reflections of the moon

8/14/2019 Reflections of the Moon

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Reflections of the Moon

AArrtthhuurr AAsshhiisshh v vaann DDooeessbbuurrgg



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They say that truth is beautiful, without doubt, but then again so are lies. There were times in my life

that I was in the constant pursuit of truth. I wanted to know what happened and how it happened. But

lately I have realized that it is not the same as knowing why it happened. The underlying motives of a

human being can truly define who they are, and more importantly, what they are capable of.

Anyone can be capable of murder, and we all are victims of our own sins, even those which we have

defined by ourselves. We human beings, by nature, try to be good not too good and not quite all the

times. Even with this knowledge, there are some things that we will never be able recover from.

I looked towards the setting sun. The sea made the sun look twice as beautiful. For a moment longer, I

looked again and then realized that even pink could be a part of something beautiful, something regal. I

had never liked the color growing up. As to why I despised a mere color, I do not know. Maybe it had

something to do with the fact that it was more of a feminine color, or that it actually did not appeal to

my eyes, but I could never say for sure.

The beach was now empty, except for an empty bottle and me. It was already empty before she had

come; and now the bottle lay several meters in front of me. The tide had finally settled in. The wavesoccasionally came up to the bottle and danced mockingly in front of it. Mockery says as much about the

mocker as the one being mocked. It was something I also had observed growing up.

The faint light hit the sand, and somehow it seemed as if it was glowing. I turned to my left and looked

at a trail of footsteps that led away from me. I followed the trail across the sand to a flight of abandoned

stairs. This part of the beach was off limits for the general public, as the tides were strong and there had

been numerous incidents. I so happened to be one of them.

Earlier on, I was sitting in the same place, with a half empty bottle. The sun was about to set, the sky

was an assortment of blue, yellow, red and purple. As the seagulls glided across the open air, I saw her

coming. It was about time. I looked at her and did not smile. I looked at her eyes and saw tears beggingto be released.

I did not stand to greet her, nor did I show any signs of acknowledging her presence. I did not need to.

She came and sat beside me. She dug her hands into the sand and looked at the horizon. At that

moment, a steady breeze passed us. She turned to me, to say something, but no words came out. She

closed her mouth and looked away. A tear finally ran down her cheek.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and asked her why she was here. Why she had come to me. Why she

could not ask me, what she wanted to know. And more importantly, I told her that I wanted to know

why she was still here. I pulled her chin up so that she was looking at me, in my eyes, rather than at the

half empty bottle that I was holding and the other empty bottle silently rolling in the sand.

She wiped her tears, and asked me if I had been drinking. I looked at both of my bottles and then turned

to her. I took another swing of the bottle and told her that it was not why she was here. I knew that it

was not what she wanted to hear; neither did she want me drinking. I told her that whether I had been

drinking or not is of no consequence of what is to ensue.



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She looked at me. She said that she wanted to apologize. I turned away from her. I got up and faced the

sun. The sun was lower now. The sky was darker. The horizon seemed further away. I told her that there

was nothing that she should apologize for. She stood up and told me that she had to. It was her fault.

I looked at my bottle. It was almost empty. I emptied the bottle, turned around to face her and told her

that it was her fault, but she need not apologize to me. I understood it. I understood the predicament. I

understood it only a bit too well.

I told her that she did what she had done; there was no turning back from it. It was not a question of

forgiveness. Well definitely not mine. I told her that she had to own up to it. Face and accept the

consequences of her actions. I told her that she had made her choice a long time ago and that now she

should see it till the end.

It is easy to switch sides once you have been proven wrong. However, this was not about being right or

wrong. It rarely ever is. And that was why she did not have to apologize to me. She stared at me with her

glazed eyes. She was high. She was pretty. She was beautiful. She was everything that I wanted, and yet

she was not mine.

I touched her lips, she shuddered. I wiped another tear with my thumb. I told her to pick up the pieces

and to move on. There was much for her to do. She took a step back and told me that she needed my

forgiveness to move on. I smiled.

I told her that there was nothing that she had done to me for me to forgive her. She looked at me in a

way that told me that she did could not fathom my position in all of it. She began to stutter and

managed to say that I was crazy. I had been hurt of what she had done. And what she had done was

unforgivable. She did not understand how I could be so unruffled by it.

I threw the bottle away and told her that what she had said was true. The bottle soared through the air

and smashed against the rocks. I was hurt. Deeper than she would ever know, but I was a survivor, and Ihad survived worse. I told her that what she had done was unforgivable, so that was why there was

nothing that I could forgive her for. I also told her that I was not surprised by the way things had turned

out.

I told her that she had not listened to me back then, how could I expect her to listen to me again?

Particularly when the time that it did matter: she had not heeded. I looked beyond her and saw him. He

was beside his car, looking at us. Trying to figure out what the hell was happening down here. And why

it was taking so long.

I told her that her ride was waiting, and that it was time for her to leave. She turned around and then

looked at me. She looked at me again. There was fear in them. She asked me how. I told her that I knew;

had known it for a quite some time. She again said that she was sorry. I told her not to be.

The sun had finally made contact with the horizon. The wind grew stronger. I turned to her for a final

time and said that she should go. She turned and then walked away. She wiped her eyes and then

waved at him, and got in his car. I looked back to my setting sun as the car drove off. She was gone, and

hopefully, it stayed that way. I hate goodbyes.



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The tide was at my feet. The bottle was brought in front of me by the waves. The time was almost here.

I got up from the beach walked to the pile of rocks. I brushed some broken glass off my bag and opened

it. I made a mental note of everything I had and made sure that I had all that I needed. It was my

seventh time that I had done it. I took out another bottle and sat on the rocks.

As I opened the bottle, I heard some whispers coming in from the left. I stayed where I was, drinking in

silence as the young couple passed by. The girl had her arms wrapped around him, hanging on to every

word he had to say. The moon was bright. Their shadows fell upon me. And I felt cold. I drank some

more and was finally a bit warmer.

I looked across the ocean and saw a boat. It was a ferry. It left from my town to the city, which was

further along the coast. When I was younger, I dreamt of being on that ferry, moving away from this rat-

filled town and making it big in the city. I wanted to become someone worthy of recognition. I always

knew that I was meant for something bigger than to what I was born into. The town was not meant for

me. I did not belong there. The town had nothing to offer me, besides more misery. And there was

nothing more than for me to get out of there. And so I made plans to leave this shanty town, never to

return again.

It was a week earlier that I was sitting across her in a local pub. We were drinking to celebrate a local

festival. Apparently some guy had done something great for the town, some time ago. While music

blared through the pub, she told me that she wanted to get away from it all. Even knowing the answer, I

ask what defined that all.

She told me that it was the town, the people, the way of life. She, like me, did not belong here. For her

the town was a small part of the world. She wanted to go out there and see the world for herself. She

wanted to see the sun set behind a hill, she wanted to walk through the city at night, she wanted to feel

snow with her bare hands and above all she wanted to meet new people.

At that moment, I asked her if the people in her contemporary life were already boring her. I smiled as Isaw the realization of what she said fill her face. I kept my hands on top of hers and told her that I knew

what she meant and I agreed with it. I told her that I too wanted to get out of this shithole, we call

home. I told her that I knew that I was meant for something grand. Something…and this was definitely

not it.

She looked at me and placed her other hand on top of mine. And then she said that we would go

together. Face the world, together. Begin a whole new life, together. I looked deep in her eyes and

squeezed her hands lightly. I told her that so be it. We would embark on our journey together and

overcome across any obstacles together. And to that we drank that night away.

My drink burnt my throat as I emptied yet another bottle. I looked at the gaping black ocean and told

myself that she did what she thought that she had to. We always tend to do what we think we have to

do, whether we know that we should do it or not. It is that what makes us humans, what makes us hate

ourselves for the choices that we have made. And then we all lie to ourselves, consoling ourselves by

saying that it was the only way it could have happened.

Regret is something that none of us want to experience, but we do nevertheless. They say that with

time, everything heals. And that is true. In time we will always look back at things differently. Be it a day,



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or a year, or an entire lifetime. This is so because we all change. Our perspective changes, whether we

want it to or not.

Many things occur in our lives that define our perspectives, outlooks, ways of reasoning and opinions.

And with each new day, something occurs that changes or confirms what we believe, or what we think

we believe. An interesting note is that we tend to think that what we believe now was the same as what

we used to think in the past as well. I remember reading an article where the writer was talking about

this and he used butterflies for an analogy. He said that possibly butterflies, thought that they were little

butterflies when they were younger, rather than being a caterpillar, as a caterpillar seemed so unlike

their kind.

It is also not rare that we humans reconstruct our past such that it fits with the present. So that it is

‘aligned’ with our prevalent attitude and behavior. And that is why time heals everything. We become

someone else than who we originally were, and thus view a particular incident in a different manner, a

manner in which we can come to terms with.

Even though with time, wounds heal, the scars all remain to remind us of these wounds. Some run

deeper than others. This is because, some things are unable to change, or it takes a longer time to do so.We regret our actions because we still see some things in the way we saw it as it happened. We start

contemplating about alternate realities which seems prettier than the ones we are currently in.

However, we also do contemplate scenarios in which we are worse off. Just to tell ourselves that we did

what we did, so that those things would not happen. And generally it is true.

The more I looked at the gaping black ocean, the more I thought about her. The more I wanted to be

with her. The more I wanted her to suffer. That entire day, everything was going on fine. I had kept

myself distracted. I paid my rent. I fixed my bike. And I watched three different movies. I did not think

about her too often.

However, when night was about to fall, and there was nowhere to hide from her, I took my bag andfilled it with the remaining bottles of alcohol I had in my cabinet. I counted five in total. With my bag I

came to the beach. On the beach I took out my cell phone and scrolled down through the names that I

had in my contact list. There was no one that I could call, let alone wanted to call. I flipped my phone

shut and laid back on the sand.

I looked at the clouds. I tried to see what they were trying to tell me, but the more I looked, the more I

thought about her. Even the clouds were mocking me. I took out my first bottle and raised a toast to

her. She was finally on her way out of my life. I could only hope that it would stay that way.

As the liquid stung my throat, I closed my eyes and reminded myself about all the reasons why I should

not give a damn about her, and move on with my life. It did not work. All the wrong memories kept on

popping up. It was not what I had intended. I wanted to hate her. I wanted to forget her, but I could not

do so. And that frustrated me, particularly after everything she put me through.

She had ripped my soul apart and tossed the pieces like she was emptying an ashtray. But did my mind

fixate on that? No, it did not. It brought back that look in her eyes that she had when I told her about my

dad, my past, and of the things that I had done, and would continue to do. That time when we had

smoked pot and got the giggles and could not stop. That crazy way she got scared in the middle of the



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night and started crying and how I held her close to me until dawn. That taste of hers she always left on

my cigarettes.

I drank to those memories; I drank to drown the pain. I drank so that I would not push myself off the

edge; even though the idea seemed more appealing by the minutes that had gone by. Halfway through

the bottle I came to the point where I wanted to be. I began to fixate on the things that she had done to

me…the things that I had done for her. The things that I swore I would never tell her. Not because I was

ashamed of having to committed them, but because she would never look at me the same way again,

knowing that it was I who had done it. I did it, so that she would not have to do it. So that she need not

ride on the guilt that every death brings onto them. Everybody is capable of murder. Not everyone can

deal with it.

There is no dignity in death. No matter how well you lived, no matter how much your life touched

another, and specifically when you have died for a cause that does not exist. You may live with dignity.

You may walk down the streets with your head held up high, and with perfectly coordinated steps that

screams that you have led a path of greatness and humility. However, you just cannot die with it.

There are many ways of dying, and it is said that the way you die shows the way that you have lived yourlife. It is true. It is not because that at the end of the road, you show your true color. In most cases, it

rarely ever was something that was hidden. Only some of us are that good at hiding ourselves.

People believe in self sacrifice; the deed of death for the greater good of mankind. There is no dignity

there either. Death, overrated as it may be, it is anything but dignified. Beautiful, perhaps; peaceful, now

that is more likely. Not to mention grotesque and revolting.

Taking it a step further, murder on the other hand is not that far off. Who are we to take another man’s

life? And of what lengths is it justified to kill? Is it for vengeance, or for our own piece of mind? Justice

and vengeance are not the same things. No matter how close they seem to align, it is sadly not so.

Some people seek comfort behind justice. They simply pretend to be the bigger and better person.

However, the majority of us seek vengeance; whether it is to avenge ourselves, or to avenge others. The

day of retribution will come nevertheless.

It becomes easier to move on after vengeance is served; especially when it is served cold. Justice does

not lead us there. Justice is never satisfying. It does not matter how severe the sanction may be. It all

comes down to the fact that justice is not the same as vengeance. Vengeance is closure. However, it is

not a closure that all of us desire.

Death strips everything. Everything we ever had, everything we have come to love, and everything we

came to hate. In the old days the executioner always wore a mask. It was not out of common courtesy. It

was also not due to the fact that he was afraid of not being able to live with the guilt, with blood on his

hands. Blood does not wash away that easy.

As death takes, it also gives. Pain hurts, as it should be. Misery and suffering is inevitable. Most of which

are self inflicted. However, with each new death, it lessens. And it is sickening to know just that. Life is

fragile, valuable and just as meaningless.



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I looked at the reflection of the moon and stared deeply. I searched for her face amongst the waves. I

searched for a path to her through the currents. And I felt her breath on the wind as if she was

beckoning to me. If only she knew. If she knew of what I had done for her, she would not have been

with him heading south. She would have been with me, on that very beach, watching that very moon.

How I longed for that and yet I did not tell her that.

A couple of days ago, the two of us were walking by the old museum beside the town hall. We were

talking about a movie that we had watched the night before. She was about to tell me which part of the

movie she liked best, when she stopped in her tracks and stood motionless. I followed her eyes and saw

that on the other side of the road stood a man who had tormented her for two long years. Who had

been the reason as to why she woke up in the middle of the night screaming, crying hysterically. Who

had made her eyes bleed with grief.

I took her hand and pulled her away from where she stood. She did not need to go through that again. I

brought her home where she began to cry. I gave her my shoulder and said that it would be all right;

knowing full well that it would not be so. I hated lying to her. But it was what she wanted to hear. It was

also something that she needed to hear as well.

She could not go longer like this. At some point in her life I knew that I would not be there to offer her

shoulder. And it was also not as if I could take all her pain away and ensure that it would never come

back. The past will always haunt us; especially, when we would want it not to.

I left her place after she was sleeping peacefully. She had taken some pills for that. She would not wake

up for the next few hours or so. I had left her a note. A small letter you might say; a letter that would

explain things that would follow, if I did not return. It would be something for her to remember me by. I

made my way to the local pub. I knew that I would find him there.

He was with his mates playing pool. They were drinking. Good. I stood by the old juke box watching

them. I ordered my occasional drinks. I did not want to stand out. After all I was a regular there. Theybegan to make more noise. Their game began to take a longer time. They had drunk enough. It was a

littler after one when they left the pub and began to make their way home. I grabbed my coat.

I followed them at a distance. I knew where he lived, and I wanted to get to him before he reached it.

They came to a bus stop and waited for one to come by. Everybody but him got on. He had to take the

other line as he lived in other direction of the pub. I waited with him. A few minutes passed by before I

went up to him and asked for a cigarette. He told me that he did not have any on him. He did not

recognize me.

I got on the bus with him. I got off with him. He did not notice that either. He reached his door. He

began fumbling with his keys. I walked up behind him and told him to come with me. He dropped his

keys. He turned around and looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. I grabbed his arm and pulled

him along with me. I led him to a small pier that was not far from there. I threw him onto the ground

and took out a cigarette.

I asked him if he wanted one. He said no. He had finally recognized me. He got up and asked me what

this was all about. I told him to shut up. I asked him why he had come back into town. He said nothing. I

then asked him for how long he planned on staying. He told me that he did not intend to leave. I asked

him if he knew what that meant. He smiled. He said he knew what it meant.



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I told him that he would have to leave. The difference was whether he would be alive or not. He

chuckled. He asked me if I was threatening him. I told him that I was not. I was just putting the facts as

they were. He had two days to leave, or I would kill him, right then and there. He said that I could not kill

him. And that I did not have it in me. Apparently, I despised his kind too much to let myself become one

of them. He was right.

I told him that things had changed during his absence. I was not the same person I used to be. Things

could not be undone. So I asked him once again. Was he staying or leaving? He said that he would not

move from his spot. So be it. I took a step towards him. He flinched. He now knew how serious I was.

I grabbed his neck and with my cigarette I burned his throat. Although not much damage was done, it

would hurt. His screams echoed in the dark night. He would be heard. But nothing significant would

come of it. With the cigarette dead, I threw it away. It had served its purpose. I took my thumb and

pressed it against the wound. It was still warm. I dug my nails deep into his skin. He struggled. It was in

vain. He had too much to drink. He was feeble.

I whispered to his ears. I told him that it would not be pleasurable. Well not to him. I told him that hewould pay for what he had done. I asked him where he had kept his knife. The one he always carried

since he was nineteen. The same knife he had used on her. He said that he did not have it. I did not

believe him. I felt his pockets and found it. I took it out and flipped it open.

I told him that I did not like liars. He struggled free and went on the ground. He turned to look up at me

and told me that he was sorry. I told him that he was not sorry. And that it would not be this easy for

him either. He got up on his feet and started blabbering like a little kid. He begged for me to forgive him.

To let him live. He pleaded me to let him walk away from there. He told me that he would not come

back.

As he was talking, I punched him in his lower jaw. His teeth smashed against his tongue. He screamed inagony. He fell down to the floor and blood dripped out of his mouth. He felt his mouth and realized that

he had bit the tip of his tongue off. I told him that now he would not be able to lie to me. Nor lie to her.

He cupped his mouth. Tears streamed down his eyes. It ran down his cheeks and mixed with his blood. I

kicked him on his side and made him turn over. He was lying on his stomach. I sat on his back to hold

him down. I told him that he said that he wanted to stay here. And that he did not want to move. I took

my index finger and rolled it over his legs. I came to his calf and stopped. With the knife I cut through his

pants. He squirmed. I stabbed the knife at his calf.

He let out another scream. It bounced off the trees and was hushed by the howling wind. I dragged the

knife through his calf and let the blood pour out. As I cut through the muscle tissue, I finally sensed him

giving in, giving up. I took out my knife. I asked him how he was feeling. He said nothing. I dug in two of

my finger in the wound and pinched at the first piece of meat I could find. I pulled it slowly. He screamed

again. I told him that I had asked him a question.

He screamed that I should just kill him. He told me that he did not deserve to live. He told me to stab his

heart. Let this be done with. I took the knife and plunged it beside his spine. This time I twisted the

knife. The wound would not heal. He would be dead before that.



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I got off his back and propped him up on his knees. As the ground below us began to grown crimson

with his blood the moon began to shine brighter. The clouds were lifting up. The small river began to

glow a pale blue. I looked around there were no lights on in the buildings. People were still sleeping. No

one was coming. A damn pity.

I went on my knees and looked deep into his eyes. I held my knife against his eyes and told him to be

quiet. I wanted him to hear what I had to say next. For a moment I said nothing and just stared at his

eyes. Maybe I should not have done that. Maybe I would not have remembered his eyes then. I pressed

the knife harder against his cheek and told him that I wanted to thank him. He blinked. I told him that I

was not going to tell him why I was thanking him, but that my mother had always told me to thank

people, and to appreciate them while they were alive, and not after they have been gone.

I thanked him once more before I took the knife and sliced his cheeks open. He could no longer move his

lower jaw. I pushed him back and he fell on the ground. After that I did not utter any word. I took his

right hand and held it in mine. I took one of his fingers and pushed it back. It snapped like dry wood in

autumn. I took his other fingers and did the same.

I was no guru in the fine arts of torture. I did not have the tools that the professionals in the moviesalways had. All I had was a knife and my hands. And all I wanted to do was to inflict as much as pain as I

could before he bled to death. I took his other hands and placed the knife between his nails and his skin.

I pressed deep into it until his nails popped out. He began to choke on his own blood. I pulled his head

up and the blood in his mouth fell onto his laps.

I had to end this soon. I took his knife and held it against his throat. I felt for his veins and arteries. I

found them. I aimed my knife at them and pushed it in. I pierced the vessels. Now death was only a

matter of time. With the three holes in his neck, blood was pouring out fiercely. If Quentin Tarantino

was there he would have made Hostel look like Child Play. Like I said, I was no guru. I wished that I was.

When I came back to her place, she was already up. She was crying again. She was sitting on her bed

with her eyes tired and wet. Her mascara was also running, which meant that she was wake for long

enough to put on some make up before she had her outburst. I walked in and sat beside her. I had

changed my clothes before I came there, but I still had the smell of alcohol on me. She asked me if I had

been drinking. I told her that I needed one. She nodded as if she understood. She knew how I felt about

him. She just did not know how much.

I hugged her once again. For a moment we said nothing. She broke the silence by telling me that her

best friend had called her earlier. She was coming to town the day after with her fiancé. They were

getting married at the end of the month and wanted her to be there. They were getting married at some

fancy mansion up north. Apparently the guy was upper class, even better. I asked her what she was

going to do.

She walked towards the window and stared outside. I picked up my letter and pocketed it. It was still

sealed. She did not need to read it now. It could wait. I walked up to her and placed my hand on her

shoulder. I too stared outside. It was morning. The sun was shining. It had taken longer than I had

expected.



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dropped out of sight. I turned around and picked up my bag. I took a handful of sand and let it fall onto

the ground. The steady wind blew gently against the trail of the grains.

I climbed up the stairs and once I was at the top I looked back down to the restricted part of the beach.

A thought occurred to me then. I was always on the beach, the high tide always washed away my

footprints and my empty bottles and the wind blew away the foam and yet the sea and the shore

remained constant.

Before I began to grasp the depth of what I had thought I turned my back to the beach. The memories

were too painful now. As I walked into the darkness of a busted streetlight I felt colder than I had ever

been. My jaws jittered, and my legs shivered, and yet my palms were sweaty. I never understood

biology.

I walked down the boulevard. I was heading to the other end of the beach. I had spent too much time

with her on the southern end of the beach. It was our spot. It was where I had first seen her. I was only a

little boy of eleven then. I was a loner. I was sitting on the stairs looking down to the jagged rocks and

the tide rushing in. For some apparent reason this phenomenon fascinated me. As the battle raged on,

the liquid army penetrated the stone barriers and then unleashed their carnage onto an unsuspectinggroup of bugs, who had been making their voyage across the great sandy lands.

During the middle of the “bloodshed” I heard my father scream out my name. I turned around to see my

dad pointing his finger to the floor in front of him beckoning me to go to him. It was time to go home. I

looked at the drowning troops, saluted in their honor and scurried over to my father. It was unwise to

disappoint my father.

My father told me that it was time that I went home. His work was about to begin. I never learnt the

truth of his work until years later…when it was already too late. As I gave a final glance to the sun I saw

that she was sitting at the stairs and staring intently at the rising tide. I rarely defied my father and each

time I did, I had to think it through. The price was always too high.

That day I did not think it through. I walked straight to the stairs and sat beside her. She looked at me

but said nothing. After a moment she looked back at the water. I rubbed my hands against my pants.

After having them dry I extended them and told her my name and that I always came here, at that time,

to witness the war of the blue army and the insect nomads; which had been waged since the dawn of

time and that true glory awaited the victors and so on and so forth.

She giggled. She took my hand and uttered two words and two words only. I was weird. With that she

got up and walked away. As I looked at her leave I silently hoped that she would turn back. She did. She

waved. She disappeared before I could raise my hand and do something with it.

I saw the back of my father’s head and then remembered that I was not supposed to be there. With her

face in my mind I made myself scarce. I ran home and into my room, if it was a room. I sat on my bed

and then leaned back. I looked at the ceiling and then realized that I had been smiling. It had been an

extremely long time since my last smile.

The next day and years to come, we met up at the stairs. We talked about nothing and everything. We

rescued the insect nomads on more than one occasion. We built our own fortresses for the nomads. We

fought the sea…fought the world. We were rarely seen apart. I would not say that we were similar, but



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possession of his, handed down from his father who had been in the war. He was the son of a bloody

war veteran. There would be no mercy for his killer. Another reason that it had to be me…not her.

I traced the edge of the blade with my finger. The bloodstains were still there. I had not bothered

cleaning it, let alone get rid of it. I wanted to hold on to something that incriminated me to the crime. It

was a reminder to me. To remind me of what I had done, and more importantly why I did it. I was the

executioner. I did not wear a mask as this was personal. I needed not to create the distance between the

condemned and I.

In smaller towns, some executioners never wore a mask as everyone knew who the executioner was and

hence the masking of the executioner seemed pointless, yet there were still a handful who kept their

masks on. They knew what the mask meant and what it stood for. It brought about the difference of

murder and execution in their eyes. It made it legal, it made it a sanctioning. It made it right. It made it a

job. Most believe that it eases the condemned and let them welcome their demise without incident.

The motives behind the mask will always differ from one executioner to another. After all it is a matter

of perception. There is no one right perception nor is there any wrong. As for an ideal view on the whole

subject to be present there needs to be the existence of complete knowledge. Therefore human beingswill always choose the way of reasoning that suits them the most. The point of view on anything of

anyone will always depend on who the person is and how he came to be that. Figuring that out may be a

notch taxing.

Once the way of reasoning has been revealed, the leverage that is acquired is immense. Bending people

to go against what they firmly believe becomes as easy as robbing candy off a baby. Great mind players

have mastered this trait.

I took the knife and etched a mark on the bench. I wanted to leave something behind. I wanted to

acknowledge my presence on that bench. I looked around. There was not a soul to be seen. I could

easily slice my throat and bring an end to it all. They would find his knife. Everybody knew that it washis. He always had a thing for showing off the knife to everyone he knew. After all it was his most prized

possession. Even more valued than his integrity.

Many speculations were sure to follow. A promising one was that he had killed me and had fled.

However, logically it was absurd. He had gone missing way before my death. People would rather

believe that I had something to do with his disappearance and I could not go on with the guilt and thus

took the easy way out. If only they knew how right they would have been.

Instead I pocketed the knife. I was not going to kill myself. Not that day. I picked up my bag. Even the

bench was giving me unwanted memories. It had been about four years ago, on a quiet night like this,

that I was sitting with her. We had grown up together. We already knew each other more than we knew

ourselves. We both knew what I was going to say, and I knew what she was going to say. She just had to

realize it until it was too late.

When an outcast has only one friend, it is not surprising that he wishes to hold on to that person

forever. That night I told her how I had come to feel for her. I told her that I knew that she did not know

what to say. I also knew that she felt that it was not meant to be. I did not blame her. Any sane woman

would have done the same, and I would have thought less of her if she had done anything differently.



13

Despite all of that I had to tell her this. It had to be spoken even though she knew it. To her I would

always be the weird boy on the beach with wild fantasies about saving drowning insects. Confrontation

is not something that any of us look forward to, but it is essential. It is crucial in order for certain things

to survive, in order for life to move on. Things had gone awry in the past weeks. Some even said that you

could cut the tension with a knife. They were not wrong.

I had to tell her before I left for six months. I knew that things would not be the same when I would

come back. I knew that the new guy in her life would still be there, while she would want him gone. I

knew that he was not the right person for her. I knew of the pain that he would bring in to her life. She

paid no heed to me. In her eyes I was jealous. That I could not stand the thought of him filling in the

shoes I so desperately wanted to be in.

She was right. I was jealous. I did hate him for that, but my hate ran deeper than that and she failed to

see that. Just because I hated him and envied him did not ensure that my view about him was wrong.

However, at the end of the day it was her choice to make, not mine. I did what I could. True I could have

done more.

I was called away to be in part of some project in the wastelands. Duty had called. I knew that from thatmoment onwards that things would never be the same. We would never come to the beach together

again. I knew that our spot was now theirs. It burned in my throat knowing that it was him of all people

who would be watching her from the steps as she waded in the water. That it was him that got to take

her home. That it was him who would be the shoulder that she would lean against. She was in love. Not

with him, but who he claimed to be. And worst of all, it stung like a razor knowing that I could not show

her his true side without incriminating myself, or by hurting her. I had chosen the latter.

She would soon learn the truth. It was inevitable. Give it a couple of months or so, she would see his

true color, she would see mine. At first everything will seem perfect. It always does. She will be happy

beyond her dreams. She would be happier than I could ever make her be. It was one thing that I also

could not give her being the person I am. However, it was inevitable. It would start slowly. He waspossessive and insecure. That was not the worst part of it. What would follow after that would be. He

could not take no for an answer. It was the way he was. When it would all unfold, all she had to do was

to say no to him. That would start it all. Maybe then she would understand why I done things the way I

did it, and why I said what I had said that night.

What I did not know was that if she would survive it or not. Were the six months too long? I knew that it

was, but I had to have faith. I had to believe in her. Mostly, I had to believe for my sake. With smoldering

taste of guilt in my lips I kissed her on the cheeks and left. She was forgiving; it would be her bane.

Six months passed and I came back, only to return to a lake of unquenchable fire. It was worse than I

had thought. In the months that I had been gone, I was out of touch with the exterior world. It was a

part of the project. I was not surprised that she was not there to pick me up at the bus stop. She most

probably had forgotten about me or worse. I silently hoped that she had moved away, but I knew that

he would not let that happen. He was too possessive for that to happen. He would have to know where

she was.

I walked up to her door and knocked on the door. He opened the door. He was with another girl. No

surprise there. I asked him where she was, and he told me that it was none of my concern. She would



15

I looked back at him and told him to lay off her. She had suffered enough. Compared to the first

demand, this was more realistic in his eyes, but yet I knew he would not agree to it. He had a thing for

women. He could never let anyone of them go if it was not on his terms. He had issues. Moreover, he

did not like being told what to do. It infuriated him, angered him. Good.

That day it would be different. For once it would be my way. He would not let her go, not to me. Not like

this. I knew it, and that gave me the upper hand. I told him that he had already gotten out of her what

he had desired. She was no longer his. Not after what he had done to her. One of his friends got up and

demanded me what I was implying. I looked at him square in his eyes. He knew what I was implying. He

had been there.

I told him that it was him who was holding her hands. I did not know it for a fact, but it would not be far

off from the truth. Army boy would not do anything unless he had his henchmen behind him, just like it

was that day. I told him that all I wanted was the girl to be safe and sound. I also pointed out that he

already had another girl to substitute her. She would be more suitable.

Even though I was proposing one body for another I knew that he would not take it. He wanted the

unattainable. Always had, and would continue to do so. He looked at me in disgust. In his eyes he sawthat I had said nothing of importance. He was getting impatient. Better.

Rage works well for some people, but for many it does not. Wielding rage to your advantage is not easy,

but it is not that hard either. Just as it makes u strong, it makes you blind, makes you think less, makes

you want to take immediate actions. All if wielded properly it makes you the perfect weapon. The six

months were not in vain.

He asked me if I had anything else to say. He took out his knife from his pocket, drawing my attention to

it. He was no longer interested in listening. Not that he had been. He felt his neck. As if to remind

himself of the syringe I had stuck in his neck not so long ago. Things were going as planned. I could not

draw first blood. I was outraged, I wanted to take that knife and carve my initials on him, but I could notlet my anger get the best of me. I had to channel it through. Let it work for me. And let his rage be his

Achilles heel.

I told him that there was one last thing. His miserable pathetic ass would leave town. My raised voice

was never so determined. Even he sensed that, which had been the idea. Now, all three of them were

on their feet. The odds were in their favor. The gun was still on the table. I did not look at it. I did not

want to draw any attention to it yet. Nobody was going to die that night, not if I could help it.

He had enough of my bullshit. I had made no case. Not that he would have listened to me if I had. After

all, he just wanted to beat the crap out of me, so that I would be put in my place. He sent his mates first.

Let them have the honor. One of them picked up a chair. It was made of cheap wood. After all, I did buy

it. He did not know that. Nor did he realize that the chair was light. He must have thought that he was

strong. An illusion like that can be fatal.

I gave my back to the chair. I told myself to ignore the pain, to embrace it. By doing so, I would block it

out. I awaited the strike. It shattered like glass. Splinters cut into my skin. It was not that bad. I went

down on my knees. I grabbed a leg of the chair. I could not lose focus of what I had to do. I could not

allow them to get the best of me. I had to keep a cool mind, had to channel my rage to see this day

through. As I got up I shoved the wood into his knees.



16

He had not seen it coming. His knee caps got dislodged. The wood tore his skin. He howled as he fell on

to one side. His knee cap was busted and hanging on a small piece of skin. He would no longer walk. His

other friend froze. Two blows had been exchanged, and his friend was on the ground, immobile. He was

not stupid enough not to recognize who was more overwhelming.

I was not an extremely strong fellow, but I had noticed enough to know where it hurts the most to hit.

To kick a door down, you would not hit at the middle. You would either aim at the hinges or at the lock,

depending upon which side is weaker. I got up and told him to stay down. I still had the piece of wound

in my hand. My back was still hurting. It was just a scratch I told myself. I looked at the other friend and

told him that he did not need to be a part of this. I knew that he would not leave. He was scared of his

friend more than he was scared of me. I told him that his friend on the floor would need medical

attention, if wanted to walk again.

He went for the table and reached for the gun. He told me that I could go to hell. He aimed it at me and

told me to leave the place. I smiled at him. He looked at his friend and then to his other friend. One gave

him hope, the other despair, but both of them gave him the reason to pull the trigger and blast me to

oblivion.

I told him that first off, he would not shoot me. Second, his hands were trembling, his hand would falter

as he pulled the trigger and the recoil would ensure that he missed me. Third, the safety was still on. I

looked at his gun and chuckled a bit.

He looked at his gun. At that moment I threw the wood at his hand. A shot went off. It was close, but it

was not close enough. The bullet grazed through my shoulder. He dropped the gun. I lunged forward to

him and pushed him down. I could see the terror in his eyes. He had become a nervous wreck after he

saw his friend go down. A man’s ego is generally his prized possession. Once the sense of security is

shattered, nothing much can happen.

I was pulled back and thrown against the wall. The friend cowered away underneath the table and got

up behind it. He maintained his distance. He placed a barrier between me and him. He went over to his

fallen friend and held his knees. Blood had poured all around. He started pulling him to another room.

The knife was pressed against my neck. He hissed to me. He would cut my insides. Nobody disrespected

him, especially not me. He pressed harder. He was trying to choke me with his knife. I could feel my skin

opening. I kicked him in the shin. I missed. He grabbed my shirt and banged me against the wall again.

My head bucked against the wall. Block out the pain I reminded myself. The knife was no longer on my

neck.

He shouted for his gun. He wanted to blow my fucking head off. He looked at his henchman beckoning

him to get up and give him the gun. He looked at me and pushed the knife on my cheek. He told me to

look at his knife. It was given to him by his father. He asked me if I knew who he was. He answered his

own question. His father was a bloody fucking goddamn war hero. I could not touch him. He turned

around again; the gun was on his way. For a brief moment, he would ease off in order to grab the gun. It

was a window.

I took it. I kneed him the stomach. He gasped for air. He let the gun drop. I grabbed him head and

jammed it against the wall. It made a loud sound. Almost as if his skull was hollow. It would have



17

explained a lot. I picked up the gun and pushed it against his temple. I told him that I was not asking

anymore. I was telling him. With the butt of the gun I smashed his teeth in.

To ensure that he got the picture clear I cocked the colt. I slowly moved the barrel of the gun around his

face. I placed it in his mouth and asked him if he understood. He mumbled something which I did not

hear properly. After all there was a gun in his mouth. Blood dripped slowly down onto the barrel. He was

still furious about the fact that he was being man handled.

His other henchmen came at me with his bare hands. He was scared, frightened. He was more of a

threat now. I then pointed the gun at him. I fired a shot. It caught him in his ears. I told him to calm the

fuck down. Things did not have to get ugly.

I turned back to the guy in my clutches. I told him to make sure what his next words were going to be. I

slowly moved the gun out of his mouth. He gasped for air and said that I did not have it in me. I could

not kill him, no matter what. The price would be too high.

I smiled at him. I knew that I could not kill him. Not because he was a veteran’s son but because I could

not bring myself to do it. No matter how much I hated him, despised him. No matter what he had doneto her, I could not sink to his level. I could not have killed him in cold blood no matter how much I willed.

It was just not in me. And he was right: the price was too high. I did not want to become a killer.

Instead I took away what he valued. He would no longer be the same. I hit him on his neck with the butt

of the gun. He grabbed his neck with both his hand. His wind pipes constricted. It would silence his

screams to come. I pushed him onto the ground. I saw his friend moving again. I aimed the gun at him

and said that I had no problem in killing him. He was no son of a veteran.

I brought back the gun to the army boy. I fired a shot, followed by a muffled scream. The blow to the

neck did not help him. The more he screamed, the more his neck hurt. However, he was fortunate to

have something to take his mind off his neck. I had just shot him in between the legs. He would leavetown for sure. He grabbed his crotch and withered in pain. It became eerily quiet and still. His henchmen

were frozen with shock.

The floor was now covered in blood. It was not something that I had thought of as I would end up having

to scrub it off: the beauty of your own stupidity. I would have to leave soon. Three shots had been fired.

Four people had been injured. And it was a small town. It was already too late. People should be coming

any time soon.

I got up and walked to the kitchen. I let the tap run and clogged the basin. After the water filled in the

sink, I dropped the gun in it. It no longer worked until it was dry, and there were no fingerprints. As I

mentioned the above fact, I told him that the next time I saw him; it would be under even more

unpleasant circumstance. He had a day to clean up and leave. And I had asked politely. I told to his evil

henchmen that it was the same for them. They had better stay out of my way. The town was not that

big enough for them disappear. Not from me. I walked over to the army boy. I pressed my feet deep

down to where his hands were. I leaned forward and let my blood drop from my shoulder on to him I

told him that I could not be more clear enough.

The one who could still walk got up and went to their general. They attended to him as I left with my

hand over my shoulder slowly applying pressure. I was losing blood, and was losing it fast. I had to get to



18

a hospital soon. I walked to a pay phone and called a friend. After I made the call I sat down on the

sidewalk to reduce pressure. I waited for ten minutes before he arrived. He looked at my wound and

said nothing. He helped me to get into the car and took me to his home. His girl brought a pail of water

and cleaned out my flesh wound. She then poured down some alcohol on it. It stung. But it became

numb.

Once I had stopped bleeding, they asked me what had happened. My friend being the conspiracy

theorist he was, I had to break down the story to his complete understanding. I did not offer him that.

He did not ask any further. He had known better not to further bother me with questions to which he

would not get any answers to. He knew that it would only end badly for him. Soon my pager went off.

She has slipped back in a slumber. She was still too weak. With that note I went back to the hospital.

The bench that looked out onto the ocean did indeed bring bad memories. I ran my fingers down the

cold wet steel. I looked at the mark I had made. It was a scribble, nothing more. Hopefully for someone

at some time it would make some kind of sense. For me all it denoted what I was going through: turmoil.

A part of me wished that I had not gone for the six months and had stayed with her on the beach,

maybe I could have spared her the three months of suffering, but then I would also have taken away thethree weeks of happiness she had, even though they were lies of her own. Truth beyond doubt is

beautiful, as well as lies. I am not saying that it was worth it, not saying that she deserved it, nor did he,

but things have a way of turning out the way they were supposed to. Or so I would like to believe.

I took out another bottle from my bag. It was my last bottle. I had already gorged down one too many

bottle. I was afraid of letting my own true feelings show. I was afraid that I could not handle myself if I

had. I could not bear to see myself in that light. That was why I drank that night. Some drink to

remember and some drink to forget.

I opened the bottle and left the cap neatly beside me. I took a sip. The alcohol burned my throat. I felt

warm. I looked at the label. Jack Daniels. It was my personal favorite. I had saved the best for the last. Ihad drunk a variety of different alcohols that night. I knew that the morning would not be pretty. But

then again, would I have felt any different if I had not drank that night?

I wanted to drown my misery; instead I drowned myself in my own misery. Once depression kicks in, we

should never let it get the better of us, but most of us allow ourselves to be consumed by it. Most of the

times, we can not help ourselves. I deserved what I felt. Or so I told myself. I felt the nagging guilt in my

head. The guilt I had for letting her go, for taking what was rightfully hers, for taking what was rightfully

his, and for not taking what was rightfully mine.

I wanted things to be better, but sitting around and moping was not going to do that. I had done what I

could to make things better, and it had been. She was on her way to a new life. She was going to be

happy. I spared her the guilt and the torment that would have torn her apart. I had finally given her

closure. Something she had schemed so well to obtain. No matter what the costs had been.

I put the bottle to my lips. The beautiful taste of the alcohol stayed in my mouth. I placed the bottle

beside me. I leaned back and looked up at the stars. The clouds had left a small opening somewhere

above me. I searched for my favorite constellation, but I could not find it. I deserved it. I was not worthy

of seeing the hunter, as I was no longer one. I was not even close enough.



19

I covered my face and tried to scream. I could not bring myself to do so. Instead I just kept my fist in my

mouth and bit my knuckles. My teeth sank deep in my skin. I could taste blood. I licked my knuckles and

watched the blood seep through the wound and flow out. This time I did not bother cleaning it.

Hopefully, my blood would wash away his. It did not.

I thought that maybe by inflicting pain onto myself I could forget the one I already had. Maybe, just

maybe, I could divert my attention to something else. Like pinching yourself before the needle pierces

your vein. It did not work either. There are just some things you cannot come around from. No matter

how hard you try, because at the end of the day, you do not want to. Most of us do not realize this.

I watched my blood make its way down my hand to my fingers and then onto the ground. As it fell down

the air and land on the ground the sound of the drop was deafening. One drop fell after another. I had

not realized how hard I had bitten my knuckles. I wanted to lie to myself and tell myself that with each

drop, my pain lessened, but it did not. No matter what I did, I still felt like shit. Felt desolated. And worst

of all, felt alone.

I watched the small pool of blood grow. Soon my blood dried out and began to clot. I wiped my hand

against my shirt. I did not care of the blood stain. I would soon burn the shirt anyways. For me to start anew life, I would have to let go of my past; even if it was my favorite shirt. I picked up the bottle again. It

was never enough. No matter how hard I tried, my thoughts always came back to her. It was hard, just

too hard.

I looked at the moon. I loved the moon. I never grew tired from seeing the same face of the moon over

and over again, just as I never grew tired from looking at her face. Her face was radiant. Simply

beautiful. She never grew to love me. She could not bring herself to do so. Whether she wanted to or

not was a different story, but the bottom line for me was that she did not. And that was what was

important for her.

I picked up my bottle and my bag. I left the cap there. I wanted to leave a trail. I was foolishly hopingthat if anybody wanted to track me they would have at least some success. It was not a smart move, but

a part of me wanted to get caught. I wanted to pay the price. Face the music as they say. A part of me

wanted to atone for the crimes that I had committed. But then again, I had to ask myself what crimes

had I committed.

Had he deserved to die? I could name many people who thought so. One of them being her, and after all

I had killed him so that she would not have to. So that he could not longer bring suffering to those

around him. Had he deserved to die they way he had? Maybe not. And maybe that was what was eating

me up alive. Or was it the fact that I was capable of inflicting pain. Was I no worse than him? Was I not a

monster? And worst of all, did I not enjoy his execution? Was I that sadistic? Was I that cruel and

inhuman? Shoving a blade into someone’s heart is one thing, but twisting the blade is something else.

I continued walking north. I was slowly moving away from the beach. My purpose there was done. I had

made contact with her, established my alibi that placed me there at that time. It was important. I had

drunk enough. And my hands had bled, although that would change soon enough. I was now going to

the dock.

The dock of our town was fairly crowded and yet empty. A fair number of us owned our own boats. I did

not. I did not have to. There were a large number of abandoned boats. Most of which were damaged



21

I asked him what he was doing back in town. He did not say anything. He just continued to look at his

glass. It was empty. I took the bottle and poured him some more whiskey. I asked him again. He drank

before he answered. He told me everything. I did not have to ask anything anymore.

Once he was done, I handed him the bottle. I did not thank him. I was busy making sense of what he had

said. I knew what it meant. I knew what would follow. And I knew that I had to do something about it. I

only had a day to make everything all right. But it was already too late. I had to salvage the pieces that

were worth saving. She was the only one that could be saved. The rest of us were damned. There was

no illusion there.

Many people have quoted that desperate times call for desperate measures. This was one of them. I

asked him if he had smokes on him. He did. He passed the pack with trembling hands. I told him to relax

and to pour himself another glass. He had just provided me with crucial information. I owed him that. I

told him that I would not kill him. He had ‘redeemed’ himself so to speak.

He let out a sigh. He looked to the open sea and thanked god, instead of thanking me. As I smoked his

cigarettes I thought of what I was going to do. I thought of what I had to do and more importantly, how I

was going to pull it off. By my third cigarette I had figured it out. I was not happy with what I came upwith. However, it was something. It was not perfect, but it would have to do.

It started from my boat. It started with him. The bottle in his hands was almost empty. I waited. I

smoked another cigarette and offered him one. He took it. His hands were still trembling. He was not

comfortable sitting on the deck with me. He had no reason to be. After all, I was offering him his own

cigarettes.

I asked him where he was heading. He told me that he had a place in the city. It was nothing fancy but it

was home. I asked him if there was a girl waiting for him. He told me that in fact there was: his daughter.

The mother left him for another man. Women, go figure. I smiled. He was at ease. He loved his daughter

with all his heart.

In the distance, I saw the ferry approaching. It was almost dark. He saw the ferry. He then looked at me.

He did not know whether to leave or to stay. He sought my approval. I looked at the ferry once more. A

couple of people were getting on. I turned to him and told him that I had another bottle inside. If he

wanted he should get it.

He got up and walked in. I followed him and closed the door behind me. There was no bottle inside. I

raised the empty bottle that I had picked up before I walked in. I waited for the bullhorn of the ferry. He

turned around and saw me. The horn blared. I hit him.

The bottle smashed against his head and slashed through his face. He fell down on the floor instantly. I

went to the bridge and got some rope. I tied his hands and legs and dragged him downstairs. I used my

shirt to gag him. He was of no use to me now. His time would come.

The light in the room began to flicker. I tapped the bulb and the light stabilized. He looked up at me and

croaked as to why I was doing this to him. For three days he had not seen the light of day. For three days

he had not eaten properly. For three days he had asked me that same question. And for three days I had

not answered him. All that would come to an end.



22

I told him that I wanted to thank him. I was not trying to be self righteous or anything, I just wanted him

to know that if it was not for him, this world would have seem more ugly than it already was. I

appreciated him telling me what he had done and why he had come back to town. I told him that

although his intent was noble, the consequences were not. And that was why I was punishing him. And

that was why I kept him there. I hid him from the world, because he did not deserve to see it. However,

that would change soon.

His eyes widened. He screamed that he had a daughter. A two year old, he asked me what she was going

to do without him. I told him that she would be fine. She would live. Survive. She would grow up to be a

fine young girl and become the prom queen if need be. He looked away. He knew that it was true. His

daughter was with her aunt at that moment. She was taken care of.

I reminded him that I had told him that I would kill him if he came back to the town. He silently nodded.

I took out the knife. He saw and recognized it immediately. The knife was not so forgettable. He asked

me how I got it. I answered saying that there was only one way to get this knife, and I did. He closed his

eyes for a moment and said a prayer of some sort.

When he opened his eyes, he said okay, let it be done. He was ready for his death. He had done somethinking over the past three days. He told me that after his knee injury, he had changed. He was no

longer the henchmen he was known as. He had met a girl, and that girl changed his life. Gave him a

daughter, and then left. It was hard on him, but then again he thought of it as atonement. He was being

punished for what he had done.

I told him that he was far from being punished. That was not even close. I told him to remember what

they had done to her. I told him that people may change, but that is not atonement. I took the knife and

brought it close to his neck. I told him that he would not enjoy the next few minutes. I told him that I

was going to be swift. But he would remember it for the rest of his life. I told him that I had taken away

one of his knee cap. It was time to immobilize his legs permanently. I pulled him forward and shoved his

face to the floor. I placed the gag over his mouth. As he squirmed I grabbed his heels and pulled ittowards me.

I took the knife and traced it around his ankle. I cut through the muscles and muffled screams echoed

around the small room. I did the same to his other leg. With the tendons cut, I took his feet and bended

it backwards. It snapped. I let it go. It fell down on to the floor with a dull thud.

I turned him around and looked at his face. I looked into his eyes. Tears were streaming down his cheek.

His jaws were aching from screaming into my shirt. I told him that I could do much worse, but I would

not. He was a father, not the greatest father, if there ever was one, but he was a father nonetheless. He

would have to be there for his daughter. And now he would be. I would not let her be an orphan like I

had become in later years. Better a crippled father than none.

But that did not mean that I was being generous. I told him that he was living because his life meant

more than his daughter. A reason that he would not see, but it did exist. I took out a syringe from my

pocket. I pierced his veins and let the morphine flow through his body. I had given him enough to block

out the pain. Once he stopped squirming I got up and left the room. I walked up to the deck to have a

look around. It was still quiet. I went to the edge and untied the rope that held me to the dock. It was

time for the boat to give its last ride.



23

I went back down to the room. He had a dazed glaze in his eyes. I held him by his collar and shook him.

He came to his sense. He looked at me. His eyes slowly zeroed in on mine. I raised my right hand and

curled it to a fist. He saw the fist coming. I hit his cheek. I kept on hitting him. Although he did not feel

the pain right away, once the morphine subsided, it would not be pleasant.

The wound on my hand peeled off. Slowly my blood began to mix with his. Good. My DNA would be

around the boat. His blood splattered onto my shirt. Even more beautiful. A tooth flew out of his jaw. It

was repairable. I stopped hitting him after a while. My hands began to hurt. I let loose of his collar and

he slumped back down to the floor. I took out my shirt and wiped the blood off my hands.

I took out my match stick and lit my shirt on fire. I work was done here. He was unconscious. He would

live. I left the knife on the ground, beside my burning shirt. I took out my trousers and also threw it on

the pyre. I watched the fire for a moment. I watched the flames reflection on the bloodstained blade of

the knife. Somehow, it seemed peaceful.

I thought that if he had not given his gun to her, none of this would have happened. It would not need

to have happened. She had placed the gun underneath her pillow, assuming that I would not have found

it. However, I did. Even though I knew that it was not smart to swap the bullets with blanks, but I couldnot risk anything. She would soon figure it out that it was blanks after she left town, but after that, she

would not need the gun. It was just a precautionary measure. She was planning on going after him the

next day, but by that time I would already be done with him.

However, if she planned to go after him that very night, I would have a problem. If she woke up and

decided to leave, I had my letter ready to stop her. She would not do anything until she heard my

explanation. However, she slept through it. Like an angel.

I tried to spend as much as time as I could with her. It was our final moments together, but she had

other things on her mind. She wanted her closure, and particularly when it had came knocking at the

door. But the news of the disappearance was an anomaly to her. She had not expected it. However,what she did not foresee was the fact that if she left town soon after he did, fingers would start

pointing. After all, there was a trail. She had been careless. Too many people knew of her plans. There

would be physical evidence implicating her. Not to mention the motive.

Soon we ran in to the fiancé of her friend. Even knowing the answer I congratulated him and asked him

what he was doing in town, when his wedding was just days away. I knew that his wedding was

scheduled to be two months later. When he corrected me, she knew that she was busted. Later that

night we talked.

She could no longer go with me. I was an everyday reminder of what had happened to her years ago. I

would always be that. And according to her, she would always be the victim as long as she was around

me. She wanted to leave it all and go to a place where nobody knew of her past and cared for it.

Somewhere by which she could reconstruct her past the way she wanted it.

So according to her, it all came down to that. The lies, the deception, it was all done to get away from

me. She could not go any longer with it. Even after everything that I had done, it was not fair to her. It

was not fair to me. As she could never be the person I wanted her to be; as she could never love me. She

could become a part of my life, as I knew too much about her, and that I would always look at her

through those eyes.



24

I told her that it was okay. If she wanted to go, then she had to go. I was not forcing her to stay. I did not

have chains around her ankle. I wanted to give her the letter I had in my pocket before I left, but I

restrained myself. It was not required. Although I did not agree with her reasoning, it was her decision. It

was a decision that suited my plans. I did not want to give her a reason to come back. Instead I told her

that if she really thought that, then so be it. I would just have to live with it. I could not expect her to be

the woman I wanted, no matter who I was or what I had done. After all I was the outcast.

I looked at her when I reached the door and told her that just because I knew her well; it meant that we

could not be together. The irony of it all was quite overwhelming. Before she could tell me that I had it

all wrong and that I had misunderstood her and that she did not mean it like that, I closed the door and

walked away. I wish that she would only be thinking about me that night, not running after army boy.

After that, I had gotten on my bike and came to the dock to check up on my prisoner. He was still living.

One more night then it would be all over. She would be out of town and then it was time. She could not

be brought into the investigation that would follow. It would have to be a clear cut case.

The fire slowly died out. I spit at the henchman before I walked upstairs to get myself some new dryclothes. I could not leave any stone unturned. At the bridge, I opened a drawer and made sure that the

book I was reading was still there. It had my name.

I started the motors and left it running. I pushed the throttle a bit forward. I grabbed my bag from the

ground and got off the boat. I pushed it forward and let it drift out to the open sea. It would be found

the morning after. People would go inside and see the tortured soul. As he was alive, he would identify

me, I had the knife which implicated me to the disappearance to the army boy. My DNA was all around

the boat. I had the motive. I had the history. I had people to implicate me for my presence in this region.

Now they would come after me.

As I watched the boat drift, I knew that my life as I knew it had come to an end I would no longer beliving anymore. I would always be on the run, well until I got caught. Everybody gets caught at the end.

Some even before they actually begin. Those are the lucky ones.

I turned around and walked back to the boulevard. It was then that I remembered that I had left my

bottle of Jack Daniels on the boat. I cursed my stupidity but then again, I did not care. Where I was

going, alcohol could not help me. I got to the boulevard and found my bike. It was majestically waiting

for me. I got on it and wore my helmet. It was time to leave. I did not know where I was going, but it was

definitely away from here.

I revved up engines and sped off. I honked at the passing cars repetitively. People needed to be aware of

a rampaging biker. It would fit the description. Everything would unfold. Everything except for the body

of that son of a bitch would be uncovered. It would not show up for a long time. That would be the only

thing that would keep me alive if I did get caught. It was my leverage. There would have to be a proper

burial.

My last thought as I left the town was that I was already moving on. I had turned into a monster. True it

was something that I did not wish to become. But then again, has life ever turned out the way I wanted

it to. It is all about picking up the pieces and doing what needs to be done. No matter what the costs

may be. Just as the end justifies the means, the means justify the end.



The course of my action will ultimately lead me to my own crucifixion, however, it was necessary. The

end was not desirable, but the things that I done was so. It had to be done. They would have to come

after me. It was the only way I could save her.

reflections of the moon

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