She lay dying.  Her thoughts were not completely morbid.  She was not focusing on her numerous wounds.  Her gashed throat that tasted of bloody rust and bitter vomit.  Nor her trousers which were caked in excrement and soaked in urine.  Smelling of her own shit and stale piss.  Normally it should have brought a sense of unbound shame.  These however were not normal circumstances.  It brought only passive acceptance and unbound fear.  To her killer the situation was full of angelic poise, it brought lustful spiritualism to him.  A sup of sexuality, a sup of holy carnage.  His was a soul of contented malice.

  She was focusing on a distant memory – an old woman was singing.  The voice was as beautiful as it was wise.  The old woman was brushing her grand-daughters long silk hair.  Her voice flowing like honey and willow water.  Mary’s perceptions then switched to her children.  Her twin daughters dancing to a Highland Reel – golden locks flailed chaotically.  Two pairs of young hands grasped hers and she began to dance with her darling daughters.  Happy times abound.  She thought of her her handsome son, possessed of his father’s bashfulness but he had his mother’s eyes.

  Ethereal grey eyes like his mother’s.  They were possessed of much temperance, they were deep eyes.  Deep eyes of much wisdom.  Deep eyes of much wisdom and healing benediction.  People gasped at them quite subconsciously.  Mary’s deep eyes now beheld her killer, a face of tortured evil.  Nothing she beheld in him was remorseful.  His eyes were deep brown and in them fell deeds swam, his jovial middle class mask had slipped.

  Death’s breath swam around her face.  She was not cold, she felt flushed.  Death began an unwanted embrace.  In his arms she was now resting.  Mary thought she heard a flute briefly play.  A familiar old voice sang, a welcome hairbrush began to tug.  Wise words resounded in chorus.  Mary was fading into death’s veil.  Almost in response a grandmotherly voice rang out all the clearer.  Songs of Salvation and Grace, which a grateful grand-daughter finally understood.  Her last breath whispered out, deaths unwelcome courtship ended, reverential silence followed.