Status: Currently oneshot but will possibly be extended in the future.
Meaningless
Meaningless, All Is Meaningless!
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My life's purpose has been to make people fear for theirs.
The tables have turned.
Gravel struck against my bare feet, driving relentless pricks into the unprotected soles that tripped as my heart did, sending me sprawling across the front steps.
I was breathing far too raggedly, the air catching every time it was sucked in, blood clotting in my throat and on my face. It felt wrong, and for once I didn't understand my own body as it trembled with anxiety, the blood pumping through my veins surging with adrenaline.
Normally I was so calm, so cool, so collected... How many times had I wondered why I didn't show my fear? Or cursed my lack of humanity? And here it was finally, emerging its unruly, irrational head when I least needed it.
I stood up shakily, the torn edge of my jeans nearly tripping me up a second time. The rest of my clothes were in a similarly distressed condition, but I pushed the limp thoughts out of my head, furiously gulping down the blood which bubbled up in my bruised chest. Wrestling my keys out of my pocket, I desperately looked down the drive, swept my vision round the trees, checked the sky.
No sign yet.
Trembling fingers somehow forced the cold key into the lock, wrenching the door open quickly only to slam it shut in the same wild spin as I threw myself inside, leaving me facing the door. Facing the door so that, when the glass pane shattered with gunshot, I was able to see my future sprinting to intercept me through the exploding plaster and glass.
What do you do in the last minutes of your life? There’s no point panicking, no point being calm, no point in anything.
Meaningless! All is meaningless!
Oh, why quote the bible now? I’ve been damned since I killed the first man, let alone the second, third… and now my death will damn another. When did I first loose my innocence? My first kill? My first kiss? Or was it further back in time than I could ever imagine?
Having remained paralyzed at the door- an instant that could have been a lifetime- my eyes caught those of my hunter. Deep black that swallowed part of my soul in the second that I looked into them. The mirror image of what I had seen in the mirror after my training, on my first mission.
The same pride, biting anticipation, nervous stomach.
Have you ever dreamt that you were running from some coming horror, fleeing in mindless panic without thought to what it was you were fleeing? Yet as you run your limbs weigh down with lead, your rapidly beating heart becomes a willing anchor tying you to the present danger? Or maybe you can't even begin to flee, but stay in the same place gathering things you didn’t need?
I shook the comparison from my head, ripping the false back off the cutlery drawer, my hand reaching back into the drawer and touching soft paper. I drew out the letters that had kept me human over the years in prison. A photograph slipped out of its envelope, and there he was, so perfect and patient, a distant memory that remained threaded through my life with invisible influences. I pressed my eyes closed, breathed and then opened them again.
No connections, they couldn’t find anything.
I whirled into the utility room, smashed the fuel tank off the camping stove, poured out the paraffin from its cracked vessel into an empty fruit bowl, lit it with a trembling match, dropped in the letters with singed fingers and stood back. Softly worn paper crisped and curled into black flakes. Grey smoke and pungent smell stung my nose. I watched as the beloved hand-writing curled into worthless ashes. Sentiment made them worth a thousand times my life.
Charlotte, I can’t tell you how much I miss you, only that it leaves a gaping hole in my life which can only be filled by your return...
I love you…
Memories not quite aside, my hand was back in the drawer, grasping once more sleek metal. I weighed my choice of weapon in one hand, then grappled bullets, clicked into place with mechanical precision. I could do this; it had been programmed into my head over months of intensive training, which wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to forget. The programming slumbered my panic, and I breathed easily for a moment. Though the blood still gargled in my throat, down my cheek and jaw, my mind stayed clear and lucid for a second, wiped clean by a puppeteers hand, as if my actions were only the paper-written memories of another.
I think, therefore I am.
What would he say, when he heard the news? When they found me, bloody, unrecognisable, bruised or broken, blackened perhaps from smoky flames... will he answer the door, or the phone? Or will he have already heard somehow, through impossible means.
I never meant to hurt you. I wasn't always a cold killer.
But then again, I had never thrown away the gun…
As quickly as my lucidity had arrived, the puppeteer's hand fell away and the flood of thought crashed back into place.
Wretched, I spun and ran; straight into the barrel of a waiting gun.
Time stopped, and I watched, surprised, as the barrel exploded, jerking back to relinquish its metal prisoner, which now spun towards me with revealing clarity. Life flashed before my eyes, not just my own, but those of everyone I had ever known.
…the blazing sun on the savannah... …a thousand myriad rainbows in a waterfalls birthing mist... …the pain that lives in your throat after a loved one dies... ...blood swelling on a grazed knee... …loving someone with every inch of your body...
…butterflies swarming a lilac bush... …the drop in your throat when you realise there isn’t another step… …the thrill of a first kiss… …the patient realisation that you truly love someone…
…I smiled up at my mother, who smiled back. As I watched her patient face, it turned grey and wrinkled, growing old and scarred, slower and sadder… …her coffin dropping down deep into the red earth… …my father’s descending later, metres away from my mother’s corpse…
...the unthinking, unfeeling faces of those with power, money... ...the memory of my mother's face lingering in my own expression... ...the wrench of heartbreak when decisions tear and break...
…my unborn daughter, a tiny fetus in a metal medical tray… …her bruised red skin and tiny hands… …the touch of my love’s hand on my cheek… …the horrified expression when he realised what I had done… …that tiny corpse again, so small and fragile…
…death…
…target after target after target… …the amount of blood that pours from a cut artery... …the jugular being ripped violently open by a knife’s blunt edge… …the precise pain thresholds of one prisoner compared to another... ...skin falling, flesh gouged, hanging as it shouldn't... …pressure points... …the silence after gunshot... …pain blossoming from my temple like a red carnation…
Death may be welcome after such.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
My life's purpose has been to make people fear for theirs.
The tables have turned.
Gravel struck against my bare feet, driving relentless pricks into the unprotected soles that tripped as my heart did, sending me sprawling across the front steps.
I was breathing far too raggedly, the air catching every time it was sucked in, blood clotting in my throat and on my face. It felt wrong, and for once I didn't understand my own body as it trembled with anxiety, the blood pumping through my veins surging with adrenaline.
Normally I was so calm, so cool, so collected... How many times had I wondered why I didn't show my fear? Or cursed my lack of humanity? And here it was finally, emerging its unruly, irrational head when I least needed it.
I stood up shakily, the torn edge of my jeans nearly tripping me up a second time. The rest of my clothes were in a similarly distressed condition, but I pushed the limp thoughts out of my head, furiously gulping down the blood which bubbled up in my bruised chest. Wrestling my keys out of my pocket, I desperately looked down the drive, swept my vision round the trees, checked the sky.
No sign yet.
Trembling fingers somehow forced the cold key into the lock, wrenching the door open quickly only to slam it shut in the same wild spin as I threw myself inside, leaving me facing the door. Facing the door so that, when the glass pane shattered with gunshot, I was able to see my future sprinting to intercept me through the exploding plaster and glass.
What do you do in the last minutes of your life? There’s no point panicking, no point being calm, no point in anything.
Meaningless! All is meaningless!
Oh, why quote the bible now? I’ve been damned since I killed the first man, let alone the second, third… and now my death will damn another. When did I first loose my innocence? My first kill? My first kiss? Or was it further back in time than I could ever imagine?
Having remained paralyzed at the door- an instant that could have been a lifetime- my eyes caught those of my hunter. Deep black that swallowed part of my soul in the second that I looked into them. The mirror image of what I had seen in the mirror after my training, on my first mission.
The same pride, biting anticipation, nervous stomach.
Have you ever dreamt that you were running from some coming horror, fleeing in mindless panic without thought to what it was you were fleeing? Yet as you run your limbs weigh down with lead, your rapidly beating heart becomes a willing anchor tying you to the present danger? Or maybe you can't even begin to flee, but stay in the same place gathering things you didn’t need?
I shook the comparison from my head, ripping the false back off the cutlery drawer, my hand reaching back into the drawer and touching soft paper. I drew out the letters that had kept me human over the years in prison. A photograph slipped out of its envelope, and there he was, so perfect and patient, a distant memory that remained threaded through my life with invisible influences. I pressed my eyes closed, breathed and then opened them again.
No connections, they couldn’t find anything.
I whirled into the utility room, smashed the fuel tank off the camping stove, poured out the paraffin from its cracked vessel into an empty fruit bowl, lit it with a trembling match, dropped in the letters with singed fingers and stood back. Softly worn paper crisped and curled into black flakes. Grey smoke and pungent smell stung my nose. I watched as the beloved hand-writing curled into worthless ashes. Sentiment made them worth a thousand times my life.
Charlotte, I can’t tell you how much I miss you, only that it leaves a gaping hole in my life which can only be filled by your return...
I love you…
Memories not quite aside, my hand was back in the drawer, grasping once more sleek metal. I weighed my choice of weapon in one hand, then grappled bullets, clicked into place with mechanical precision. I could do this; it had been programmed into my head over months of intensive training, which wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to forget. The programming slumbered my panic, and I breathed easily for a moment. Though the blood still gargled in my throat, down my cheek and jaw, my mind stayed clear and lucid for a second, wiped clean by a puppeteers hand, as if my actions were only the paper-written memories of another.
I think, therefore I am.
What would he say, when he heard the news? When they found me, bloody, unrecognisable, bruised or broken, blackened perhaps from smoky flames... will he answer the door, or the phone? Or will he have already heard somehow, through impossible means.
I never meant to hurt you. I wasn't always a cold killer.
But then again, I had never thrown away the gun…
As quickly as my lucidity had arrived, the puppeteer's hand fell away and the flood of thought crashed back into place.
Wretched, I spun and ran; straight into the barrel of a waiting gun.
Time stopped, and I watched, surprised, as the barrel exploded, jerking back to relinquish its metal prisoner, which now spun towards me with revealing clarity. Life flashed before my eyes, not just my own, but those of everyone I had ever known.
…the blazing sun on the savannah... …a thousand myriad rainbows in a waterfalls birthing mist... …the pain that lives in your throat after a loved one dies... ...blood swelling on a grazed knee... …loving someone with every inch of your body...
…butterflies swarming a lilac bush... …the drop in your throat when you realise there isn’t another step… …the thrill of a first kiss… …the patient realisation that you truly love someone…
…I smiled up at my mother, who smiled back. As I watched her patient face, it turned grey and wrinkled, growing old and scarred, slower and sadder… …her coffin dropping down deep into the red earth… …my father’s descending later, metres away from my mother’s corpse…
...the unthinking, unfeeling faces of those with power, money... ...the memory of my mother's face lingering in my own expression... ...the wrench of heartbreak when decisions tear and break...
…my unborn daughter, a tiny fetus in a metal medical tray… …her bruised red skin and tiny hands… …the touch of my love’s hand on my cheek… …the horrified expression when he realised what I had done… …that tiny corpse again, so small and fragile…
…death…
…target after target after target… …the amount of blood that pours from a cut artery... …the jugular being ripped violently open by a knife’s blunt edge… …the precise pain thresholds of one prisoner compared to another... ...skin falling, flesh gouged, hanging as it shouldn't... …pressure points... …the silence after gunshot... …pain blossoming from my temple like a red carnation…
Death may be welcome after such.