Gnossienne

            

4 Facts: Ambank Founder's Son Shares His Thoughts. Digital image.Imgarcade.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Dec. 2015. <http://imgarcade.com/1/murderer-with-gun/>.

I wearily made my way home, lazily moving my legs down a swaying sidewalk, thinking back to the beautiful bursts of color I had just witnessed. I always did enjoy the Fourth of July display down at Carlyle Lake.

Sharp, yellow rays peered out in front of my feet. I turned around to see James in a black car pull up beside me. Although I wasn’t quite in the mood to speak and associate with anyone from work, specifically someone that brought me disdain, I decided to entertain what my co-worker had to say.

            “Nice fireworks out tonight, eh?”

I nodded in silence as his car slowed to my pace.  

“You need a ride home?”

I shrugged in agreement.

“Alrighty, climb in the back.”

Even after his wife had left him, he still kept her seat up front empty in case she returned. I frowned and slid into the back.

            We drove through an adjacent town and then onto a winding dirt road that led to our neighborhood development, which was situated close to our firm. James dropped me off in front of my house, which seemed to loom over us in the darkness. I thanked him and headed in.  

“Oh,” he jumped out of his car and ran up the steps, and lodged his foot in my door while I prepared to close it. “I left a hat here last weekend after your company get-together. Can you pick it up for me?” I nodded and entered the living room to find his hat, the fireplace still radiated heat from the previous fire and I picked the hat up from the mantel.

            I returned to see him staring at my wedding photos in the foyer. His eyes were glossy and wet. His throat moving as if something was stuck and he pined to remove it.

“Come in for some tea,” I suggested. There I would be close to the knives. He agreed, and I put the kettle on the stove. I had never liked James anyway and here he was sitting at my dining table, easy prey that had come to me. When I went to the fridge to get milk, I noticed he had placed his handgun on the table. Fire with fire... Let’s play.

After he picked up his gun, he awkwardly motioned for me to sit down with the barrel as he sniffed back a few tears, and hugged the mug close to his body. I sat across from him careful not to make any sudden movements. I didn’t listen too closely as James complained in a loud and undulating voice about how his wife had cheated on him. He claimed to have become part of the mindless masses. He was a depressed, alcoholic, having a mental breakdown in my house. The barrel of the gun still pointing at me, and my knives so far away. The fight was unfair. I convinced myself that if I were to obey him, I would possibly leave unscathed.

Once he had decompressed, the only evidence of his outburst was a soft layer of tears that covered his cheeks. As a bout of silence filled the room, we both stared down into our mugs. He took out his phone to fill the void. He had received a text. Perfect timing is always when the prey doesn't see anything coming. He gasped and his face widened into a smile and he prepared to text back on his phone. I took the moment into my own hands. I grabbed the gun, which he had placed on the table momentarily, cocked it back, and aimed.

He pressed send and looked up from his phone. An explosion cut the silence. A bullet propelled forward.

Blood poured down his body, and in that moment, his smile disappeared, and one slowly grew on my face as I stepped closer. I stared at his body for a while until I decided to move it to the basement. Yet, as soon as I grabbed his feet, a knock came at the back door. I looked through the glass door to see a woman, her soft brown eyes were filled with loss, regret and now, fear.

She held a phone close to her chest. In panic, I flung my arm out, aimed, and shot. I stood over her body until I decided to move again. How inconvenient, now a body in my kitchen and on my deck. After I had hid both their bodies, and both the deck and kitchen floor had been thoroughly cleaned, I gathered their belongings.

When I glanced down, I saw an unread notification from his wife: I'm outside.