After I recently read Cecil’s column about decapitated heads surviving long enough to realize their fate, I was haunted for days. Kept crying just at the thought of the poor man in the cab in Korea. Then I thought of the thousands killed during the Terror in France. Got to stop typing now.
Cecil’s columns:
Do decapitated heads briefly remain conscious?
Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation?
Week of: 12-Jun-98)
Mercifully, the sufferings of those disembodied heads are pretty short. I would be more worried about the people being tortured in prison, because that can last for days, months or even years.
(By the way, in the second column by Cecil, from 12 June 1998, was his last sentence sarcastic or not? I personally interpet it to mean he was serious, and that he was convinced by the story of the U.S. Army veteran from Korea.)
I believe he was serious, as well. The quoted segment of the letter did not sound like the writer was trying to enhance the facts. You’re right, prolonged torture is worse than several seconds of knowing you are decapitated, but still . . . it just gives me the willies.
I am still highly leery—which makes me more skeptical than Cecil, even! Nothing I have read in any of these columns strikes me as anything more than involuntary nerve and muscle movement, which could be the result of shock and dying tissues. Dead bodies have long been known to sit up in morgues, and we all have seen “headless chickens” running around.
I read a great book a few years ago called “The Guillotine,” well worth looking for and a corking good read—it also covers this topic, and is full of illustrations that will keep you up nights.
Cecil’s final comment seemed serious to me also, but I have a hard time believing he said it. I mean, the story was related by a victim of what must have been a horrific accident(to decapitate someone). How reliable could the survivor’s account be? Does that sound like Cecil, to blithely accept something like that? Unless he was out of his head at the time.
Well, Cecil only quoted a portion of the letter. Perhaps there was more to it that we didn’t see and which he felt was convincing.
On the History Channel on cable tonight they are running an episode of the series “History’s Mysteries” about the guillotine. They mention the subject of the decapitated heads (or would that be de-bodied head?) being aware of their situation.