Hangman's Daughter

Here's a short story I had to write for a class last year <_< Not too interesting or funny, but I enjoyed writing it. Hell, truth be told unless you are laughing at the writing style or some overly used literary device, it's downright depressing. (It WAS a political writing class...) <_< Anyways, anyone who reads it, PLEASE give me some feedback on it as I haven't really gotten any thus far. Anyways, here we go.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sky was grey, not an average grey that exists in the skies on a cloudy day, but the kind of grey that slate roofs take on after an intense downpour and before the sun reappears to suck all the water back from its stony perch above the horizon. It had rained before, and rain was threatening yet again. The day had begun, yet the streets were bare, and the only sounds came from the center square. There, pandemonium reigned. A massive crowd had gathered and all were fixated upon the figure center stage. Children darted in and out between the individuals gathered there, some playing while others preyed upon the towns folk, relieving them of the heavy burdens of their extra coin. Except one. Open-mouthed and stunned, she stared in wide-eyed amazement at the figure seated upon the stage with the noose around his neck.

Her father stared back at her, his eyes piercing, seeming to say everything that he had ever tried to tell her before this moment but she had never listened to, and never would have the chance to do so ever again. To the two of them, no one else might have existed. Not the preacher, not the executioner, not even the enormous mob that roared as the preacher finished reading the condemned his last rites. A few raindrops splattered down amongst the crowd, but no one seemed to notice except for a few of the people on the fringes of the crowd who pulled their cloaks tighter around them and hitched up their collars.

The girl stared in silent horror and swift recollection. This was not her first hanging. She had snuck out of the house many times before when she had supposed to have been practicing her needlework to go see other criminals dance. Her father had guessed her secret and had warned her of the evils involved in the system. No matter what he said, it didn’t make a difference. She didn’t believe, couldn’t believe that people were being killed for no reason. There always had to be a reason. She hadn’t believed him then; surely all the men who were executed were horrible people who had committed crimes beyond imagining and deserved to die. She believed him now.

Her father had been arrested the previous week. The constable and his men had stormed in the middle of the night, and dragged him away. No one knew why then, and as far as she could tell, no one knew why now either. All the girl knew was that her father was gone. It was probably the same for all those other men she had watched she thought. How many of the other men that I have watched die were innocent too, she wondered. How many of them left people, families behind, that had to watch as she did now?

The crowd roared. As the trapdoor swung open, the two shared one last glance before it was abruptly cut off. The puppet attached to the string jerked briefly before falling still, hanging limp and lifeless. At this the girl’s legs collapsed, and the rain that had been threatening finally made good its promise and the sky opened up, pouring as if the clouds contained all the water in all the seven seas. The townsfolk ran for cover, but the girl just sat their limply and shivered in revulsion. To her, it seemed as though the skies were raining blood.