My Unintended Killer

 

T

here was a heavy, thunderous storm last night. Those luminous lights savage sounds and hurling winds instigated fear deep within our shallow bones. In the yellow sunrise everything looked worn-out like a tired old woman and bare like those kids in the streets. But I minded little; it was autumn. The small-brown leaves on the street fell so wordlessly from the giant trees, like falling clouds or falling feathers.

The crushing sound of the leaves when I slowly flattened them instantly persuaded me to smile… or perhaps I owed the smile not to the leaves, but to what awaited for me not too far-flung.

This letter was to be my ticket, far away from here; to leave and leave and never return. To a land where rainbows never died and birds never went deaf and dumb to sing. If not for this letter, what more was my heart beating and my lungs breathing? Letter provided hope where none lived in my lonely and vile corner of the world.

How did my life change to darkness and ruin so rapidly like thunder flash in the dark? For a memory lives not too far in me, that reminds me of joy, and true smiles of other days. Before we wore black and shed tears for mother before we slept teary and woke up dying for mother. Back then when I only knew of poverty in the books I read, now hardship and neediness are entwined with me, like my relentless and ever-present shadow; it sleeps and wakes with me. But more dreadful than this dark shadow was how father has now become. He was no longer gentle with me; instead he became harsh, hard and rough, as if I were a rocky and worthless brown stone. A stone he would hammer and batter, batter and hammer till my eyes would bleed. He used to care and bottle me dazzling light. Internal bleedings, a few broken bones and countless black eyes. Is all he now affords.

But I still had the letter, the single shred of hope I had, lived and died with this single letter, like the last dim star to shine and brighten the dark heavens.

I crushed the leaves all the way to the post earlier today. The letter was true, I soon found out �" I could now leave, where was of little significance. As long as it was far away from here, from him, as humanly possible �" but he made it false and said I should stay, chaining my soul to this God forbidden prison, he called a home. From black, till now, he was slowly bleeding me dry like a cowardly snake; my dreams and my now dried flesh. Today was that final blow. I felt it, hard on my soft cheek like a heavyweight boxer’s blow.

I have endured long never-ending dark days. I have had enough of earthly hell. All I had were monstrous nightmares, and my dreams were now depleted. I would not last till the late hours of darkness, it was evident. I was nothing, I had nothing… the thought of ending my life was the only thing I truly had left left.

The pleasant thought of being united with mother gave me comfort. Our majestic bridge seemed a good place to die. I stared at his despicable face for the last time and went to meet my fate at the bridge.

 

Our elevator had always been a lousy piece of machine; I started banging the door for it to open. Finally it did… There was a blonde woman in the elevator; you could tell that wealth called her friend. Her beauty was dazzling and radiating filling the four walls of the elevator. I was only a boy, a boy whose time was ticking and whose compass pointed to the bridge. I did not greet. Pressed ground, the doors closed. The lousy machine got stuck.

 

Observing my tears she asked the matter, as we sat in the now immobile elevator, perhaps unconsciously I needed someone to confide. I explained she listened. I told she heard.

“Why does your father not find another job… where does he work?”

“He is an uneducated man,” I told her… when I explained where he worked, a sudden change of expression was evident on her face

“Do you know where my father works?”

She kept silent for a while “My, my husband Bill owns the company”

We stared at each other momentarily. Father had told me in those early times when he was still human of his boss, I recall the name, who pressured him like pressing machinery, till his bones would crack.

“It’s all my fault” she said with a self loathing voice, “if only,”

“If only what?” I asked “What do you mean?” you could see that she felt cold remorse as if she betrayed Christ or sold two nuns to the mafia.

“Bill has always loved me too much you see” The blonde woman now looked at me “I am his little princess, whatever I want… I get, whatever I dream comes true”

“Still I do not see how my father turning into a monster is your fault”

“Am seeing someone else, he lives here at your flat, which is why I’m here �" I love him, I think �" but I love Bill for what he has,” she looked down with shame and continued to speak

“Do you not see? I threaten Bill that I will leave him, if he does not make more money, so I can buy sports cars and clothes. He in-turn puts pressure on your father and the other employees…” She busted into tears. Feeling as if the walls of the elevator were pressing hard against her, as she now realized the ever-present ever-shadowing law of causality.

 

It soon became evident and clear as dictionary to me. My father could no longer bear the load that heavy load Bill bestowed upon him. He gave himself to alcohol, and later started to abuse my fledging soul. All this time I thought I knew and understood who was the reaper of my soul. But my true killer never knew my face; my true killer killed me from afar. My death came to me in a form of a chain, from such simple beginnings of harmless greed, to painful endings of harmful death.