Prompt: http://siobhanmuir.blogspot.com/2013/05/thursthreads-challenge-that-ties-tales_9.html
We could hear him long before we could see him, the chains of his shackles marking his last steps with an incongruously melodic jingle. When he did round the corner, he looked more like a man out for a Sunday afternoon stroll than one about to be executed by the state for what more than one judge called the most disturbing crime they’d ever seen. I’d covered every stage of his career, from his transition from being just another misbehaved, entitled son of a famous and wealthy man to occupying the highest office in the land as a faux third-rate Everyman, and that attitude hadn’t changed a bit.
I’d figured that staying on the beat with him after he left office would be a cushy path to retirement for me – some jaunts to fancy locales for humanitarian events or PR, no real reporting – but that was before the disappearances grew alarming and the discoveries at his ranch. The Pulitzer for my coverage of the trials showed that I still had my chops, although I’d have traded that for fewer nightmares and a memory eraser.
He declined the blindfold and stood in front of the firing squad, utterly unconcerned. I’d remember that moment forever, him standing there awaiting the bullet that would end his life with incurious nonchalance and the stupid, glassy-eyed grin that defined his life.
I just wish I’d known he could fly.
Project Gemini 