Plot
In this western-period themed-episode, an unscrupulous peddler, after selling the executioner some five-strand rope needed for a hanging, sells a bag of "magic" dust to the condemned man's father. The condemned man had been found guilty of causing the death of a child (accidentally). The peddler collects ordinary dirt from the ground and insists that it will spread good will throughout the crowd and will make them feel love and sympathy for the man sentenced to be hanged. After making the purchase as the crowd gathers for the hanging, the man's father cries out and starts sprinkling the dust everywhere. To his dismay, he hears the floor drop behind him and turns to see that the fresh and sturdy noose has broken and his son is unharmed. When asked if another hanging attempt should be made, the girl's parents decide that it shouldn't, that the condemned man has suffered enough. As father and son walk home, the peddler discovers that he is also affected by the "magic" after throwing his gold pieces from the sale of the dust to the poor children of the town, laughing about it afterward.
Read more about this topic: Dust (The Twilight Zone)
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“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
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—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)