Death

"He walked out the front door, knowing this would be his last time ever seeing it…"

He had gotten the letter a few days before, while sitting in a chair, in the kitchen. His heart had stopped for a second as he read the horrible words of his daughter. She hated him. Not just dislike, or mild anger towards him, but a thorough grown with the many years of mistreatment hate. Her words were soaked in the foulest taste of hate, nearly seeming to spite on him as he read the letter. What was worse, she didn’t just hate him, but hated everything that was connected to him. Each letter, each sentence was a shocking, mind blow hit to his every essence.

Through the years, he had known of her constant tempers, her bad mouth, and glaring eyes, but he dismissed this, thinking it was only hormones and really, a lack of control over her emotions. Women were silly. It wasn’t too much of their fault, although he was sure that if her daughter wanted to, she could have controlled herself better. Women didn’t and shouldn’t have much in the way of power or choice making. It was startling and annoying how his daughter seemed to fight this idea. But, he had to remind himself that she was a woman and women were silly enough to think they could dominate the male role in society.

He got about half way through the letter, grimacing at her emotions and thoughts before he put the letter down and walked away. It was just another fit she was having. Surely, she wasn’t really going to leave the family forever, or even dare to tell the family of his little secret. His daughter had strange ideas about her importance over the family. No one would really care about her, or take her seriously. He had done nothing wrong to her. She claimed she had been mistreated numerous times, but he disagreed. She needed discipline and it was not his fault that she forced him to the strongest punishment to get it through her head she would respect him. Daughters were to respect their father and fathers were not obliged to respect their daughters. When it came down to the word of a man and a woman, the man always won. This was not unfair, or so he thought. It was just the way life was and he could not understand why women wanted this to change.

What he missed when he dropped the page long letter was the last sentence about his death. He had out the letter out of his mind, but something within him, almost a gut type feeling, though he did not believe in “gut” feelings, for that was another silly thing that women came up with, that there was something important in the rest of the letter. For a day he firmly told himself nothing could come from this rant, but the feeling grew stronger, the more he ignored it. Finally, he gave in and read the letter again, this time all the way.

He nearly dropped the letter when he got to the last sentence. If the rest of the letter was not full of the past, of all the scenes of her past and accurately describing everything, he would have not taken her words seriously. The last sentence was “You will die, I promise you this.” He had not been reminded of anyone threatening to kill him since the war. He went too many sleepless nights sweating out the various memories of the terrors of the war, curling up into a ball of pitiful fear. He hated that fear and swore to let no one cast the feeling of helplessness onto him again. It was inconceivable that she, a young silly woman, his daughter, would cause this fear.

He spent that night wondering, thinking if she really did mean it. Could she have just written this in another fit of uncontrolled womanly rage? Surely, she would cool down after an hour of writing those words and probably forget about it. It was not too likely of a possibility, but he could not see his weak daughter capable of such an action.

He was woken up from a dreadful nightmare, early in the morning by the silence of the house. For some reason he had another gut like feeling the house was far too quite. There was a feeling of wrong in the air. He shook of his head. This woman was starting to get to him. He had to get his head clear of such emotion and focus on the thoughts. The facts were his daughter was no where near him and would do nothing to him. He breathed heavily and got out of bed. He walked to the kitchen, spotting almost instantly the letter she had written. A feeling of panic pierced his heart. He had sworn the letter was in his room. He could clearly remember putting the letter of death oh his night table before retiring to bed the night before. How could of the letter appear here?

He picked up the letter with trembling hands to realize the worst fear of all. This was not the same letter. The letter was not a page long, not handwritten, nor signed. It was a short one, typed, and without a date or signature, but he knew who was the author. He barely had time to process the words before a loud knock could be heard from the front door. This was the knock of death.

He started at the door, trembling even worse, unable to move. The silence of the house grew louder, demanding a reaction from him. It seemed fate screamed at him to answer the door. Another three, short knocks could be heard. Death was impatient. He swallowed and inched his way to the window of the door. He barely got a glance outside of the door before having the precious seconds to duck a bullet speeding past him. He crunched down; his heart was pounding in his ears and his legs nearly reduced to wiggling jelly. He didn’t dare to breathe. For a few seconds there was rush of screaming silence. He strained his poor hearing for the footsteps of his killer. There was nothing.

Suddenly, the air whipped and cracked a deafening scream. It took him a full three seconds to become aware it was him who made that scream. His eyes searched around for his killer before being forced to look his wet, warm side. He stared, shocked, at the blood rushing from his ribs. There was a definite sign of a bullet hole between his ribs. He couldn’t feel it, but he knew without a doubt that he was dying.

He didn’t move, for fear of activating his pain and attracting the attention of the killer. It didn’t matter. His scream had told the murder where the victim was. His breath was growing rapidly shallow. He didn’t have much time. He heard the quiet steps of a person. He saw sneakers. He recognized those sneakers and nearly screamed again. He looked up and saw the face of death, of fear, of life and death. He saw what was within himself. He saw his daughter with a gun pointed at his face. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find his voice. For a second he was full of rage, full of anger, and full of fear. This was just a second as the bullet left the barrel of the gun and ripped through his head, splattering his brain and blood all over the walls of his home.