My Gift

Word count: 363
Notes/Warnings: None.


I have a special gift. A rare gift. A true calling.

I like to kill.

Though, perhaps like is too tame a word for how I feel about ending a life. I mean, I like pizza. I like aquariums. I like playing solitaire. I like doing the Times crossword puzzle in ink. But killing . . . stopping what has been started . . . that is my art.

When I feel the flow—when I’m in the Zone—I am become Death, itself. I cease to be for a span, and there is only life . . . ending.

My hands are red with the blood of hundreds. Each life I take, each soul I shuffle lose the mortal coil makes me stronger. I kill indiscriminately and at will. I am greater than Dahmer, Gacy, Manson, and Bundy combined. They are neophytes . . . anomalies driven not to kill for Death’s sake, but rabid dogs with dark desires that made killing a mere necessity. They let those desires make them crazy.

And sloppy.

But for someone working only with native cunning and bare hands, I’ve done well for myself. I’ve yet to be caught, or even suspected by the authorities. I am the one they never see coming. I am a shadow whose only purpose and desire is to be the end of all things.

And why, you may be wondering, am I bothering to tell you this? Why am I prolonging your anguish by engaging in what must seem like a self-aggrandizing monologue?

Simple: I’m telling you nothing more or less than I’ve told all the others. I am coming. When you get to the other side, if such a place exists, tell them I’m coming. They are not safe. Death holds sway over all and I am Death. I will make a graveyard of Heaven and Hell.

Tell them I’m coming. You’ll do that for me, won’t you? Tell them that I’m coming, bearing my gift, to create of their hallowed places a carnival of red delights that will last for eternity . . . or until all of Heaven and Hell are emptied and blessed silence has consumed all.

Tell them Death—true and eternal Death—is coming. I will walk among them and there will be no quarter given whatsoever.

Now . . . stop struggling and hold. Still.

END