Pier 34

There are certain things a man never talks about; that he takes to his grave. He comes home and kisses his beautiful wife and children and sleeps soundly with no remorse for the events of his day. For some men this means firing another man or woman who may not be able to feed their families for the lack of a paycheck he's taken away from them. For others it's the man who takes the job and never has to fire anyone but he takes the place of a worker who asked for "too much," from their parent companies and he works for less so that they work for nothing.

Then there's the third man. He may be the most merciful because no man will have to feel the guilt from what he does to them. They will never have to feel the guilt or even care about their families waiting at home with no means of support. They won't have to feel anything because their emotions and bodies will simply disappear. For those at home, they might hate the person for the cover up stories that the companies who hire this third man, tell to their families: "He never showed up for work." "He said something about a mistress." "He was on assignment for us in a very dangerous area, there was nothing we could do."

All in all it always ends in death. Death for the families who have no means of support; Death for the families who still have the life of their loved one but wish for death because they starve due to his uselessness.

The sound of a silencer makes a similar noise to a nail gun when fired; the pressure boom without the bang of gunpowder.

It was a Wednesday night in the city and John Maelor had been sent to the docks to pick up a shipment of fruit in his beat up U-Haul looking truck. He had been complaining to the American Fruit Company that his shipments were light and because of it, he wasn't getting paid as much as they could have been paying him. The truth was, he was too old for the job in their eyes. The company required 80 crates of fruit to be picked up to make bonus and he was always given 75. His paycheck was adequate for a man of sixty but the company saw no need to pay him benefits that belonged to the younger employees who had mouths to feed still.

The story wouldn't have gone sour had he kept his mouth shut but legal action was taken and American fruit had been subpoenaed to give him the same load of 80 that the majority of workers who were under the ages of 50 got. That's where I came in.

"John!"
"Hello, who is this?"
"Hello, Sorry to wake you, is this a bad time?"
"No, who is this?"
"Yes, well this is Dale from American Fruit..."
"Yes! Hello."
"Sorry to be calling you so late..."
John Chuckled and began to speak, "It's perfectly fine. My wife left for San Diego about 4 AM this morning or you'd really be in trouble." He nervously laughed again.
I laughed as well and began, "Well John, the reason I'm calling you is we just got a shipment in from The Keys of 48 crates of fresh bananas and 62 crates of Oranges. Do you think you might be able to make a quick pick up and delivery to HQ tonight?"
I heard a tussle on the other end of the phone and then he spoke, "YES! Yes... Sorry, this is just fantastic, that's 110 crates of produce, I've been waiting for this call all my life!"
I chuckled light heartily and said, "That's great! We were really at a loss. What kind of ship comes in at 3 AM? You know?"
"Well I suppose they don't have time schedules in The Keys, ya?"
I chuckled, "I guess not."
"Tell you what, I'll be down there in 20 minutes. I have to account for traffic and the trek but it shouldn't take me any longer than that."
"That's great John, I will await you at pier 34. Don't be late."
He hung up the phone.

Sitting next to the crates of bananas and oranges, I checked the clip and screwed on the silencer. I then went to stand next to the warehouse at pier 34.

The truck arrived promptly at 3 AM and I heard him step down from the rig and begin to load the first crate. He busily hobbled back and forth for hours loading the infallible pile of crates and smiling like a school boy.

The lamp flickered yellow and shown his way to his destination. From the shadows, I felt the outline of the circuit box and slightly moved the lever to flicker the light a bit before shutting it off.

"Damn it," said John aloud, "Those damn rats must have torn the wires to the lights again. Just my luck."

He put the 100th crate in the back of the truck as I walked over and stood in front of it and to the right. He walked around the left side to step up into the rig's cockpit and turned on the lights.

This was routine for me.
This was easy for me.
This was the way I'd done it many times before.
The lights came on; there was a small "THHHHUMP!" and then a breaking of glass as if somebody had thrown a stone at a warehouse window. A passerby would have thought nothing of it because the docks at night are so frequently broken into by hobos and the like that a broken window is as common place as wind knocking down a cardboard box.

I walked to the left of the truck to the dead body.
"Clean shot. Through the eyes," I said.
I sighed and began the process. First I checked the perimeter. Two more "THHHHUMP's" for drifters who might become witnesses and the perimeter was clean. The bodies were loaded into the truck along with the last 10 crates and I got into the rig and began driving.

I took out my cell phone and made a call.

"Hello? Yeah. It's done. Clean up on Pier 34."

Two Dream Vignettes

I can see them; even as the centuries have caused me death time and time again. It has built in me over these centuries until this life, when I have been given a pen to replace my broadsword and burdened with the emotion and reflection of a writer. I still remember her in 1210 AD when I came back from a crusade, only to find her dagger in my side.

I kissed her with my last moments of life and died saying nothing. War never leaves the blood. Even in death, it can only be transferred to the new soul. We will live a thousand times till we truly die from self-actualization. As I wake each day from these dreams to these future dreams in future lives, I wonder when I will be relieved of living...

I leered into the dark space between consciousness and sleep. The thousands of faces of all my incarnations met together like a big council. It's difficult to feel surrounded by people when they're all you but personalities differed enough that this young immoralist, was able to detach from his current woes and let extroversion and introspection mesh into understanding of his immortal plan.

Forever can go one of two ways when you look it in the eyes: either you become happy that anything can happen in eternity, or you become enveloped at how long eternity truly is. When you know that you will experience death and rebirth, however, the soul can weaken to the point you are literally Shakespeare's "walking shadow."

The meeting began. I awoke.

A Horror to a Horror

The streets were dead and empty but such is always the case of small towns at 4 AM. As I walked the strip down the center of downtown Blacksburg I hallucinated the life that permeated the store's innards in the light of a mid day sun and longed for those days when I could do more than live vicariously through the late night eyes and faces of college students that talked of their day.

It was an unusual time to exist in this world with earthquakes and hurricanes attacking new areas of the country and as the disasters shifted, so did the patterns of the preternatural, who were always delighted to indulge in the misery of humans. Perhaps it was envy that made an imitation of a living thing appear in the town this very night to watch and revel in the debauchery that only human youth could display. Perhaps it was his curiosity at the change of disaster patterns or intuition that here would be a ripe place for chaos once the real natural disasters started to hit within the next 50 to 100 years; for what is a century to an immortal? Most likely, though it was sheer coincidence that I should turn the corner to see a tiny stranger to this land roosting on the roof ledge above D.P. Dough.

Weighing in at a sizable 50 grams, he was large for a common Vampire bat but the fact that he hung from the ledge alone, not to mention the unnatural, iridescent blue flame that surrounded him gave him away as one of my kind.

"You're far from the Amazon, creature, and you've landed in a town where there are people educated enough to know that this area is only inhabited by fruit bats."

His eyes opened and faster than the human eye can see, he stood in front of me at eight feet tall with a hungry glare and glowing red eyes.

"I've not seen one of our kind who could change form before," I said.

He spoke to me in my mind as opposed to out loud, "I don't know your language creature as I am most likely one of the first of 'our' kind. I hope you don't mind me using this medium..."

I gazed into his cold, immortal eyes as my expression changed from that of running into an old friend, to that of sheer terror.

Speaking in my head, he continued, "this is your first meeting with a revenant, is it not?"

I gazed, transfixed, as if under a spell and found myself unable to move or talk. My expression changed to that of anger for the first time in 800 years.

As an ecologist at Virginia Tech, I had managed to avoid the sun, gain my... God knows what number degree... and even commandeer a trip to the home of the vampire bat to see their large clumpings in the caves of Chile and Peru. They had a bad habbit of always looking as if I had annoyed or disturbed them but this time his head did not even turn to look at me before he was instantaneously something resembling a human with elf ears.

He began to telepathically drivel in my head again, "vampires have evolved different ways in the world. Perhaps ours was the most natural and godly. Whereas you cursed God and were damned to feed off his creations, ours was a matter of simple genetic mutation."

Mustering incredible strength, I forced my rebuttle into his head with vicious vigor, "you cursed bastard! I don't need to hear your story, we are both of the same ilk in the eyes of men."

He moved forward and grabbed me by the collar of my Polo shirt, lifting me off the ground. "Your wretched race of heathens mocks the primal immortals that embody the truth to the word vampyr. Feeding off primates in dirty, sweaty jungles with virulent, diseased blood, over the course of millions of years formed my race. How amusingly unexpected I should run into your kind when all I came to see was human suffering in a nearly apocalyptic world. I shall fulfil my duty, however, and exterminating you will be a delightful added bonus to this pilgrimage."

Struggling and kicking, imprisoned in his vice grip, I began my protest in telepathy and speech out loud in my captive terror, "we both feed on mortals! I'm not your enemy! I hate the humans and renounced my humanity centuries ago..."

"You are not of my kind human! You were born a human and shall always be one despite your undead viciousness. Time to die!"

The last image I had was of that haunting face of the vampire bat 80 times its normal size. Its fangs sunk deep into my jugular and drained me to undead death.

"But we are both blood drinkers..."

Making the Change

It's coming. I feel it in my gut and throughout my body like a larger entity than myself was clawing up and down the chalkboard of my spine. The chirping of the cicadas becomes so deafening I lose my sense of balance and know that I need to be indoors and quick. I already know that if someone was walking down this street instead of driving; given the time and the pause to observe me at a standstill, they might be able to see the bulging of my physical form as the demon tries to escape.

The night air is thick and chalky with an eerie fog that surrounds me as if it were conscious of my shame and reticence towards the dawn of the night creature trying to escape from my quintessence. I stare off into space as I resolve all my energy to simply make it to my house and lock the door.

My muscles become toned and the full moon is so bright, I trip on the smallest rock and fall flat on my face. For a moment I can't get up and the unconscionable thoughts that run through my mind and scream with the same thrust as a freight train at sixty miles per hour, seem to overcome me before I find my zen and quell them for what is a time too short.

For five years I have jumped from relationship to relationship because to be alone on the night of the full moon, means that I have no channels to dump the energy of the demon trying to escape into; thus putting him back to sleep; so I might remain human. His virulence and malevolence course through my body as if I had imbibed fire and it began pumping through my veins. I can see my house up ahead. Moments, I tell myself. Moments till you will be able to let him out and though the house will be destroyed, human beings will be safe for another night.

She stands there like a ghost; in front of my door and with a look and expression of sorrow.

"I know what you are, creature," she says. "I and my people have protected the world from you for centuries."

I say nothing and for a moment, time stops. I am brought out of my form like a ketamine overdose and the world is silent.

"We only have moments for you to release an amount of energy sufficient to quell the beast. Please go inside."

She vanishes with the fog and I enter my home as it becomes enveloped by a demonic cloud that coats my house and makes it seem invisible in the small cul-de-sac I live in. Once I have entered the house, however, it seems that she has disappeared. The demon begins again and I fall to the ground screaming. At first it's a quiet scream: like the ones experienced in sleep paralysis when one is screaming in a dream but then I feel the pounding in my chest and it rips out as I start to grow and my form begins expanding. As if by light, she suddenly stands next to me and rams her jewel encrusted dagger into my side.

I stop for a moment and look at her with hurt, weeping eyes.

"Silver... I have never met you and here you are ending my existence. Why have you chosen to stop me? Why are you here? Who are you..."

The questions pour out of me as does the evil bile of his soul inside me, does. I finally, through coughs of blood and a gurgling of it in my throat, no longer make sense as I attempt to speak but I see her eyes with softness and love as I slip farther into the quiet serenity of death.

"shhhhh..." she says as she holds me close and strokes my hair, "it will all be over soon, my love."

I recognize her as if I'd seen her in a different life and a different incarnation of this soul.

With the last of my strength, I crawl closer to her breast and hold her as tightly as she holds me. For a moment and the first time in my life, I feel the release from the cycles of the moon and the suppression of my passions. I feel at peace and I think that I see god. Maybe it's just her eyes... Then... nothing.

My Luna Lover

I can't see it but I can feel it in the air like a thousand butcher knives, hung facing downward from a low ceiling.

Tonight, my lunacy translates to its literal meaning and its scorn is the big, white ass in the car door window. Damn that demon bitch with her palid white eye opened at full and staring through cloud colored glasses so she can be felt but unseen in this maniacal coffee bar filled with junkies. My moon is the calmest of them all creating virulent madness in her devious hidden corner of the coffee bar sky.

A Late Night Snack

Girls.

Everywhere they pollute our town smelling like fresh laundry and Donna Karen. Their high pitched squeals speak of "boys" and other random blather as their clip clopping is reminiscent of gilded clidesdale mares.

Pumped prepubescently out of "NOVA," they meander our town with the hunger for "fun" and more alchoholic musk to cloak their various individual vapid personalities, scathed by the fact that they are indeed students bound on kicking their legs in the air like spoiled children for a rod of some king Midas.

Ugh, humans are humans because they dwell in the realm of reality. Those of us who live outside it as watchers are only demi-humans or demi-gods with a pen twice as sharp as a sword. Fixing our eyes on them and attuning our senses to them helps us realize that we are different. What was it like to think like they do? To remember reality? To be tied down to the daft and depressing norm?

I hate them as I feel the torn off wings of my back refusing to open because they're no longer there. I hate them because I can no longer cross the gate of death because I disagree with their creation and existence. As I bring one of these creatures to a darkened street to drain them of their life force till they turn to sand, I look into her very short life and laugh hysterically in the face of God for its impermenance...

Thoughts in the Grocery Store

Madness. Nothing but the yellow and red, dark aura of carnage and chaos filling and surrounding me like a pack of hungry, wild dogs that have cornered and torn to shreds, a defenseless chipmunk. The burden and weight of it all makes me delirious and dizzy. People and things seem foreign and when I do recognize something there's never a positive memory attached. My gut acts like it wants sex and my head can't make up its mind on whether I want to eat or not. The world is like The Gravatron and I'm both pressed into a wall by gravity and trying to move freely in Newton's logical world and spinning violently out of control to find 10 seconds of solace at a time. My stomach hurts and my head aches like I'm drunk and I haven't touched a drop. I almost wish I could get positively wasted just to have something familiar to relate this to but here I sit; enclosed; enraptured by Satan. Madness.

To the casual observer

The deafening solitude that a lonely night in the city can produce, is filled with the observations of others.

Human beings must include themselves with other people because they are simply trying to imitate an imperfect copy of a perfect relationship with god. Those who live immortal such as I, have stopped feeling the beating hearts in our chests; the chemical reactions in our brains that amount to emotions and opinions. We live for the purpose of living; and being undead, it's a mockery of life at best. We cease to hold onto that which truly makes us human.

The pain they suffer vibrates from their eyes like a muted version of preternatural glow of my undead eyes that only those keen observers who see the vibrations of the universe can see. Their hearts beat as sonorous as tympani and they are so strong and bold that they die a little all the time without suffering the knowledge of what actual death feels like. They are opinionated and cruel and can eviscerate their fellows millions of times worse than base creatures, such as myself, ever could dream of.

Lest I turn one of their kind into a creature such as I am, they will never know a pain worse than that of being alive. In fact, even as a night stalker, they can only feel the viciousness of emotion as a memory; from a cold and still heart that does not feel but rather fabricates, with intrigue and curiosity, the proposed idea of emotional pain; imagining it like so many disney characters pondering wishes and dreams only to ignore and feel the malignant sickle of reality, the world's dejection and eventual death.

For many of them, it's not too late to acquire a new lease on life but for some, they exist as defective parts of a well oiled human machine, awaiting their permanent deletion. This is the human world at this juncture.

We are required now, more than ever, to control the flow of mortality and adverse population with zero bias; their impermanence driving their viciousness, callowness, and malignancy towards their fellow man. They disguise such things with charity but their emotions and their beating hearts say otherwise when they experience differences or real hardships.

Nothing in the world is so mean at base as the jaded and emotional mortal man. Pain stems from him and the world he has helped create if you go back far enough down the line. He seeks his fortune and competes as all humans do but in his quest for bigger and better, he finds useless fascinations on the way that elevate him beyond others just as fleshy, bloody and delicious as he.

Do not misunderstand me; his power is dependent on the weakness of other humans. In the desire to simplify their lives, they have made them so much more complicated and in the vapid process of the wants of humanity, he has grabbed the reigns and taken control.

What a pity. Not that I feel sorry for any of them for I and my kind have evolved around their mess and benefitted from the lives of both the useless stragglers and occasionally, the evil, the rich and/or the powerful.

As I sink my fangs into a New York City drifter till he dangles as loosely and free as seaweed, I think these things and ponder the curious pain and existence of modern man.

Pamplona (Vicarious vision through Hemingway)

Pamplona, Spain, Running of the bulls and it smells like shit.

The stench of the arena is thick as fog on a hot day after a cool shower. People push in all directions. They are herded like bulls toward a large square where fireworks explode and drunken meat puppets sway like an ocean.

If I saw this from above, I’d want to stay away just as I wouldn’t dive into murky waters with a visible scent for fear of leeches among the crowd or pond. Like a scourge of Piranhas fighting for meat and people so thick back touches abdomen without moving an inch.

I’ve got Sangria on my shirt and my shoes are covered in the solid grunge that becomes the visible odor and makes the street smell so foul. Everybody for some reason is wearing white. As if they expected this day to practice savage tie dying.

The droplets of Sangria make me think bitterly about the crowd as I look into their joyous, drunk, smirking faces being stained with blood rain and think about the bullfight earlier on in the day:

The eyes of the ferocious animal I was about to run from were looking me in the face as I sat in the first row of the bullfighting ring and watched it killed in cold blood. It screamed out to me in my thoughts as if to say: “Murderers!” Then, it was gored and stumbled around the ring like a wounded pup. It was getting slower but it still charged with full spirit. The bull made me think of its passion and its struggle with a hairless monkey. I envisioned in my head, a rodent fighting a scorpion. Its teeth bared and sharp, yet the stinger of the scorpion killing without a fight by stabbing it in the back before it got a chance. It almost made me want to fight the bull myself…

The crowd is beginning to move away and a runway is being set up with wooden fences. People are screaming, “Encierro” all over the place. It’s not constant, but I hear it in sparse shouts as I listen to the great din of thousands of people. Among them are Americans, Spaniards, Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, and dozens of nationalities dying to get close to the mighty beast.

Many of them stand in the runway but a few of them are hopping over the fences back and forth as crowd control tries to keep it from becoming a blood bath. A second becomes an hour and soon all I hear is a high-pitched ringing in my ears as the giant doors are opened and the bulls charge into the streets.

I run along the fences to get a better look and find only madmen who gore themselves to death by standing just a centimeter too close. My hearing comes back as I watch people being flung twelve feet into the air only to come down onto a natural spear ending their small but fortuitous excitement.

One missed step could mean you trip and never get up again.

As the bulls get to a corner that is blocked off by a gate I find myself running into it and falling face first about 70 paces from the first running Spaniard. I begin to run and everything once again goes deaf. All I can hear is ringing and my heartbeat as I run 50 paces to the next fence and hop over it. I stop and sit down on a bench as the bulls, runners, and crowd rush by me.

I would go home on a jet later that evening but for the next couple of days, I would have a constant eye on the bull that chased me all the way home.

Just Another night out

Sitting at the bar, admiring their impressive selection of rail liqors; he sat in quiet veneration of the girl sitting next to him. Breathless, he wondered how he'd gotten here and how such a beautiful woman could be his? It seemed like only yesterday, he'd seen her for the first time on a skype date, from accross the country.

She smiled at him periodically as she sat poised as a dutches making love to her favorite drink, Gin and tonic. She glowed like a dream from some acid euphoria. The little light they did have in the divey bar shown in a circle around her head and with each drink, he swore more and more it was a halo.

As she got up to sing Karaoke, He realised he didn't care how he'd gotten there or why it was that he'd grown to love her so quickly. In his mind and in his entire being, he knew she was the one he was supposed to be with. He knew that no other girl could ever own his heart the way she did.

As she belted out Bjork's "Oh So Quiet," and The Jackson Five's "I Want You Back," he felt each note hit him in his chest like bullets and her stage presence was also felt by the entire room. Sure other guys might have wistled and cat-called on the drunken night, but he got to go home with her and as he did, his eyes sparkled as much as hers did, star studded on the stage.

He knew he'd love her forever from the moment he met her and in the days to come, all he needed to do was proove it by being the kind of man he felt, she deserved.

**********************************************************************************

She lay on her back with her red hair strewn about like lava trails from a volcano. Her eyes sparkled like two crystal-clear, blue, tropical tide pools and had just as much life; swimming with the characters of her thoughts.

Her dimples would make little alcoves for his many kisses laid across her face like tire tracks and she would not allow herself to be the only one barraged with kisses.

All around her an aura of warmth hugged him and drew him in (this was in addition to the hugging going on, normally) but he resisted. they talked for a long while, laughing at the stupid things before it was one too many.

One too many perfect things said; too much love between two people; the intensity of one so good for the other and visa versa that the two begin to lock together like wind fronts in a storm.

Even their personalities were hot and gave off an aura of what they were feeling, creating a bubble that surrounded them and moved slowly outwards...

He kissed her and began a series of biochemical electromagnetic exchanges that drew the two together with enough energy and intensity to wake the entire apartment with boiling vibes. For some it was too great and as they stirred from their slumber, one left.

They'd make a good couple.

Meeting Sarah

Sitting at the bar, admiring their impressive selection of rail liquors; I sat in quiet veneration of the red headed beauty sitting next to me and breathless, I wondered how I got here.

It seemed only yesterday I'd seen her face on a skype date from across the country and now here she was and I felt like I had known her for years. The feeling can't be described in words but the closest one can come to it is that it felt like the world was exactly as it should be.

As she sat next to me and chatted with everyone at the bar, I felt like Batman and she was my Robin. We were the dynamic duo of conquering all that we saw around us and without hesitation, I felt completely secure, for the first time in my life, that somebody loved me with everything they had and I had the same to give back.

She sang like an angel and lit up the room while making everyone else look like just another karaoke singer. My ruby queen was mine and I was her king. For the first time in my life, everything was just as it should be.

Interupted thought

"Father!" I said, "Stand down amongst this madness. Roxas is no longer your daughter. She has turned to death and outlaw now and she will not do our royal name justice."
"You turn against your own flesh and blood, son, I cannot allow you to hurt your sister as she is still mine. I am sorry I have to do this, but you must face your destiny before I will let you kill your own sister. Dragon nigrum Surgite!"
The ashes in the room from the numerous fires in the great hearth to my right began to gather together till they gathered together at over 15 feet high. There in the great room of my father's throne room, the great black dragon stood before me and my knights. Our speed was unmatched but its determination to kill us was not.



With a downward killing blow, I jammed my sword down through the spike on the dragon's head and he thrashed against the walls and ceiling as I held strong to the sword. At last he began to fall and dissipate into fire as the remaining knights stood round me like wings to face my father.
"Listen to me father," I said, "your daughter was once that child that you loved but she is no longer that loving child. Here we stand before you, loyal knights. She is nowhere to be found because this war is about her and not you. You protect her kingdom here at the gate but we need to get through and end her madness because ultimately it will become a burden on all the people who come across her."
He began to cry. With his lips at first and then his eyes. He cried for only a minute or two before he spoke.
"You children fought bitterly and created a war ground out of the kingdom I built! It is time that you created your own."
The old king's eyes turned white as if they had no iris's or pupil's and a wind came through the walls as if it had come from all four corners of the world.
He spoke some words in Latin before the first two bricks began to fall from the walls, "Celerem mortem."
The walls of the castle began to crumble and the Knights of Zen looked for quick ways out. Although we were all for one, this mess required we each take to ourselves for the moment.

beautifully grotesque...

Yea, though, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; rather, I shall become evil in its self.

My first thoughts of murder had not been so simple as other killers; mine was a pure crime of passion. I was twenty seven years old and had the fire of a young man’s rage in my heart.

There was no reason for me to hate him. He had brought me into his business, paid me more money than most of the other workers, and, at times, even treated me as a son but all was not well in paradise.

The end result of a small mistake lead to his temper rising to the point of violence. He never would have killed me as I did him but he was not fueled with his own mortality and the youth of a young man such as I.

He would tell me on certain days that “just because I happened to be his son, did not mean I was the best worker at the job” and “it was my prerogative to work up to the pay that some of the other workers had already earned.” He would tell me that a father wants to see his son making something of himself rather than getting it for free.

The night I killed him, I felt no remorse. The house was quiet and even the field mice were asleep. My pay had not allowed me to move out of the house but I feel my father rather liked that I stayed at home anyway.

I planned everything so carefully, nothing could have gone wrong. If I got away with the murder, I even had an alibi: I was to be spending the night at a dear friend's house and I had locked my room from the inside so he would never discover that I had quietly slipped out the window. My friend even lived on the first floor so I didn’t have to use a rope or leave anything that might be suspicious.

The knife was clutched tightly in my hand and I could think of nothing else but the anger I had for playing my father’s second all the time. I could see the stairs in his house that I had climbed so many times. The carpeting still smelling like the Old Spice soaked old man.

The hallway seemed to stretch on for a mile as I crept down it towards his bedroom, putting to reality the technique I practiced every day as a kid to surprise him. I memorized all the creaky boards and stepped on none of them.

The door creaked open and my father awoke to see me standing at his door. He ran to me to ask me what was the matter and I hugged him sliding the knife below his sternum and into his heart while embracing him at the same time. Gently I kissed him on the forehead as he slowly started to slide away, with a look of utter confusion, directly in my eyes.

As he slipped away my mind started to race. My heart started to beat faster, my condition started to wind down and I saw death standing at my door in addition to that which had already come and claimed my father.

I fell to the floor and began to cough. Blood rushed from my mouth and seemed to congeal in a comfortable position because it knew that which joined it had already spilled that night.

I knew before I murdered him, that I was dying. I had expected to die on this night because of what my doctors had told me about the approaching doom if I did not quit my life habits.

As I saw the darkness coming fast, I thanked god for a quick death, even though it seemed like an eternity. I had accomplished my last goal in life and would not be found guilty for the death of my father because for all the police would know, it may have been an argument that escalated.

Murder was to be my final act. As I slipped into darkness, I asked no forgiveness; I only told the world I knew goodbye and wished all a holy hell.

The night was cool and passion ran deep in the room. Two bodies lay on the floor; the last two of a generation, father and only son. The night wished them well and brought a cool summer breeze to the apartment they wouldn’t be found for three days.

Vengeance was found one night on a non-vindictive basis and all was quiet and forgotten at the end of the day.

True Malice

Lo, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; rather, I shall become evil in its self.

My first thoughts of murder had not been so simple as other killers; mine was a pure passion crime. I was twenty seven years old and had the fire of a young man’s rage in my heart.

There was no reason for me to hate him, he had brought me into his business, he had paid me more money then most of the other workers, and he had, at times even treated me as a son but all was not well in paradise.

The end result of a small mistake lead to his temper rising to the point of violence, he never would have killed me as I did him but he was not fueled with his own mortality and the youth of a young man such as I.

He would tell me on certain days that “just because I happened to be his son, did not mean I was the best worker at the job” and “it was my prerogative to work up to the pay that some of the other workers had already earned.” He would tell me that a father wants to see his son making himself something rather than getting it for free.

The night I killed him, I had no remorse. The house was quiet and even the field mice were asleep. My pay had not allowed me to move out of the house but I feel my father rather liked it that I stayed at home anyway.

I had planed everything so carefully and nothing could have gone wrong. If I got away with the murder, I even had an alibi: I was to be spending the night at a dear friend's house and I had locked my room from the inside so he would never discover that I had quietly slipped out the window. My friend even lived on the first floor so I didn’t have to use a rope or leave anything that might be suspicious.

The knife was clutched tightly in my hand and I could think nothing else but the anger I had for playing my father’s second all the time. I could see the stairs in his house that I had climbed so many times. The carpeting still smelling like the Old Spice soaked old man. The hallway seemed to stretch on for a mile as I crept down it towards his bedroom, putting to reality my technique that I had practiced every day as a kid to surprise him where I memorized all the creaky boards and stepped on none of them.

The door creaked open and my father awoke to see me standing at his door. He ran to me to ask me what was the matter and I hugged him sliding the knife below his sternum and into his heart while embracing him at the same time. Gently I kissed him on the forehead as he slowly started to slide away with a look of awe directly in my eyes.

As he slipped away my mind started to race. My heart started to beat faster, my condition started to wind down and I saw death standing at my door in addition to his that had already come and claimed my father.

I fell to the floor and began to cough. Blood rushed from my mouth and seemed to congeal in a comfortable position because it knew that which joined it already had spilled that night. I knew before I murdered that I was dying and I had expected to die on this night because of what my doctors had told me about the approaching doom if I did not quit my life habits.

As I saw the darkness coming fast, I thanked god for a quick death, even though it seemed like an eternity. I had accomplished my last goal in life and would not be found guilty for the death of my father because for all the police would know, it may have been an argument that escalated.

Murder was to be my final act though, and as I slipped into darkness, I asked no forgiveness but only told the world I knew goodbye and wished all a holy hell.

The night was cool and passion ran deep in the room. Two bodies lay on the floor, the last two of a generation, father and only son. The night wished them well and brought a cool summer breeze to where they wouldn’t be found for three days.

Vengeance was found in a night on a non-vindictive basis and all was quiet and forgotten at the end of the day.