A Shot

A crowd was gathered, a quiet noisy crowd crying and laughing with their breath bated.
A shot and none moved, none jumped with fright, and none screamed. Only silence
until the fall of dying flesh to dead stone. Then their voices regained, the laughter again,
the whispers—but no cries, just the sound of feet on stone and trickling blood staining
soles.
The crunch of mud—dirt, water and blood mixed together rippled through the crowd
over the choking breaths, and soon they too were drowned out by speech and shouts then
cries. And then for a moment they stopped and silence did not allow for the breaths to
return, and only gravity and pressure allowed the blood to trickle.
The cloth and flesh scraped through the mud and blood for a moment before a cheer
erupted as it hovered for a moment on its killer’s hands’ floppy fingers dangling in the air.
The crunch and the mechanical flailing of limbs sent another cheer through the crowd as
flesh ground against wood and the mechanical clack of a deadly mechanism was put to
sleep with a click then thrown onto the flesh itself.
The sound of a whip whistled through the crowd, but before the noise of animal
movement could be heard a final cheer drowned it out and the flesh was sent bouncing
away until finally the cheers petered out to chatter, jokes and laughter.