cart; it recovered, though— the foot —and the rich man invited father and son to his home, and they got to sleep in the loft,” says the fly. “But before that, they paged through a book about America. There was a chapter about the Mississippi River.”
    Now the boy understands that the fly is talking to the hand.
    â€œTake the crocodiles in the Mississippi, for example,” continues the fly. “You can’t always see them, but they’re there. The crocodile floats in the water like a log—its eyes like knots in a tree trunk—till the cow tries to cross the river.”
    â€œThat was shown in the book,” says the boy.
    â€œI know that !” says the fly. “The crocodile lies absolutely still, until the cow comes down to the bank of the river.”
    The boy says no more.
    â€œThen it shoots out of the water, mouth open wide. It digs its hundreds of sharp teeth into the cow’s neck and pulls it down under the water. Swoosh ,” quips the fly. “The water is churned foamy-red. Round and round. One second, then everything is quiet again. The Mississippi is as calm as before.”
    The fly turns on its heel again. Halts in midstride.
    â€œThat’s a story from the real world,” it says. “Now it’s over. Bam! Easy-peasy, over and out! That wasn’t so hard, was it?!”
    The hand seems to chuckle to itself.

I t is morning, the messenger posts the notice of execution in the town square, and—for those who can read—it is stated: THERE ARE EIGHT HOURS TILL NIELS NIELSEN WILL BE EXECUTED ON GALLOWS HILL.
    The mere mention of his name sends a chill down the messenger’s spine. It’s a blessing he’s finally been caught. The messenger had heard that the man was mad. That he was prone to violent, insane behavior. Set ablaze everything within his reach. Watched folks’ homes burn