He woke up feeling as if a child does on a lazy Saturday morning, but with less gusto and more regret. Bright shards of light cut through the dusty windows of the ill-used attic. There are musty blue couches with esoteric stains, their origins lost to memory, a witness of events ancient. Tired and hungover he walks downstairs to the living room, the curtains shut tight and the happy colors contrasting greatly with the rather gloomy mood. The front door is uninviting. He decides to not leave for work today. He decides a lot of things today. He looks at the mirrors in the living room. The mirrors are still covered in thick black velvet and he knows why, he knows why they are covered in velvet.
Empty alcohol bottles are strewn across the mahogany colored floor, presumably they arrived there somehow, presumably there is a reason they are still there. He tries to remember back, a haze of beer obscures his memory. He remembers it in emotions: ecstasy, contentment, uncertainty, resentment, and then panic. Panic and frantic runs for the phone, slurred words into the receiver, and disapproving stares from disapproving people. This was last week.
He makes himself a cup of coffee. And then another. And then another. This wasn't one of his worse mornings...waking up in a fetal position on the bathroom floor, a pounding migraine. No, it was not one of those mornings, but it felt like it should have been. Guilt gets to them in all sorts of ways. Guilt is the heavy breathing behind the closet door, the painful memory of blood upon the floor, Guilt was the cold shower that did nothing to heal his sores. Guilt was upon him this one morning, it's ravenous jaws clenched tight, it's eyes clenched wide. He looks at the mirrors he cannot see one more time.
There is a fatal silence after that, the faint hum of the refrigerator ceases suddenly, and he looks around with concern, no, with panic. He reaches an epiphany and dives to the floor and grabs the bottles dumping them into the trash as fast as he can. Nothing happened that night he thinks, it was not his fault. It was the alcohol's and now the alcohol is gone. But Guilt was not in the bottles, no, Guilt was far more permeating than he could imagine. He did nothing wrong, he repeated to himself incessantly. He was the victim too. His best friend died. But there was nothing more pathetic, Guilt thought, then his shouts in the dark. His face went cold, his eyes bloodshot and superfluous. He stares squarely into the photo on the shelf, his friend's smile staring serenely back. But there is something wrong, something is not right with the photo.Then he realizes, how terrible, how vile, that vengeful smile was in the shade of Guilt's imminence.
Shocked by the conniving smile that once was so ubiquitous to his friend's face, he drops his coffee cup onto the bare floor cutting himself with the shattered remains as he scrambles to pick them up. How could he have been so blind to what they were doing. It was his friend's fault obviously, he wanted the drink. But Guilt is blind to justice and justice works hastily through Guilt. Inching right behind him, Guilt forces him into the study. In a daze, consumed by his rage, he begins to sob. He directs his primal tears at anyone who can hear. He doesn't know how to react, and for a split second he sees Guilt. He sees him in the cold glass case next to the desk, he sees Guilt in his faint reflection, those bloodshot eyes.
He tries to think things through, carefully he weighs the events of that night. But it is of no use, he can barely remember the date. Did he offer the drink to him? Or did he just get it out of the fridge? Guilt asks him these questions and more. In a dubious barrage of baseless accusations he finds himself not guilty. But Guilt coerces him, fictional memories, Guilt-fueled, crawl into his head. Obfuscated, he tries to decide which fiction he remembers of the fiction we call history is correct. Yes he thinks, yes I did offer him that drink. Now I remember it, he observes without any real recollection. But he clearly could have refused, he thinks out loud. He bargains with the reality he thought was true, those emotions he wrought condense into suspicion condensing all too quickly into a certainty of what had occurred that dreadful night. The study closes in, becomes claustrophobic--and then again! Guilt in the glass case, he is almost sure he saw that figure.
But this time he does nothing, he just stares, cool and composed into those bloodshot eyes.
CRASH!
The glass is shattered; his hand is bloodied. He doesn't know what to do now. His friend is gone, and all because of him. Guilt can reach him so closely, can almost taste his regret, but it's not enough. He thinks about his life, what he's done. Has all of it culminated in this: this one act of murder? Has all his years of freeloading and fun been a misleading dream? Is this his life now? These questions aggressively stalk his mind, tearing at the fabric of his being. There is an emptiness. A hole carved out of his myriad desires, the desire to go forward. What does it mean that the most profound effect his life has had on someone else's was their death...he wonders these and more. Guilt is greedily prepping it's meal with doubt and depression.
He reaches into the glass case, it's shattered pieces reminiscent of a shattered life, and hesitates. The brown box, phylacteryish in nature, draws his attention. But he hesitates, he won't take the lazy way out. All that will do is remove him from one Hell into one even more vociferous. But then he thinks again. Wouldn't it be true that he is already going to reach that fate? He reaches into the box and pulls out the handgun within. He looks at it, examines every inch and ponders every outcome of these next few moments. The study is ominous now, covered in the black void cast by Guilt's shadow. He looks at the gun and looks at his past. His fingers tremble on the trigger, the same fingers he used to murder someone in cold blood just nights before...
Then sound. Then silence.
Shot straight through Guilt's heart.
Submitted July 15, 2016 at 10:58AM by Eschatonist http://ift.tt/29LSypw shortstories
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