“An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
--
Ambrose Bierce
He
stands at the gate of his own home. All is
as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine…Peyton
Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side
beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.
Upon reading this story, I was
struck by a previous conversation with someone who had lost a loved one and was
telling me about the chemical released in the human body just as that person is
about to die. It allows the soon-to-be
deceased to gently reflect back on their most happiest times of an event, or occurrence
that maybe has not even happened yet and they wish to fulfill mentally before
they pass away, or so I’ve been told. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
reminded me of that in the sense that the entire story of Peyton was the last
final minutes of his life reflecting on the last thing he would have wanted to
do should he have had the chance to escape, was to see his family. Peyton never left the spot where he was
executed by rope hanging. “…Farquhar was
dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the
timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge”, I mean he never even broke away. He was there the entire time and I think this
has made me realize that death itself is not just something tragic, but
something beautiful as well. In a time
of guilt, a time in which he wish he had more of to be with his family, in the
sense to anyone who wish they had more time as they stood before the grave of
their own death, was beautiful. I say
this because the mind of Peyton Farquhar took him to exactly where he wanted to
be. Dying alone and without his family
in reality, but given a second chance to be with them in the world beyond, is
the most beautifully tragic thing that could have happened to him, especially
now.
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