“Don’t kill me please!” Jillan Bays shouted as the New Savannah outcasts hoisted him over the highway’s guard rail. Up until yesterday, he had been serving this tribal cult as their black-market transporter. He teetered over the edge. Underneith him was what looked like a 50 foot drop down to a shallow river. His heart was beating in his ears and though he wanted to fight back against his attackers, peering down at the deadly fall made his muscles go instantly week. He was balanced with his waist on the railing, and his upper torso was dangling over the edge. In a future where most citizens chose euthanasia over natural death (in order to avoid a long-and-painful passing) having one’s life “flash before their eyes” was not a commonly known pre-death experience. So Bays thought it strange that in his last moments, what he saw most clearly wasn’t the perilous drop that would end on jagged crystal-studded rocks. Instead, he saw images of his grandfather. Here was grandfather Bays, pulling some freshly baked cookies out of the oven; the cookies came accompanied with that hot whollop of delicious chocolate-and-sweet-dough smell. Here was grandfather Bays, sleeping suspended in his anti-gravity hammock on the roof of their apartment building as a military air-show was thundering overhead. And here was grandfather Bays cursing as he threw Jillan’s clothes and stereo on the curb-side the day that Jillan was kicked out, the last day he had seen his grandfather. Time seemed to slow down as the Jungle Dwellers wrestled his legs, preparing to lift him over the edge. There was time enough to wish he and his grandfather had parted on better terms, as it now looked like he would never get to see him again. There wasn’t time enough to clearly reflect all the bad memories–the arguments, insults, and beatings–but maybe thats why the memories flashed by so quickly, as to glaze over the rough spots.
Don’t kill me!–he tried to scream, but there wasn’t any air in his lungs. Instead he let out a strange mousy squeeking noise as his body was tossed off the side of the bridge. He tried to scream louder, and his squeeking noise shrank to nothing. He shut his eyes as he felt himself falling, listening to the air “whooing” in his earlobes. Still trying to scream, and neglecting to breathe in, his brain quickly lost oxygen. He thought he heard someone say his name, and then he was unconcious.
—
The tribe peered over the edge of the bridge as Jillan fell silently. The bungee cord attached to his legs went taut, and Bays bounced at the end of it like a rag-doll. Ralph watched from where he sat at the bottom of the ravine, covered in an orange emergency-blanket and called out to Jillan once in a horse voice.
The tribe’s king peered down from the bridge wearing his his tin-foil crown and mud-covered suit-coat. “You take care of our precious worm, Ralph!” he said, then laughed. “He’s like a worm on a hook! Oh, the fish we’ll catch with him today!” And laughed again.
Ralph flashed him the middle finger.
x
