Sixteen Blinks from the fall of the Blade

It was as though those who held the scales of justice
Felt that they had to whet the blade of the guillotine
By bathing it in blood.  Snarling like rabid dogs,
Teeth bared, foaming at the mouth with class hatred,
They wished to destroy anyone who had risen above them.

Membership in The Academy of Science was suspect,
A liability in a society where ignorance held sway.
Antoine Lavoisier, the Father of Chemistry,
Was arrested, brought to trial, and convicted
By the bloodthirsty brigands who were "The Republic" now,
Vindictively flexing its power over those who before
Had oppressed, vexed or simply had intimidated them
By reputation and ability, by sentencing them to death.

Lavoisier, a nobleman, had pleaded not for mercy,
But for time to complete an important research project
That he insisted would benefit and bring honor to France.

"The Republic has no need of scientists, Citizen,"

Was the curt rebuff uttered by the judge, who instead,
Had him hurled into prison to contemplate his end.

Eyes wide open in horrified terror,
Mouths gaping, blade-stifled in mid-scream,
A severed head held aloft by its gory locks
While a bloodthirsty mob cheered and applauded.
Apparitions of execution, terrifying wraiths
That his imagination had conjured forth to dwell
In his mind's charnel house of death and cold stone.

A visit in prison from a trusted friend pulled him
From that maelstrom of morbid contemplation
Threatening to pull him down to drown in madness.

"What could Science learn from your final moments?"

His friend asked him.  They discussed Charlotte Corday,
The brave young woman who had stabbed Marat,
A crime that left the same mob howling for her head
That now demanded his.  Supposedly, after the blade fell,
The executioner held up her head and then slapped her face
To demonstrate his personal abhorrence of her crime.
Witnesses said that her face flushed red with anger,
Not blood, and that it wore an indignant expression.

Accepting his lot with stoic resignation, he resolved
To determine how long a brain could still function
After the body, its source of blood and oxygen,
Had been severed from it.  He vowed to his friend
That if he could do so, by sheer force of will
He would force himself to blink continuously
As long as his brain could command that function.

When the scientist's turn came to face the blade,
The mob's favored form of barbaric justice,
Lavoisier's colleague later swore that he counted

Sixteen blinks.

What force of will, what concentration
Must it have taken to surmount such pain.

 Sixteen blinks.

One

Pain

Three

Fear

Five

Rage

Seven

Self-Pity

Nine

Despair

Eleven

Regret

Thirteen

Light

Fifteen

Release