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I took another life today. I wish I could say it was uncommon, but that would make me a liar and a murderer. Thoughts of those I?ve slaughtered run constantly through the cold traces of my blackened, deluded mind. A constant thrumming reminder of the atrocities that lay at the proverbial doorstep of my blood-drenched hands. I yearn for salvation, for release from the horrors that haunt me in my dreams, though I deserve no such quarter. I could stop, but that in itself is a struggle, when the one thing that you are singularly best at, your defining characteristic of self worth is also the one thing that forces nightly anguish into your mind. There was a time I sought to be the best, a time when I would?ve pitted my skillset against any other out there. A time when I truly considered myself an artisan of death, a painter offering a rendition on a canvass he knows so well, except that canvas to me was my mark. Even the term mark is meant to preemptively justify the act that will take place, marks are not humans, they are not people like you or I. No, they are blemishes, stains on society meant to be removed by those of us with the mental fortitude, the well worn emotional calluses built up by years of practice and honing. They are simply marks, and I was put here to erase them, or so I told myself. As the years went by and the bodies piled up, I watched the world turn around me. However, I didn?t change with the times, I changed in far different ways. I watched as my boyish ego fell away, replaced by the grim cold demeanor of a man hardened by what he?s seen, a man of ice, devoid of recognizable emotion. At first, I became frightened of what I had become, constantly reminding myself that the orders I received were from those with the truest of intentions. Those gifted by the masses to lead them into a future of morality and justness for all those who want it. The only cost for those gifts was me, my sanity, my own beliefs, morals and ultimately, my own humanity. The first time I was betrayed by those above me and lead to take a life for no reason other than political motivation is also the first time I truly lost myself. I spent days in solitude afterwards, searching inwardly for the peace I had once possessed to return. It was gone, and it would not come back, yet I did not stop. It wasn't until I had become elderly did I finally give myself pause to reflect on some of my previous points of emotion. To reflect on a life lived in the shadows, a life of murder, a solitary life by definition, a life without love. The thoughts rushed at me like a whirlwind, assaulting every cavity of my mind until it culminated into one true fact, I was not a good man. The thought hit me like a lightning bolt, crashed into my very soul and stripped away every justification I had ever allowed myself. I was the very darkness in the world, the very tumor on the land, the very blemish I had so eagerly sought to remove. I was what was wrong with the world, and the world no more cared for me then I cared for myself. I packed up my blades after that final murder, after I had painted my final masterpiece. I left the heads of my former masters on the doorsteps of their partisan rivals, a warning of what could come should they choose a life of corruption. Now, I had only one last blemish to remove in this world and I would not need these blades to do it. Some say fire burns away your very soul when you die, that it removes the blackness from being entirely. As I covered myself in oil I tried to think of all that I had done, but I could not. It was as if the universe had finally given me reprieve. It would allow me to commit this last act in silence, for the first time in a long time I was putting good into the world. As I lit the match and thrust it downwards, there were no sounds, it was quiet. I did not scream, for I was not in agony, for the first time in a long time,all I felt was peace. -Jinichi- | |