The sign clickity-clacked as the names, numbers and times flipped forward, another execution having taken place. My name was getting closer to the top. They made us watch - small, grainy televisions showing another young woman led into a cell, a pink pillowcase thrown awkwardly over her face. This cannot be happening. I closed my eyes, waiting and waiting through the unbearable pause until the gunshot rang out – almost a relief. I looked back up at the sign, the names and numbers flipped and clicked upwards like the most horrible arrivals/departures sign ever. Only 3 people ahead of me now and I still didn’t know what my crime was. I turned desperately to my friend. “Please help me, I don’t know what I did! How can they kill me if they won’t even tell me what I did?” My friend tells me she’ll see what she can find out. I thought I had hours, maybe days but now my time read 49 minutes. 49 minutes to live. What can you do with 49 minutes? My friend returns. She has no answers for me except to tell me that the woman ahead of me was a traffic cop who accepted bribes. However, she wasn’t handing the bribes over to the government and was caught with two sets of books – one with fake figures for the government and one for her family. “But I haven’t accepted bribes, I haven’t done anything wrong.” 48 minutes. Outside, the city was brightly lit with screaming neon signs but empty of people. Silver buses with no lights and no passengers …or drivers… silently rolled by.
