Death Minus Hours

A short story

Photo by Emiliano Bar on Unsplash

The day before his execution, I saw my dad for the next to last time.

I had never seen him this thin, nor this unshaven. In fact, I can’t for the life of me ever remember him unshaven. Yet, here in his cell, with only a day to go — less than a day, now, more like twenty hours (not even that) till the blessed event, as he liked to call it — the gray stubble was probably a week old.