The sands of time have run down to the last granules and I have watched them roll down the edges of my hourglass. The bed upon which I lay, shall certainly be the one to see the end of my existence. My eyes grow heavy, so, so heavy that I can hardly keep them open anymore. And the only thing I can feel at this time is how weak my body is.
It is at this, my moment of greatest weakness, that they come to me from every angle possible. Their sneering snickering faces, all looking at me. Cold eyes and colder souls do they possess and bring to the fore. I wonder then if they be the faces of men, or if they be the haunting visage of ghosts. I simply do not know.
A man approaches my bed, an impossibly youthful vision of an old friend I once knew. His name is Maxus. "Good king," I hear him speak, the spokesman for the rest, as he draws near. "Good king, how are you today? Is your belly full? Are your sheets pressed? Was the wine sweet? After all, we wish nothing but the best, for the man who stands amongst us," He turns about and lifts his arms. "Traitor to us all."
The crowd erupts with furious rage and screams down upon me as they advance with murderous intent, but they are halted by the speaker with a single hand to institute his will.
He slowly turns back to me. "Have you anything to say in your defense before I pronounce sentence?" Maxus drips the venom of his words along with a bit of saliva, does he really thirst for my blood so much?
I rise and lay upon an elbow, so as to get a better look. I know that voice as I know my own and I know the man who is in possession of it, but the figure and the face is all wrong. "Is that really you my friend?" I inquire before a coughing fit seizes me. "I had heard that you had been exiled, how come you are now in my presence and whole once again?"
He draws near. "I had heard that you lay dying," he enlightens me and sets a hand to my bed. "So I had to brave all the cruelties that our enemy could contrive, just so I could see it for myself. And just to make sure I made it I had a doctor fix me and make me youthful. I could have never made the journey otherwise."
I feel disenhearted. "Must you now speak to me in such a way, my friend Maxus, as I lay like this?" I entreat him and reach a failing hand toward him.
"In this way, or any other," he returns with a sickening smile. "I will speak to you and see you for what you are."
"And what am I?" I implore and sit up a little straighter.
"A traitor!" Maxus snaps with a viciousness that explodes in an instant and is gone the next, but his eyes still contain the fire.
"Traitor," I state the word, bereft of any malice as my countenance goes soulfull. "Traitor to whom?"
"To the cause," Maxus rails on and stamps a foot which the rest respond to with a grunt to mark their displeasure. "To the people who believed in you. And I would say most assuredly, to yourself."
"Myself," I counter, simply and go whiteknuckle pulling on my sheets to help remain stable. "You condemn me for not laying upon your cross and dying. For not fulfilling things to the degree which you would have liked. But tell me, what was my compulsion to do so? Why did it need to be me?"
"Because you were our leader! You were our hero! You stood for something!" Maxus erupts while throwing his hands every which way. "But when it mattered most you denied your duty and shirked your responsibility."
"My responsibility. My duty. My hero-ship," the words fall from my lips as my eyes dim the light around me. "You seem to have all the blame fitted neatly upon my shoulders. Tell me, why was this burden my due?"
"Because we needed you to lead us," Maxus insists and gives me a look that screams some things don't require an explanation.
"Lead you?" I query and turn my head ever so gently so as to get a better look. "Against what?"
"Against the enemy," Maxus rails on and his ferocity grows.
"And who is the enemy?" I press on without any sense of sarcasm or disbelief as I adjust my eating which has grown quite uncomfortable.
"You know as well as I," Maxus insists and looks down upon me with unbridled scorn.
"But let us say I do not," I try to steer the conversation into a more academic avenue as I breathe shallowly enough to allow myself some comfort. "Now, tell me, who the enemy is."
"Those who would stand in the way of our progress," Maxus lays out the points of his argument and puts forth a face full of pride. "And tell us, the new generation, that we are to walk in the ruts set by those that came before us."
I take a moment to mull over what was spoken. "You say I was to be the martyr," I proceed as my mind drifts toward better days. "But not because you believed me better qualified, but so long as I was the one, you would not be."
Maxus, my friend, says nothing.
"I was no greater than any of you," I state the truth and focus my old eyes upon the many hands that would do me harm. "I merely spoke first, but it is not for the generations that precede to tell the future what it is to do. You must find your proper way and no man can tell you just what that is." I take a breath and look beyond my accuser. "You needed blood and you were unwilling to shed your own. "Yes, I did at one point teach as strongly and radically as you, but I saw the price of my conviction and I was afraid. I could not go forward. Perhaps you, any of you, would have fared better, but I knew I could not. I am too much a slave to my own flesh to allow myself to pay so heavy a price. I am sorry for misleading you, but it was after all, you who followed me. You feel cheated because I did not lead you to the land of milk and honey. I did not raise my hands and open up for you the gates of nirvana, but I could not. No man can offer another man paradise." My long winded speech leaves me out of breath and I find myself unable to fill my lungs.
The air available becomes quite limited, but I know it is not an absence of a resource, rather, the claustrophobic effect of my being closed in upon from all sides. The hands close upon my person and I am given one glorious moment of ease before I am torn to pieces with complete disregard for even a modicum of human compassion.
And as my eyes close for a final time, gifting me at last the peace of oblivion, a peace that I have never known the like of in my entire existence, I wonder if this is the price that is to be paid for being a free thinker as opposed to simply following the crowd. But such considerations are beyond my powers of observation, let alone, discernment.