This is a short story about a man who died inside.
The man pulled his hand closer to his mouth and sipped at the strong liquor. It was smooth at first but burned down his throat. He stared out of the window from the expensive red chair. Laced in gold thread the chair was more valuable than the gun in his hand.
He had the money to buy anything he wanted but felt worthless inside. So he bought only what he needed to carry out the next job.
He saw flashing lights in the distance coming for him. His eyes shifted from the window to the room before him. A dead body lay in front of him. The woman’s blood ran cold over the hard wood floor. He had no sympathy for her. It was the same night over and over. Another victim, another paycheck.
He never wanted any of it. He never wanted a life of money and murder. The man shook his head in ultimate disappointment of everything he was. With a sad trace of a memory, he thought back to when he was a child.
Always wanting to make his father proud, he fell far from his graces. At the age of twenty-three, he fell into a life that cursed his father’s gravestone. With every night and every victim he felt the dirt he piled on the grave.
His mind went back in time a few minutes; when he waited in the room for the woman to arrive. He had no idea who she was besides her first and last name. The only thing he knew was that her husband wanted her dead. He heard someone approach the door and slip a key into the tumblers. As the door opened and the woman walked in, he moved with quick movements. Hitting over the head with the butt of his gun, he pulled out his string from his pocket. Before he could get on top of her and wrap the string around her neck, she had already gained some form of consciousness. She screamed and moaned, alerting everyone in the vicinity of them.
Wrapping the string against her skin and pulling hard to silence her, the man felt the string dig in to her skin. Still, he pulled harder and beneath him he saw blood squirting onto the floor. It didn’t matter how quickly she had been silenced. The maids and housekeepers would have heard her.
Soon there was no struggle from the woman. The body lay lifeless. He was jealous of her.
He just sat in the chair, waiting for the police. In minutes he would be hauled off and life the rest of his days in a cell.
Or…
Or he could take his own life. Aim the gun at his temple and press the silencing trigger. The thought was an appealing one. Appealing enough that he pressed the gun against his head just to feel the muzzle of the gun.
But he knew the reality. He pulled the gun away from his head and cleaned up the mess he made. Any finger prints, hairs, anything to trace back to him.
As police marched up the stairs to the room, he disappeared out the window.
That night was like every other night.
ZinnWrites 