Benevolence

I watched as the blood dripped down from his neck.

            I couldn’t stop watching either. When I came to his house after his request, this is the welcome I received.

            “This wasn’t intended.” He said to me.

            “I’ll get a cloth and some gauze.” I replied to him as I left my position on the chair in his living room. He sat on the couch which sat opposite the chair.

            “No…” He gripped my arm as I was about to leave for the kitchen. The strength in his grip told me not to go against his wishes. But there was some flicker of some emotion behind that wall of muscle and stress. I couldn’t figure out what it might’ve been. It was so peculiar of him to have an emotion like that, but it was so mysterious at the same time that I didn’t know what to think of it. At any rate, I decided on part of my better judgment to sit back down. He looked back at me with nearly a new glance; as if he’d changed the face behind his eyes.

            “It’s a random wound.” He said coldly.

            “No s**t, Sherlock.” I replied. “It’s not every day that someone starts to inexplicably bleed from their neck. Now, you can get stigmata, but that’s a full-body thing. This is just with one part of your skin.”

            “But it hurts…”

            “Then why aren’t you going to the hospital?”

            “Because I can’t…”

            “Why can’t you?”

            “I hate the damned doctors. They think they can fix every little thing with a pill and a check-up, but no, that isn’t how the human body works. It’s much more complex than that.”

            “But it helps.”

            “From your standpoint, it will…”

            “Stop being so stubborn.”

            “Who has the possibility of dying here?”

            I fell silent. He knew what the answer to that was, he just wanted to have me hear that and understand the dire circumstance that we were both in at the moment.

            “I just don’t want to see you go like this.” I said. “With dried blood on your neck…I want you to die as peacefully as possible.”

            “Believe me, for someone as wicked as I am, this is a peaceful enough death.” He replied. “There really isn’t a much better way for me to go. I haven’t exactly been the best person that the world could’ve asked for…”

            “Don’t say that, you’re a much better person than that. You’ve helped me out, you’ve helped countless other people out…”

            “Is that it?”

            I paused in shock. I just couldn’t bring myself to say what I really wanted to say to him. He shifted in his seat and chuckled a little bit.

            “You do know I can read eyes?” He said.

            “Yeah, I know you can…you’ve done it to me before.” I replied.

            “And I got the emotions down on the first shot. I know I can do that now, and I am doing that. You’re feeling an emotion for me that you’ve kept deep down inside of you for a long time. It’s a feeling of deep-rooted passion…one like I’ve never seen before. It’s so strong…it’s like I can nearly taste the lust. You’re rather amazing…in that sense.”

            “Why do you always do that…?”

            “I’m a psychic; what else do you expect? I know how to figure people out; it’s what I specialize in.”

            I saw him lean back on his couch, and for a moment, I saw the man that he truly was. I knew him more than he knew himself.

            “You still retain your innocence.” I said.

            “What?” He replied.

            “The little spirit of the child inside of you. That longing that you’ve always had for a true family, or that one person that you could tell anything to. You’ve always longed for that, but you’ve never grasped it.”

            “Have I not?”

            “No, you haven’t.”

            “Then what are you here for?”

            “I’m…” Again, I stumbled on myself. “I am that sort of person that you can tell anything to.”

            “I always knew that you were that person.” He said. “You were always meant to be that kind of person to anyone, I just happened to be that person. So…before I die, why not talk about what I loved about this life?”

            “Go ahead.”

            “That first woman that I loved…how she was amazing. She loved me, I know it, and I loved her more than I could ever have expressed. The words don’t exist that could describe what my feelings were for her. And she was a rather good kisser too. She was also an extraordinary pianist and singer, although, she thought not that good of her singing. But bliss had to end. The sad thing was that we’d grown far apart from each other while we didn’t think we were. Over the course of a few days, apparently, she’d changed completely.

            “I remember looking back at pictures of her after she was with me and I couldn’t recognize her. She was someone completely different. I didn’t understand it; how could someone who loved me so much turn away from me? It just makes no sense. But anyway…

            “Then there was you; my little love, I care about you so much. In a great way, you are my life. Sadly, you don’t define what my life is, but you are a large part of it. Your grace is something that I can’t describe. It’s something that would make the most hardened men cry. You’re rather amazing.”

            Blood poured down from his neck as he started to turn pale. He was dying and both of us knew it. He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from him pocket and wrote on the paper.

            “I remember this one woman in particular; she was one that I never knew. She was a girl on a trolley in the city. She was quite beautiful and I caught her glancing at me. And I remember when I left my seat; I looked back to her as she was staring at me. The look in her eyes…I’ll never forget that look. It was as if she understood me in one, short stare and I did the same to her. I can’t exactly explain the feeling, but I know that I should’ve said something to her. But her stare…that is what will stay with me forever; the understanding from a stranger.”

            He laughed quietly for a few seconds before he keeled over. I rushed over to him, but it was far too late; I quickly called an ambulance, but they were too late. The paramedics pronounced him dead when they arrived at the house. But the strangest thing was that there seemed to be some kind of feel to the house that wasn’t present before. It was as if things had changed drastically and not just in the way of him dying.

            Before he was carried off into the ambulance and later to the morgue, I picked up the little piece of paper that he had written on. I was confused. The note only had one word on it, but I think it sufficed in terms of describing the one quality he longed for. As I read the note, I said out loud,

            “Benevolence.”

Reviews

[Jibin]

A touching story, well written.
Excellent work, love this one....

[Coyote Poetry]

I like this story. Remind me of a old movie. Last words before life is zapped away. I like the way the conversation flowed. When death come. Time to remember the good times and allow death to flow in peacefully. A very strong ending to a excellent story. Thank you.
Coyote

[MR_BERG]

To me, this read like he was watching one aspect of his life end.

Intriguing.

[Liz]

This story had me sucked in from the start. Such a painful yet inspirational and moving love story you've got here. All of your stories have always been amazing.
I really like how you don't give the reader names of the characters. For some reason that just added a whole lot of meaning to the story for me.
Beautiful(: