Many years later, when Gilbert Chevalier faced a firing squad under a burning midday sun in the yard of Fort Dimanche, the worst place to be in Haiti, the volatile love of his life, and the captain shouted ready!, then aim!, to his ear, a long, pregnant pause preceded the final command, so Gilbert began begging God for mercy, while also begging the soldiers for a ceasefire, for the captain to take his time stretching the final order, delaying the coming mortal blows for as long as possible, because there were many guns aimed at him, the pain their bullets promised was going to be savage, and careless as he had been with the feelings of others his entire young life, Gilbert was not good with pain, and not at all ready to die, here, today, for no just reason he could think of, but the silence greeting his begging was loud and immense and not shrinking, and obviously wouldn’t last forever, a terrifying concession by a reflexively optimistic man during this most awful moment of his life, the bitter end, so close, so unexpected, and so, so unwanted. His executioner exhaled, and the next breath would command fire, and breathe it out like a dragon, there would be explosions, dozens, fired bullets, torrents of them, and they would pierce his body and burn his entrails, enter through his eye sockets and shatter his brain, yes they would, they will, and the realization turned Gilbert’s spine into soup, and then molten rage, making him hiss, seethe, eyes watering and widening in horror of the pending verdict of the glistening barrels of machine guns.Article continues after advertisement