The Guillotine

(Please be warned that there are quite a number of mentions of death, suicide, and weapons in this story)

Some people see angel numbers. I see guillotines. As far as what this means, I was at a loss of direction. It has driven me mad over the course of two years to decipher the meaning behind why I see guillotines. It may or may not be a synchronicity as a message from the universe but why? It haunts me dawn to dusk on a day to day basis.

I’ve been at wits end trying to determine the symbolism behind guillotines. I not dare mention my sightings to any soul as it may deem me as clinically insane. I not only see guillotines, I hear mention of it. Could it be that I have truly gone mad? I’ll read an article and the word guillotine within said article will stand out to me. I could be walking mindlessly, and my eyes could fall upon a billboard or such and spot an image of a guillotine in a random advertisement. In the past when I have mentioned this concern to others, it would be dismissed as a sign of lunacy and be told logically that if I am looking for a symbol, then that symbol will be all I see. I am not looking for a guillotine, however.

Countless days have been spent during my idle time researching such a meaning. Could it be that I needed to metaphorically cut something out in my life? Or that perhaps I am afraid of death? Could it be a sign of pending punishment that is closing near in my life? Maybe an indicator of having poor judgment?

Seeing how clueless I was, I delved into the history of guillotines as well. I was well aware that they were used in the Middle Ages to behead individuals guilty of crimes. Properly known as the Halifax Gibbet, it was typically a wooden structure with an axe head blade that was able to be maneuvered up and down. As cruel as the idea may seem, it was proposed as a humane idea in comparison to the sword or axe by Joseph Guillotin in front of the city hall of Paris. Typically, executions were sentenced the morning after trial. In history, the guillotine became a symbol known in the period of the Reign of Terror. Famous for executing well known figures such as Marie Antoinette. Eventually the form of punishment was abandoned and outlawed. Totaling about a range of 15,000 people killed by the guillotine. No one was safe from the guillotine.

Further research has brought me to understand the physical technicalities of what happens to a person that is beheaded. Brain activity ceases to exist once the blood supply and oxygen is cut off. Usually there is around five to ten seconds of consciousness followed by the end of circulation. Thus considered a swift act of death and punishment that was considered to be painless to the sword or axe.

I spent hours upon hours pouring over the history and even learning French, where the guillotine dominated much of the country.

Which brings me to modern day influences. In the MMA world, a guillotine choke is considered a blood choke, not an air choke. In order for this to be effective, the neck has to have constant pressure on both sides thus immobilizing the body of the opponent.  

With this knowledge and factors in mind however, I still remained perplexed. What could the haunting of the guillotine in my life possibly mean? I see and hear them everywhere. Could I be a self-aware schizophrenic? I was too nervous to admit myself to a psychiatrist unit because I felt lucid in my thoughts. I was not typically an anxious person but since the symbolism never ceased to exist with time, instead getting worse I was always riddled with fear of the next symbol’s appearance.

What could be actionable to remove this from my life? With some potential interpretations I was set to self-assigned tasks to preserve my sanity. Did I need to cut something out of my life? Something that was perhaps toxic to my wellbeing? Was the nature of the guillotine to maintain a positive influence? I could not understand it.

Sitting down at a desk to commit to the end of this symbol, I wrote out lists upon lists of what could be considered potentially harmful or detrimental. Lifestyle changes could be and would be made. I put a damper on smoking, the assertive end to my sweet tooth, an abrupt halt to oversleeping, removing friends that provided no support or benefit. A week would pass however, and the guillotine would reappear again in the form of a radio segment.

With “cutting out” everything I considered to be vile to my life not being a viable option, I resorted to the next task. That task being trying to predict what could be considered looming punishment. Why did I deserve this? What did I do wrong to illicit this? Knowing my history of bad luck, was I just doomed to forever experience unfortunate events for the rest of my life? I was and am always waiting for the next bad event at this point.

Or could this be just a natural indictor that I could be afraid of death? I did not think that I necessarily had an underlying fear of dying but as the signs continued to appear, I felt the fear rise in my chest every day. Especially considering how the string of bad luck that exists in my life was quite a normal occurrence. One of the last bad events being a major car accident that totaled my car and caused daily pain in my neck from the whiplash. I deemed the idea that a possible fear of death was something that was meant to almost be its own form of punishment much like the guillotine itself, making it a double meaning.

Fast forward to present day. I am standing in a museum in Sweden that is dedicated to the guillotine. I observe models of the guillotine in fascination. Although the guillotine was seen as a token macabre relic, an actual guillotine does not exist anywhere in the world.

In wishful thinking of a chaotic world where I could decipher the meaning behind this all, I would have even had the audacity to create one. And so I did. And so my demise followed as my thoughts became suicidal and I determined that a morbid end was necessary as the universe seemed to predict.