God's Right Hand Man

A Story by Zoe

His name is Noah Lake, and he is Great.

My Name Is Noah Lake.

I do not like self-entitlement. It is the cancer of the human race. It is what allows a white man to take a black man by the ear and force him to work hard labour. It is what creates monsters out of rich children waiting for an inheritance which will not come for a very, very long time.

My mother told me once, that the minute we get greedy, and believe we deserve more than we do, our lives become meaningless in the eyes of God, and significant in the eyes of the Devil. Being selfish and vain serves only to hurt others and sharpen the edges of an already corrupted society, and I see that this is not good.

When my mother and father passed, I did not turn to others for their time, money and effort. I did my best on the dirty streets and worked every second that I could to provide food, water and shelter to the homeless and I. I fought my way back to working class, without sitting on someone else's shoulders.

Margaret has written me another letter. A sweet woman, she lives three doors down, with two children that pay her no respect, an infant that Margaret adores and a husband who would rather lie with his colleague than his wife waiting at home, struggling yet never complaining. She understands how I feel about self-entitlement and the human race, she shares my views.

Her letter reveals nothing more than the usual, idle talk about her chores around the house and how the children abuse her so. Only at the end does she express her deepest feelings, as she always does, but this time it takes me quite by surprise. I would be disgusted by her words - if I didn't see it as a request, rather than a wish or demand. Life has passed her by, and I am a humble man who would never deny the needs of the worthy.

She wants them dead. Her children, Leah and Jamie, 16 and 13. Leah throws things, demands things, and spends many a night wailing to her father, accusing her mother of assaulting her, which in turn only gives him an excuse for his adultery. Jamie's vocabulary consists, for the most part, of vulgar, sinful words, takes things that to do not belong to him and has sadistic tendencies that typically cultivate in harming his mother and the little one, Oliver. One time, Margaret caught Jamie with four fingers down Oliver's throat, and two fingers pinching his nostrils. Her husband did not believe Margaret's recount, but I did. I fear for the both of them, Oliver and Margaret, who are vulnerable and innocent of sins.

I place a penny in the jar, and tuck away the letter in my pocket for later. I go to sleep, with the favour I will pay playing in my mind.

Nightfall comes, and I awake. By the time my hand reaches for the doorknob, I have formed a plan that is just for each of the two. Leah is a hot-tempered, self-entitled brat who takes pleasure in emotionally abusing those around her - wrapping my hands around my neck will do. It will be over soon, but she will have to look into my eyes as she squirms and her face turns blue. Jamie is the epitome of evil, obsessed with performing the very acts he reads about in his murder mystery novels, but he is younger than she, and thusknowledgeabledgable, so I will not lengthen the time in which he dies, but it will hurt a great deal more.

I wait on Margaret's doorstep, until the door opens and she is there in the doorframe, beautiful and calm. I smile, tracing, with my fingertips, the knife in its little hiding place, and she smiles back.

"Who's first?" she asks, and I am about to answer when I hear sirens.

Her eyes stay locked with mine, and in that moment, I know I have been played. I know that her children have not been misbehaving in such ways as she has been describing, but I know someone has committed these sins, and someone must atone for them.

I take out the knife. I hate self-entitlement.