Set in Burma, where Orwell (under his real name of Eric Arthur Blair) had served in the British Imperial Police from 1922 to 1927, it describes the execution of a criminal.
As the handcuffed prisoner is marched to the gallows he steps slightly aside to avoid treading in a puddle of rainwater; the narrator sees this, and reflects: “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.
When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide.
All the organs of his body were working—bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming—all toiling away in solemn foolery.
He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone—one mind less, one world less.”[3] The hanging is carried out, and all concerned feel a sudden relief as they leave the scene where the dead man still hangs.