Tuesday 12 March

Tuesday 12 March 1963 a silver day wind swings the trees shakes the windowpanes. "B— SHOT BY FIRING SQUAD. Executed this morning at 6:42 in I—" It was dawning first light accompanying early workers through the streets along implacable buildings raindrops swish down. Thousands of people still asleep now and then a bus groans by in the distance like the queasy stomach of a circus elephant the first sparrows chirrup. A man with two legs two arms and a head is led out and made to stand with eyes open against a rough wall in a muddy courtyard. Fourteen men in khaki each with two legs two arms and a head lift cold rifles to their armpits (their boots sink in the mud when they move their feet there are squelching sounds) take aim and when the commander with two legs two arms and a head shouts hoarsely fingers stiffen around triggers. From holes in the body of the man against the wall a sticky warm dark red living sweet-smelling wetness bubbles or oozes or trickles or seeps. He tips over lies with his ear against the wet dirt. A man with two legs two arms and a head and a pistol steps forward bends down and shoots the fallen one where neck becomes head. Coagulating liquid mixes with the slurry glistening the mire's color. It is a silver day winter just about done. In my room up high I sit listening to Mozart's Concerto No. 20 in D minor on a record. White clouds drift on their backs in the blue sky wind even so plucks at the panes but the rain has stopped streets are still wet. I fill and light my pipe. My fingers react to impulses from the brain. I've taken off my shirt so that I may see the torso in the mirror the swellings of flesh under filled-out skin when I flex the muscles skin shivers a little. I can read a book, or a newspaper. I can write and smoke and cross my legs. A while ago I ate: beans rice bread water bananas. It is a quarter to three the city makes noise. On the ridge and the chimneypots of the building across the street pigeons perch. I may listen twice to the same record if I so choose. Tonight I'll kiss the hips of my woman. Sunlight falls through white curtains on my floor. Tomorrow I'll wake up and drink tea and look at the blue sky birds shaping the wind trees localizing the wind. Five floors down on the street an old lady with sagged useless body stands under an awning as protection against whipping rain. She narrows her eyes to glance at the skating clouds. And somewhere (under guard) a man lies with retinas insensitive to light. The sluices the threads of life from brain to limbs and organs have given way. He will never itch again. He no longer hears. His ears are full of soil. Outside the silver day flares like some gigantic flower the sky waving leaves.