"Whatever has happened once, will not happen again..but what has happened twice is bound to happen for the third time..." - Paulo Coelho from "The Alchemist"

Dead Man Talking

Disclosure: This is a piece of fiction. Most of the people would never notice the 'Pulp Fiction' tag, so just being safe. :D

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I die in the end.
There, the cat is out of the bag.

Most of you can now go on with whatever you try to pass on as life, without caring and without realizing how your own insignificant existence is nothing but a farce in the grand schemes of things.
The rest of the souls who decide to stay on and derive sadistic pleasure out of one screwed up deathbed confession, FUCK YOU, but then again being dead doesn't leave me with lot many options to make you stop from reading.

I don't care much for you but I wouldn't be the one to question your beliefs or your agenda. After all, till sometime ago I was naive enough to think of myself as a stylized copy of Max Payne and Matrix's Neo, stylish, smart, suave, except for the fact that I was on the other side of the law. And now I sit in the bowels of hell, alone. Talk about falling from grace.

I am a... DAMN !!!! it is still difficult to think of myself in the past tense and am sure I would keep repeating this mistake, was a Hitman.
A professional Hitman.

Just to make sure we are on the same page, you know the tacky images of unshaven, unruly henchmen popular culture throws in your face in the name of paid killers??? All false. All wrong.

The keyword that makes all the difference between me and those worms of the underbelly of crime is 'professional'.

With me everything had to be properly done and organized, whole systems in place for efficiency and effectiveness.
I had a proper PR-Marketing team in place whose only job was to build up my reputation among the world's ruthless without arousing the attention of the International Police.
Client servicing was my mantra for success, both after & before the kill.
An accounting firms handled all the payment issues and I had people working only for solving logistical issues and securing raw materials and equipment.
In fact, I had delegated all the less critical functions which gave me enough time to plan and execute.

It was a proper setup.
If it would've been in something legal, my small organisation would've given the best companies in the world a run for their money.
And that is the single most factor because of which I had a success rate of 92.7%.
And I only did 'hits'. No mass kills for me. A single man, a group of men at most but never collateral damage.
I was an Assassin, not a terrorist or a mercenary.

Despite everything working like a clockwork, I still died. Talk about irony.
In hindsight, it seems inevitable though. Somewhere in my heart, I always knew dieing from old age is one luxury I can't afford, still it is basic human nature that we all push back the dirt under the carpet and I did the same. Threw out all the thoughts of occupational hazards and embraced my own false sense of invincibility.

Coming back to the story, it was a dark August night when I set out to fulfill a contract, without realizing that fate had something else in mind for me.
It was a regular run of the mill kill with little complications or chances of failures, so I was quite confident it would go smoothly.

I won't reveal my client or my kill's name to preserve the Hitman-Client confidentially but for the sake of the story I would refer to my client as Mr. Y and the hit as Mr. X.
Mr. Y was the undisputed kingpin of the mafia while Mr. X was an upcoming gangster who for a long time had been challenging his authority. Their gangwar had ravaged the city for months and both sides had incurred a lot of damage. Frustrated with his henchman's failure to kill Mr. X, Mr. Y decided to outsource this function of his business to me.

I won't bother about how I planned for a month before actually going in the kill-zone and how I entered Mr. X's heavily guarded mansion and managed to reach the corridor leading to his bedroom without being discovered, because quite frankly the finesse of the whole thing would just be lost on you.

The plush carpet inhibited any noise of my footstep, not that it mattered as my rubber soled shoes minimized the sound of my movement anyways. Paintings and antiques adorned the walls and the red-black themed color combination of the whole house gave it a somewhat gory look. A dragon mask eyed me suspiciously as I moved towards the doors at the end of the corridors and the Jade Buddha sitting at the mantelpiece with tranquility written across his face, caught my attention. Blue moonlight coming in from the windows became the mean for my illumination and the reason of the 'dance of the shadows' on the wall as well.

I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath. There was a door on both of my sides but I knew that the one in front separated me and Mr. X.
I took out my handgun, held the doorknob and listened intently. Adrenaline rushed to my head with the unknown looming at my face.
Questions like, Had I been detected? Are there people waiting for me inside? to doubts such as, It was SO easy coming in. I didn't plan well enough, decided to penetrate my mind.
Slowly, I opened the door and walked in.
Mr. X was sitting on the bed, without his shirt with a 10 year old kid sitting in his lap. Disgusting images filled my mind but I had seen worse, so my imagination didn't torment me much.

The classic expression of bewilderment followed by alarm and finally, fear flooded Mr. X's face, which would be understandable by those who had have ever had to face the wrong end of a .50 caliber handgun.

I stared into his eyes and shot for his heart.

In spite of the element of surprise, Mr. X got to his senses quickly. He grabbed the kid and moved him in between his pumping muscle and the path of my lead angel.
The bullet entered near the nape of the kid's neck and shattered his collarbone. He fell down on the floor with a yelp and instantly started making a pool of blood on the crimson carpet. Mr. X reached for his own gun from the bedside table but it was a futile action. I shot him twice, once in the spine and the second time in the back of his head.

Mr. X's gun fell near the kid's body, in the pool of blood. Poor bastard, I had thought at that time, living a whoring life and dieing just as unnecessary. Then I noticed the kid was actually trying to move. Now, compassion might not be my first virtue but I tend to think up of myself as a just and normal human. There was a kid, bleeding to death by my own bullet, at my feet. A bullet not intended for him but making him part of the collateral damage nevertheless. A kid who maybe had lived all his life in the despicable clutches of Mr. X. The least I could do was to put him in a more comfortable position.

I tried to move the kid on his back in order to pick him up and put him on the bed. The moment I turned him on his back, the kid shot me. He wasn't a kid. He was a midget, a dwarf. Suddenly, Mr. X didn't seem like a monster anymore. He was only gay, with slightly weird sexual preferences for a partner.

The midget had gotten hold of Mr. X's gun while I was dealing with my compassionate side. The bullet whizzed past my right ear and landed harmlessly in the wall behind me. The only damage that occurred was to my right ear and that also due to the sound.

My natural reaction would've been to shoot him twice in the head but because I was in shock, I shot him three times. By this time even the deafest of Mr. X's guards would've been alerted due to the havoc created by the midget, so time was the essence for me.

I turned around and saw a figure standing in the doorway. This time my natural instinct took hold of me and I calmly shot him only once.
There was a lot of commotion happening around the mansion and I decided to use it for my escape. I glanced at the two bodies lying near the bed and a sense of accomplishment came over my soul. As I passed through the door I saw that the person whom I had shot in the doorway was also a midget. At that moment I was thinking 'Nowhere in my dossier there is any information that Mr. X had such a deep rooted affection towards dwarfs, the only personal details I had uncovered was that, that he had a son who along with his wife had died in a car crash and...'.

And then I was filled with dread. Horror chilled my soul. I could see the typewritten words on the dossier in front of me.
'Mr. X had a son who died on the eve of Christmas along with his wife in a car crash. Mr. X was named the legal guardian of his grandson (now aged 12) who lives with Mr. X and whose bedroom is adjacent to Mr. X's bedroom.'

I stared at the pool of blood at my feet. My eyes finally adjusted to the dim light and I saw that at my feet lay the body of a 12 year old kid and not a dwarf.

I fell to my knees and peered into his lifeless grey eyes.
I knew at that instant life as I knew it had finished. The sense of peace and the feeling of contentment lost forever. I had lost my soul. These eyes would torment me every second of the day. Sleep, Sanity, Joy, Happiness all were gone forever. I had killed an innocent kid. All my pride in my training, in my principles, in my methods, in my calmness turned to ashes. I had killed a child, depriving him of the chance for his first kiss, his first beer or his first drive.

I got out of the grounds in a daze. Reached my safe house without realizing what was happening around me. And said a prayer. For his soul and mine.

I told you I died in the end. I just hadn't mentioned that only my body had survived.

4 comments:

Amit Anshu said...

I am impressed.Really well thought and conceptualized...I could envision every scene as I was reading it..Seems to be be coming out of a Frank Miller movie..Very gothic and yet very touching !

Antriksh Satyarthi said...

ahh shucks.... :) m embarrassed... comparison with Frank Miller???? HE IS GOD.
His sin city series has always been my inspiration....

Amit Anshu said...

Wow,I knew Frank Miller would be your inspiration the moment I read it...

Actually,he'd be proud of it.Its really good Bhai:)

Aastha said...

Awesome work...
I could picture everything right infront of ma eyes...

Hey can you try writing something on the horror front???
Something like "The exorcism of Emily Rose" or "Drag me to hell".. meh would love to read it from you....

you cherished reader forever;)....

Yours Truly.

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