The Silent Self-Deprecation of a Contract Killer
The droplets of water were cascading down the grooves of the corrugated iron roof. They glistened and exploded as they trickled down the gradual incline. The hut was in disrepair but its fragilities were imperceptible beneath the muffled, moonlit sky.
(It’s raining and cold. Why am I doing this?)
The shadow of a stranger lurked among the shadows in a darkened alleyway across the yard. The ground was dancing with the pummelling of the rain but the stranger’s eyes remained transfixed on a single point, a single goal. He was a stranger to his target – this went without saying – but, in fact, he was a stranger to all. The door to the hut only had to move an inch to signal the end of the assignment, the curtain call to his latest performance.
(Not only am I alone, I kill people for a living. The net balance of my existence is, by definition, negative.)
Liquid drumming, drumming, drumming. His collar was up, shutting out the cold. Beating, beating, beating. The wind joined the percussive ensemble by rattling the metal fence that lined the yard. It was a cacophonous composition, escalating, transcending.
(This rain is horrible. And I wish the wind would shut up.)
The scene was then cut open by a vertical slit of light, abruptly piercing the darkness. The collar rippled, muscles tightened. The explosion from the black barrel was followed by the thud of a slug into a torso behind the door. A body slumped to the ground, the life oozing out of it, and the door gently swung on its hinges, opening wider at first and then latching shut under its own weight.
(I wonder who this guy was. He’s escaped this fetid existence now, anyway. Fortunate soul.)
He knew he had hit his target. He never missed. The closed door pleased the murderer’s fastidious nature. It tidied up the scene perfectly. No slit of light remained. It was the dimming of the lights upon the conclusion of an act. It was the careful positioning of knife next to fork upon finishing a meal. It was clean, complete, absolute. The stranger’s shadow melted into the night as the glistening explosions continued to assault the yard, washing it clean of any trace of the act that had just been carried out.
(I feel ugly, tired, and alone.)
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