Here is another short story.

Here is another short story. But I will call it a vignette, because it is hard and true, even though it ridicules. Because in the last moments of your life, what will you be thinking? For instance, I am sitting on the edge of this hard cold bed, minutes to dawn, with part of a Brady Bunch rerun stuck in my skull. My mind has been co-opted. It is the episode where one of the Brady boys has his voice changing, so when they sing the song he makes a funny sound when they get to "...it's time for a change." The scene was supposed to be ironic and cute and funny, but it is corny now and stupid. Now it is inane to be stuck with this, I wanted to have a dignified death, a kind of a martyrs death with the right thoughts, not puerile disturbed mental flotsam. The cute stupid singing part of the episode is lodged firmly in my minds eye, an idiotic mantra. The mantra reveals my vanity for a "heroic end" -- not just the result of a bunch of commonplace, run-of-the-mill series of trivialities.

Now I see it is dawn and I hear the squad turning out in the yard with their rifles. They are pissed off that they couldn't sleep in, some of them are hung over. One blows his nose repeatedly, loudly without a handkerchief. I hear them talking: Why can't the fucking officer just shoot me in the head with a pistol? Can't we get this over with as quickly as possible? Then when they settle down, because Pleše arrived, a kid shows up with a slip of paper. Is it a reprieve? And for a second I am free of the stupid skit. But then when Pleše sends the kid away and he orders the men to unsling their rifles, but one last overriding question interrupts all other thoughts in my head. And I don't care anymore about the whole thing, just get the answer now as the cell door opens. One last question must be answered. I look at a drunk cold frowsy soldier with a cow-lick, his belt loose, cigarette stuffed in between his lips. What the hell was that Brady kids name? Peter Brady. A smirking, sniggling Peter Brady. Time to put the pen down. Goodbye.