Until that moment, he had been a man buried alive. Now he had an end with a date and time.
When the guards’ footsteps faded, he sat motionless on the ground, unable to breathe properly. Thursday. At dawn. He had barely two nights left.
He tried to pray, but the words broke between his teeth. He tried to fall asleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw the rope, the scaffold, Gaston’s satisfied face contemplating the result of his work. A trembling he couldn’t control came over him.
That night, when the rat appeared, Bruno barely had the strength to move.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s over, my friend,” he said hoarsely. “They’re going to kill me.”
The animal advanced slowly, as always. Bruno dropped all the bread he had been given in front of her.
Everything.

“Here,” she whispered. “I won’t need it anymore.”
The rat approached the piece, but didn’t bite it right away. It sniffed the air, then Bruno, then the bread again. Finally, it grabbed it and ran toward the crack.
Bruno smiled sadly.
—Good choice. I would have done the same.
She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. Tears streamed down her face silently.
She wasn’t just crying for death.
She was crying for the injustice.
For her name being tarnished.
For the streets of the town she would never walk again.
For the unbearable possibility that the world would keep turning as if nothing had happened after hanging an innocent man.
And yet, in the midst of that collapse, a small idea settled in his chest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had shared his bread.
He had spoken to a despised creature.
He had retained, until his last day, something akin to compassion.
Perhaps that was all that could be asked of him in this life.
Perhaps there would be no miracle.
Perhaps God’s sign would not be to save him, but to not let him die becoming the same as his executioners.
Bruno fell asleep on the damp straw.
He didn’t know how much time passed until a different noise woke him up.
It wasn’t the dripping water.
It wasn’t the distant footstep of a guard.
It wasn’t the usual creaking of the bars.

It was a small, repeated tapping sound.
He opened his eyes.
The rat was in front of him, agitated, and gnawing on something it was dragging with effort.
Bruno sat up, confused. What the animal had between its teeth was a piece of red cloth with gold edges. A torn, dirty piece, but of a fine, noble fabric, the kind that didn’t exist in an underground prison.