1. Before | 2. After
After
Oh! Oh, what happened? I'm scared, I'm so
scared! It wasn't John, there is that much. It wasn't John, but oh, my
John! He fought them for me, but only when he thought...oh, and I
kissed him for the first and last time...the shirts, the children...
No, no, that's not the
right order at all! Calm down, need to get things in order, make some
sense of it all. Okay.
First: I was folding
shirts. John came in and looked at me, and I smiled at him. I shouldn't
have smiled! But what difference would it have made? At least he got
that one smile, to remember me by.
Second: The Grammaton
forces burst in. Someone had noticed I was feeling and reported me. But
it wasn't John, because-
Third: John fought them,
he fought them all, my brave, good, strong, brave John!
Then they
told him I was guilty. His face...I think a part of him knew that I was
feeling, and so to have it revealed like this was like a betrayal of
secret things. He looked so shocked that I had failed him. My slowly
growing feelings were shattered away, I never knew feeling could be so
painful. How I loved him in that moment! Then they took me away- no,
not quite, first the kiss. I had stolen kisses in the night, when he
was fast asleep without dreaming, and would never know it. I had longed
for that proper kiss for so long, that to have to snatch it in those
last precious seconds was heartbreaking. I told him to remember me.
I want him to remember
me, even if it is as the wife who failed him, the Sense Offender who
may already have ruined his reputation. I wanted him to remember the
kiss, and perhaps the smile, and that I was the mother of his children.
Then I
was hauled off. The children saw, but probably they don't care either
way. The difference was that I cared. I cared about seeing them there,
knowing I would never see them again. They didn't let me say goodbye.
They wouldn't understand the need for it.
I'm for incineration in
the morning. This dark cell frightens me, presses in on me. John may
even be there at the furnace, to witness it, but he won't care, he
can't care. I will not cry, I will not beg for mercy. He will remember
me as being cold and rational to the end. Sense Crime...it makes no
sense to me. That loving your husband should be a crime...
He thought it was a
mistake, he didn't know of my crimes then, when he fought the troops
invading out home! Would you have fought for me, John, if you had known
I was guilty? It doesn't matter, my love. All that matters is that I
love you, whether you can love me or not. Goodbye John.
Remember me...
