Human After All

A pair of brown hands silently crept up the glass window. Slowly, it fogged up with his uneven breathing. Outside, thunder rolled into the sky and he watched it silently as a few drops of rain seemed to fall on his hands. His eyes watered lightly at the corners as his hand bleed crimson…bleed with blood that was not his. A siren brought him back to the present and shook away his reoccurring vision of bloody hands. Time was scarce; he must leave at once before they close in on him.

            He recollected the last 30 minutes of his life while he stuffed his bare essentials into a bag and prepared to go. It seemed just like yesterday when he met her and time hadn’t flown with her around. She had kept him frozen in that moment they met for almost two years now. But lately she was acting different, and he felt time pass him by. What was not there in his life to lament about other than his own feelings...his curiosity and impatience to know more about her worries… or secrets? Every time he tried to sort it out, she would shake her head and dismiss the issue with a smile. But that would only make amends for a day or two before he popped up the same questions. Doubt crept in after a month…he was after all human. Tonight he just couldn’t take it. 

            He remembered himself, the way he stormed into the house and stood towering tall over her. She took a look at his loosened tie, un-tucked shirt and swaggering posture as she registered that he had come home to her drunk. Something she never liked. As she got up to leave, he asked her

“What is it that you’re hiding from me?” She maintained her space and still managed to smile when she replied.

“I was waiting till tonight to tell you, but I don’t want to tell anymore. Not like this. It’s not how I imagined it” She made a move but he blocked all her possible exits. She didn’t put up a fight but rather smiled again and tried to leave. But he wasn’t going to wait any longer. He was going to force it out of her, make her come back to him; be the way he was before someone new entered into their perfect life. Alarmed at his sudden behavior her eyebrows crinkled up as she tried to get away. He slowly pulled out a gun from the back of his belt and held it up to her temple.

            She struggled in his arms and gave up trying. Right when she was going to say it out and end all the confusion and impulsiveness in his head the trigger went off and there was blood on the new white walls. The shot drew him back into the world and left him ashen. What had gone wrong, she wasn’t supposed to die. The gun wasn’t to fire; he hadn’t loaded it…or did he? Afraid to look down he drew his eyes on her and quickly shut them.  She wasn’t to leave him with that painful look on her face. He went weak in his knees and bent down on the bloody floor. Her fingers pointed at something and wiping his tears he followed it to the couch. On it was a neat envelope that he smeared red while trying to pull out the contents. The doctor’s report only made him cry more and hate himself to the core. He pulled her to him and slowly caressed her stomach, where the second soul he killed lay unaware of existence. How could he have done such a crime? The lights went on in the opposite apartment for someone must have heard the shots.

That was what he watched as the guilt didn’t let him go. It kept reminding him of the blood that wouldn’t wash off from his hands. Kept reminding him of what he had lost with just his nature. He looked at her again, the way she sprawled over the carpet they picked out together. He had to leave; everything in this place reminded him of what a pathetic person he was. And moreover it reminded him that he was human after all an impulsive one at that. The siren kept him on this toes forever and he could run from that, but not from his guilt. Some say the case closed after he shot himself, some say her spirit haunted the life out of him. But there are very few who say,

“I wish I had his life, wish I had that love, but wish I’ll not be human enough to do what he did”