Often I sleep myself awake - days pass, life spills away like sand in an hourglass. Children wait to become taller and older; teenagers wait to become independent; adults wait for opportunities... Disappointed and exhausted from repetitive daily routines, they wait for the day they retire. It is a Ferris wheel that everybody hops on and on the end of the ride, they die. Like that moth, trapped midway between my cell and freedom. Being insomniac, I wonder why this is. Also, why do writers, painters and musicians in every century emerge and create works, when all art has been created already? Why do people commit crimes? Why did I do what did? And why am I now, like many did and do in life, waiting for my own death?
I am patient however - I wait for the end that is to come in four hours. I assume I should be going insane at this stage of the waiting? At least I should make an attempt to take my own life away before the noose does. I look around the room – empty. Bed, table, chair, few aspirin pills, toilet, sink. I decide to lie on the bed and simply stare at the grey ceiling. Suddenly, I feel like Prometheus. Nostalgic, regretful and melancholic thoughts circle around my body like vultures. Occasionally, they swoop into my heart, making it jerk and my blood flows faster in sudden adrenaline or shock. Realising however that there is nothing heroic about my past, I shake my head and stand up. I watch the world out of the window again. A miserable day it will be soon – cloudy, rainy, yet hot. Another reason to look forward to the end.
Maybe I killed only because I wanted to know beforehand what the famous “after-life” is like. So I could then laugh at all the philosophers and scientists, watch them look away in humiliation as I exclaim: "It exists!" To feel my own power and intellectual superiority for once. Or maybe I only wanted a change in my life. I used to be a simple accountant at a bank - and also the happy husband of a beautiful woman. "Used to," because one day, I arrived home to find our apartment empty - with only a simple note from her that said: “Forgive me, I cannot.”It’s ages back, but even so, now I remember the sensations I experienced that night – a crack in the chest, sudden incapability to breathe... In short, that evening saw the death of innocence and birth of the devil.
It was a similar night like this, my last one. Humid, indigo, after a summer tempest. Insomniac, hopeless and attempting to clear my mind, I left the empty apartment for the quiet early-morning streets. At the third corner, I noticed a small figure. Its shadow’s shoulders shook, tears glittered. Luring nearer, I found a dark-haired little girl sitting there on the pavement. I was never good with children though - I hear one cry and I run away. But this one? Soon after noticing me standing by the lamp, she just looked at me and said: “Help me, I’m lost.” I stared at her for a while. I don’t know if she was more scared of her situation or my silent stare… Honestly, I then replied, “Forgive me, I cannot.” She began sobbing. Awkwardly, I put my arm around her. She continued to cry, but then suddenly looked at me. again I saw it in her tear-filled eyes: fear.
I meant no harm! But how she started screaming, running away, still screaming, the high-pitched sounds echoing through the bridges under which I was chasing her. I wanted to calm her down, but somehow began chasing her instead, like some predator chases its prey - I began crying myself. I lost sense of direction, my eyes filling up with tears, until I hit something and fell down on it. It was her. Wiping my eyes, I placed my drenched hand against her flat chest. To feel it moving - up, down, up down. Women breathe that way, those cryptic, lovable yet vile creatures.
I had power. But I was sick - sick with myself, my failed marriage, my unfulfilling job. With the fact that I was waiting for retirement like many before me. With the fact that I have unknowingly traumatized an innocent girl, who now lay under me. Sobbing: “Please, let me go.” I felt the devil within me augmenting in size, blood bubbling in my veins. I lifted my hands from her chest up to her neck - it was cold. My hands were warm, the contrast was overwhelming. I was lost in my thoughts when the girl's weeping broke into my ear: “Please, please sir…” I looked at her. The next thing I knew, I was pressing her down with all my body's weight and her neck began cracking as I squeezed it between my hands. My eyes were filling up with tears again as I told her: “Forgive me, I cannot.”
I did not deny my crime when the next day I was found by the girl’s body. In the morning sunlight, she looked pretty, even clever. By the size of her funeral, she was doubtlessly admired and loved. The whole court process was quick. The result? After months of waiting, I’m being lynched in an hour - like the blacks were by the Ku-Klux-Klan in the 1920s. Only I am not innocent, I actually committed the crime - in the name of releasing the inner devil and the long-sleeping desire for satisfaction. Wait - “jn the name”?! I am no saint – I am a sinner! By the way: Is knowingly increasing the probability of death of a moth also a crime? No matter anyway. I suddenly realize: I will be dead before the moth will... Oh, the irony.
Prometheus was also on his feet during his torment. Still standing by the window, I heard the clinking of keys and the opening of the cell door behind me. “It’s time,” said a deep male voice, breaking the silence I was in otherwise. The guard hand-cuffed my hands and we left my 5-month home. Our steps echo through the empty hallway, I stare ahead. Once on the stool, I receive the noose. People are watching – to see my legs jerk and my soul evaporate, just like Jenny’s.
“Any last wishes?” the official asks. My heart suddenly jerks from the last vulture's swoop into my mind, ripping my new thoughts out like a chunk of meat. I look at the man, who awaits my reply and my inner devil smirks as I say: “Let me see the wind in the wires one last time.” I see people in the audience, the witnesses of my nearing death, frown and groan - and a man, probably the father, spits on the floor. Disgust. Contempt. Disbelief. Before pulling the sack over my head, the official sighs. His simple response to my wish: “Forgive me, I cannot.”
The wait is finally over.
No comments:
Post a Comment