by Caitlin Kitchener

The proverbial block. Perhaps I haven't put my neck on it enough, after all, I don't very much fancy a decapitation. 

So I just scuttle away and every now and again I'll pass the ol' proverbial block and watch it gather dust. 

Yet there it is, as plain as your proverbial nose, the hesitation, the flinch of the mind, "Do I say it? Shall I tell them?" No, I just go past the ol' proverbial block and carry on my way. 

I walk past the gallows, and see the traitors hanging there. I think to myself, "That could be me." But I just walk on past trying to ignore the ol' proverbial block. 

I see the tarred body of a pirate, hanging in a rickety iron cage, blowing on the moor. "That'll never be me", yet there's a ghost behind me shaking with doubt. So I amble along, with the shadow of the ol' proverbial block looming ever larger. 

The smell of burning hits my flaring nostrils. My eyes are hit with specks of ash as there is a line of witches. I walk past the executioner and he booms, "Aren't you one of them?" I sweat more than say, "No."