In The Darkness We Found Light

The dark is a strange thing when there is room to grow in it.

I don't do good things. I never intended to. What I set out for remained the same all throughout. There were no instances where I thought, maybe I shouldn't come home with blood on my hands ,  maybe I should go ask that girl for her number, or maybe I should just stay home tonight.

The darkness soothed me in a way substance could not. I looked forever, searching, hoping that smoking cigarettes to the butt or a bottle of whiskey to the face could overcome the everlasting fear of amounting to nothing. They lingered; every thought of dismay, every voice in my head repeating softly that I would search without success for the one thing that gave me purpose.

I indeed would never find it, it found me.

Five years earlier.

Dark forms moved across the street. I was walking home from soccer tryouts. I thought if my mom knew about it she'd obsess over it and push me too hard, or grieve quietly if I was unsuccessful. Every issue has been magnetic since Dad passed. 

Screams echoed from the alleyway across the street. I kept pushing on, I couldn't possibly fabricate a believable story with any deviations. The screams turned desperate, a man staring death in the face. The kind that shakes you to the core and leaves a decision to be made, a decision our survival is based on, fight or flight.

The alleyway seemed lifeless, all the air sucked from between the walls.

"What have you come to do then, a bit late it seems."

 I remember reports of violence, and robbery in the news, by "British" thugs. His accent was thick but his body thin, and lacked all the traits portrayed by the news.

"I just wanted to watch." It felt like a lie coming out, but as it sunk in it became the truth.

He was bloody, beaten down, and broken. His voice no longer able to cry for help, only whimper for mercy.

I paced around a bit, settling in, and I seemed to feed off his pain, it focused me. 

The thug who first spoke looked to me and went to one of his partners.

"Well then, finish the job." He handed me a revolver. Six shots.

I pointed the gun instantly. 

The heap of a man that once was, pleading for his life.

"He's pathetic, " The main thug said, lighting a cigarette, "kill him, consider this your initiation."

The man covered up slowly. The main thug marched over and kicked him solid in the ribs, cigarette hanging from his  mouth.

"For once in your life be a f*****g man, we're trying to make one here, the least you could do is give the boy a clean shot at your worthless, f*****g head." 

The man opened up and closed his eyes, awaiting death, lips trembling. He was pathetic, his head surely worthless.

I turned and shot.

The main thug droped to his knees clutching his chest. The other thugs scattered. 

Dad had taught me about guns, the do's and dont's. It's funny, I don't remember a damn thing about shooting people.

I missed once, hit the other two, the fat one was last to go down. It made sense to me to kill the quicker ones first. Pure logic or instinct I couldn't tell.

The man's voice reawakened, his adrenaline resurging.

"Thank you, son. You saved my life," his words still barely a whisper.

I looked at him, trying to process everything. My world seemed black, like everything was one, it was whole. His words came out in fractured reverberations. 

"Hey, pal, is everything alright?"

I shot one last time.

Four dead on five shots, that was the last time I missed. That was the last time I was ever unsure about myself. The things that make our heartbeat can be the very things that stop it, sometimes for a moment.  Sometimes forever.

I walked away gripping the remaining bullet from the cylinder tightly.

I wear that bullet around my kneck. The same bullet I intend to use on myself when the time comes. Darkness has it's perks.