kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"ASingleDeath.0"

words

I hope I can live with myself. I hope I can live.

My heart -- my heart is pounding, my fingers are shaking, I want to cry but I can't find that release. I've washed my hands thoroughly and I didn't even touch it -- touch it -- there are blood stains, I've washed the blood down the sink, off the hammer -- the hammer was the only thing I could think of to deal the blow... and the blow was so inept, I had to hit it again... and again... I was hitting it too softly, just barely splitting its skull and causing it unknowable agony.

My chest hurts.

My vision is swimming, I can't ... I can't .... five years ago I stuck to my principles and wouldn't kill an ant (me casa, su casa). Life taught me expediency -- I wanted my food to remain free of ants, I wanted to be able to walk without having them crawl all over me, into my ears and mouth.

There's a strong pain in my chest, my... my left, it hurts. Swimming think is.

I couldn't get it to leave, though -- it invaded my home and wouldn't leave no matter how badly I threatened it. It was drinking my water, eating my food. Hell, it was doing that so ineptly it scattered mess about the floor.

My god, it's still scratching at the box I put it in... just a simple cardboard box and it's scratching... its eyes are closed the neck is oddly shaped and now the spinal cord is all that's connecting it to this world and it's scratching at the box in a rhythmic gait...

It pissed all over the floor and hid under the couch when I came in... I grabbed a broom and tried to shove it out from under the couch and it wouldn't move, wouldn't budge... It *shat* there, scared out of its mind and the stench of that is still in my nostrils... I think it shat some more in the box. I need to throw out that box, just... stick it in the dumpster, I can't believe... can't believe!

I picked up the couch and then it ran... ran to the door but wouldn't leave. It just stood there cowering at the door pretending it wasn't there! But this wasn't the first time it had come in. I didn't think it could learn not to come back, and I couldn't get it to exit the fucking door in any case! It wasn't gone! Why wasn't it gone?

I had to kill it. I want to my workroom and got a hammer -- a small hammer, but it was all I could find. Over and over I visualized in my mind the hammer falling and cracking its skull and not moving... but that's not what happened.

The *thud* was *wet*. I didn't hit it hard enough, barely wounded it... but it was playing possum, wouldn't move. I knew it was alive, though -- I wasn't going to try to pick it up because then it would bite me and then I'd have to go get rabies shots and who knows what else. I killed it because I didn't want to get rabies shots. I killed it, though not on the first blow. Nor the second. I hit it over and over again and finally ... didn't even feel the crack, so much as saw the blood splatter.

My ears are ringing -- it's loud, they hurt, my ears hurt from the ringing...

I washed off the hammer in the sink and the blood ran down like rain, ran down like rain down the drain the blood ran and all I could think of was Hamlet... or was it Macbeth? All I could think of was Shakespeare and I thought to myself -- what if it's not dead? I can't splatter blood all over everything. I already have to clean up its piss and shit and the food and water and put the couch back down and... my god! So I went and got a roll of toilet paper and ... and it was moving a little when I got back to it so I hit it a couple more times until I thought it wasn't going to attack me and I picked it up and dropped it in a box and... and then I layered a couple layers of toilet paper over its head and whacked it hard... hard, it was so hard to hit it hard, what's.... why? why was it so hard to do... the harder I hit it the cleaner its end would be and that was something I desired... to make my killing as painless as possible... but I raised my hand high and brought it down hard, brought down the flat of the hammer for more surface area and its neck went to an odd angle and the eyes closed and its limbs began twitching, twitching loudly against the sides of the box.

I washed off the hammer again.

I have to dispose of the body. I want to be sick, I want to cry, why, why can I not? My nose is full of the stench of shit and death and fear and sweat. My god.

In its face I saw mine, and I felt the hammer falling... I felt the hammer falling... Is it scratching, still? The ringing in my ears is constant now...