Untitled-I

The cold steel of the gun pressed against his temple. It was snowing outside, the sky overcast and grey.

'The perfect time', he thought.

He sat in the dingy room on the threadbare mattress, staring at the peeling wallpaper, holding a gun to his head.

Lowering the gun, he studied it absently, filled with sudden regret. He'd never tried hard enough, he concluded. Not as a student, not as a father and definitely not as a human being.

He had ignored the pricking of his conscience for far too long, allowed his demons to amass. Now it all came to bear on him at once. He was surprisingly calm. He was going to die simply because he deserved to. This simple logic left no room for fear or second thoughts. He had takeen far too many lives and spilt far too much blood to be allowed to live.

He'd done it from the shadows, from the dark. By lead and by poison, he had brought down giants, mowed down masses and picked off the weak. And now, it was time for atonement, for purgatory.

Reaching deep into his coat pocket, he retrieved a faded photograph. The bright eyed child staring back at him out of the sepia sheet was long gone. The first life he'd  destroyed. His own. He'd done it with a gun, much like the one he held in his hands now.

'Fitting', he thought, 'that the last life I take will be my own.'

Stowing the photograph back into his coat, he put the barrel to his head again and wet his lips. He imagined how it would feel : The kick, the roar, the pain and the silence. He held the gun to his head for a few more seconds, and then abruptly dropped it.

Tears started to well up behind his thick glasses and a choked sob escaped his throat. Soon, he was sobbing like a child, awash with regret and flooded with excuses. Yes, he had killed, but it had been for his country. Yes, he had murdered and deceived, but it had been for his motherland. Surely, he could be forgiven. And he had yet a long time to live. He would atone for his wrongs, cleanse himself.

A slow, sad smile, stretched across his sallow face as he came to this conclusion. With a shaky laugh. he picked up the gun and put it away.

Standing by the small window, he watched as flurries of snow drifted past. His demons silenced. He was startled out of his reverie by the sight of a figure walking down the deserted street. He quickly checked the watch on his thin wrist and then, smiling grimly to himself, he bundled himself into a jacket. He picked up the gun from where it was lying on the mattress and hastily pulled on a pair of thick gloves. Stuffing his now gloved hands into his pockets, he quickly trotted down the staircase and onto the street. He stepped out into the biting cold just as the man reached his building.  Stepping out in front of the man, he stood motionless.

Cold blue eyes stared at him from under a thick furred hood. "What news?", a voice rasped.

"none. I'm quitting.", he replied, pulling out the gun, meaning to hand it over.

A flash, glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, a searing pain, and then, blackness.

The small bespectacled man fell to the cold earth, a bullet in his head.


***

The figure lay prone on the roof, his shoulder numb from the shot he' just fired. He clutched a photograph to his breast, agony in his eyes.

"Rest.", he whispered, as silent tears streamed down his face, "You are avenged, rest."