The gun was in my hand and it was pointed at the culprit. He shivered and writhed like an earthworm that had been douched with salt, wriggling helplessly on the floor. He had made too many bad decisions. He was snide, boastful, self-centered and self righteous in all his bitter, misguided glory. There was no place in this world for a disgusting, maniacal cretin like him. I was about to pull the trigger when I stopped and thought for a moment. If I do this now, how different am I from him? By judging him and calling him names, how exactly does it separate me from him? What did he do wrong that makes me want to kill him? What did I do right that gives me the privilege of pulling the trigger?
I knew of him since we were 5. We were probably the same age but somehow he seemed much older and wiser, always giving advice, telling me what to do but it was only later I realized that when the time came to act, he was nowhere around. He would disappear like a pigeon in a magician’s cage, leaving me at a loss of words. We would rehearse together but when the time came to speak, he stood in silence, watching me make a fool of myself. He assured me that I was right when everyone around me thought I was wrong. He didn’t give me logic and yet what he said made so much sense. Despite his flaws and what he did to me, we became good friends once we grew older. He was calm, he was confident. He was nothing like me. We were binary opposites and maybe that’s the reason why we got along despite the nature of our friendship.
Now that I think of it, was it really friendship? Were we ever that close? He knew everything about me and I barely knew him at all. He just sprung up one day out of the darkness and his presence grew stronger every day. He became an inseparable entity in my life. He was there when my parents died. He was there with me during the riots when those men were killing each other. If he had not told me to say what I did, we both would have been dead by now. In the loneliness of the orphanage, it wasn’t really bad having him around. Despite the loathing, his presence was somewhat comforting. He became my best friend and my worst enemy. Was that even possible? Once we got out of the orphanage, his voice only seemed to get louder. The lashings were way more brutal than before. He would successful beat me down to a pile of nothing. At the end of the day, I was face down on my bed, bruised with my self-esteem and confidence lost somewhere underneath the scabs of my conscience.
Did I have to take that sort of abuse from anyone? Every time I took this train of thought, he would boastfully remind me of the times he has stood by me. The times he was there when no one else was around. He would talk about how he raised me and helped me. After hearing those words, my inclination to do anything would cease to exist and a moment later he would beat me around for thinking that way, making me feel like it was my fault and I deserved to be hammered like a nail that stuck out. Deep down, I knew I didn’t deserve this and yet I let it happen to me again and again. His words grew fierce, he grew stronger and I drifted further into the sea of helplessness. I couldn’t take it anymore and that’s when I retaliated.
I guess even the strongest of men can be brought down to their knees when a gun is pointed at them. I had taken out all my pent up frustration and now the only thing left to do was pull the trigger. Thinking of all those times we spent together, was it really his fault? He just did the talking and lashing but was it really his fault? It was me. I was responsible for it just as much as he was. I let it continue. I let him do and say those horrible things to me. In the end, it was my fault. So I pointed the gun at the only person who was responsible and pulled the trigger. We both died.
The Void Of Nothingness 