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"And so it was till he was laid on the plank...It's strange that people rarely faint in these last moments. On the contrary, the brain is extraordinarily lively and must be working at an extraordinary rate--at a tremendous rate like a machine at full speed. There is one point which can never be forgotten, and one can't faint, and everything moves and turns about it, about that point. And only think that it must be like that up to the last quarter of a second, when his head lies on the block and waits...KNOWS, and suddenly hears above him him the clang of the iron! He must hear that! It may last only the tenth part of a second, but one would be sure to hear it. And only imagine, it's still disputed whether, when the head is cut off, it knows for a second after that it has been cut off! What an idea! And what if it knows it for five seconds.""I think that if one is faced w/ inevitable destruction--if a house is falling upon you, for instance--one must feel a great longing to sit down, close one's eyes and wait, come what may..."--Fyodor Dostoevsky.