"A  N  D     Y  O  U    L  E  F  T  .   .   .  "
                                
  The rain falls in steady streams, hitting the saturated pavement in a white noise that clouds my feverish
  thoughts. The sound reminds me of stir-fry, brings visions of our shared meals from the dusty depths of
  my memory. The taillights of your cab paint red streaks on the asphalt, eclipsing the scattered orange
  reflections of the streetlights as the meter ticks the mounting distance between us. If this were a drama,
  or some tragic vid-flick, I'd fall to my knees in the rain and implore the heavens for an answer; instead
  I stand with head bowed, realistically, the cloudy water staining my white silk shirt. The grief will settle
  through my deadened mind in a few hours; the anger will set in tomorrow. For the moment I stare numbly
  at the receding red dots, listen to the fading swish of tires through water, feel the wind of departure die
  about my bare face and hands.
  
  Memories strobe in my mind, as if my life were flashing before my eyes. The hot sake that took the cold
  out of our apartment. Your arms embracing me beneath my blazer, knowingly avoiding the hardware. The
  sun that shone on the rare visits to the mountains, away from the fog and rain of the coast. The only times
  worth remembering, the only times worth living; the times that make me address my thoughts to you still,
  now that you are cramming the miles between us.
  Tires screech far away as the weather almost claims another victim, and my tortured ears ring with the
  piercing sound, like they did with your screams in those fights that I'd thought so trivial. I'd agree to
  anything at those times, unsure of what I had done or how you had changed, only wanting to put things
  right, to put them back the way they were. Back when we were happy. Was the happiness ever truly there,
  or has it been enhanced in comparison to the Now, like the rest of my memories?
  More questions. Fewer answers. Cold water streams down my ribs, falls down my legs, chills me deeper
  than I thought possible. My eyes take in the greyed buildings, the gleaming cars, the dark forms running
  to shelter, yet my mind is as apathetic as it was originally, long ago. I'd thought that once I left that state,
  the invulnerable reckless carelessness that made me successful, there'd be no going back. So little did I
  know then. A life given meaning is a hold that grounds one in a cautious reality; a life having lost meaning
  is like the rope that breaks on a rock-climber: unwanted, bitterly resented, and rapidly receding.
  Without thinking, I head inside, towards the warm and thick darkness, away from the synthetic light of
  the cold and wet streets. The move is so self-preservative that it surprises me--at least until I dig the bottle
  of Bushmill's from deep within the cupboard. Then I understand the drive that moves my numbed body,
  and I sit on the floor in the living room with a tumbler of ice and whiskey, loping down the path to
  amnesia.
  
  Half a bottle later I can still see, still feel, still think. Such are the times in the late hours, when cold
  calamity proves more sobering than any pill or meal. Amber fire rolls along my tongue as I stare steadily
  at the red slits of light on the stereo, mesmerized by their brilliant color and the rather appropriate
  progressions of the Howlin' Wolf disc. It is now, as I listen to another describing my pain, as my
  self-destructive side enthusiastically makes up for lost time, that the anger hits me--a little early, but
  welcome all the same.
  
  The anger is more at myself than you. I feel so stupid, so gullible, so...amateur. A rookie, that's me.
  Actually believing someone when they said they cared about me, as if I haven't had the lesson beaten into
  my brain on a number of occasions. I suppose I'm just a slow learner. Will I ever be able to go through
  this again?
  I pour more whiskey into the glass, gaze at the amber abstraction before taking a deep swallow. It's a
  mellow burn, dulled by the repeated exposure this evening, a deadening of the nerves that parallels the
  deadening of my psyche. All of my blissful intoxicants are failing me, abandoning me in a cold, harsh,
  dripping reality whose escapes are more perilous than its dangers.
  
  A sound, behind me, a soft scraping of cloth on carpet that I should have caught long earlier. I curse
  silently; how long have I been sitting here, cross-legged, musing on the debasements of reality?
  It's too late now, at any rate. I hear the soft spit of an air-gun as I start to react, my timing a few seconds
  off, from whiskey or depression or just general lifestyle. At any rate, the neural inhibtor being introduced
  into my spinal cord quickly eliminates any further action on my part. From here, my part is a passive role.
  All in all, I have to admire the shot. Not an easy one, the seventh vertebrae down, subduing all voluntary
  muscular movement from the neck down: a little higher, and my eyes'd glaze over; a little lower, and my
  arms would be useful. Not one guy in a thousand could make the shot, even with a scope and full daylight;
  this was a pistol in the dark. Very professional. Completely incapacitated, I am still suitable for
  questioning.
     "You're getting soft." The voice comes from behind me, and as my senses get heightened by
  adrenalin I can hear the soft footfalls as by killer-to-be walks into my field of vision. I can feel carpet
  against my skull; I realize that I have fallen onto my side with the impact of the needle, and suddenly I
  have an explanation for why the room looks funny. I thought some of the drug had worked its way up my
  cartoid.
     "Been soft a while," I croak, having to breathe the words rather than speak them, due to the cold
  numbness in my chest.
  He squats beside me, a dark-haired man in a stylish charcoal suit, nothing reflective on him, eyes thin dark
  orbs that track the room silently. He retrieves the tumbler from where I dropped it, even manages to save
  a few cubes, then fills it and takes a sip, exhaling appreciatively. He may kill me, but at least he has good
  taste.
     "What happened?" he asks, tipping the tumbler against my lips. A bit of the whiskey trails down
  my cheek, flows down my neck in a cold trickle that I suddenly can no longer feel. I swallow slowly, as
  appreciative of his style as he is of my liquor. He reminds me of me, so long ago..."You were the best,
  top of the field, a few years ago. You had your choice of any job, any pay." He takes another swallow of
  whiskey. "You were my mentor, in a way, you know. I followed all of your exploits in the paper, studied
  the newsreels, did my best to become like you. I based my life on you. What happened? How'd you lose
  it?" He grips me by the shoulders, lifting me to lean my back against a beige wall, then tilts the glass to
  my lips again, allowing me a swallow to fuel my tongue.
  I wonder whether to explain, then decide that it is better to get it off my chest. Confession is, after all,
  good for the soul. Or whatever you've got in its place. "It's hard to explain, unless you've been there,"
  I begin. "And I can tell, if you've based your life on mine, that you haven't." I pause, swallow, my mouth
  dry with a tension that should be fear. I know I will not have time to ponder why I am so calm. He gives
  me another sip of Bushmill's, then drains the glass and refills it as I continue. "You can be the best, the
  most invulnerable, the most wealthy, the very baddest. All of a sudden, it makes no difference. The
  macabre joy that has sustained you through life suddenly wears off, and you find yourself alone, worthless,
  a trivial segment of society bound to disappear soundlessly, unnoticed as your deeds finally catch up with
  you in the form of a bullet or a blade." I stop here, trying to gather my chaotic thoughts into some
  coherency, but the last bit of order stomped out of my life hours ago. "You don't realize all of this, of
  course, until you are in a position to notice the difference. 'Till then, you just feel hollow, emotionless,
  inhuman."
  I can see he is nodding knowingly, and for a moment we catch eyes. I hold his gaze, knowing him better
  than I have known anyone else in my rapidly terminating life, this alien prodigy that holds my future in
  his hands. We share a drink over that gaze, no words spoken. I draw a breath and continue.
     "Soon you meet someone. They're wrong, but you feel this drive to make it work, the drive of
  the lonely, the desperate. The inhuman. It ends, harshly, reinforcing the anger you have felt your whole
  life, and you end up a shade more bitter that you were at the beginning. Yet you still feel the void, the
  loneliness, the drive to be whole, and so you keep searching. A few more come and go, none of them
  working out. And finally, when you are so bitter that you realize there is no course for you to take but
  inhumanity, you come across It. The big one. The one you'd always dreamed was out there, but had
  convinced yourself was a false hope. Suddenly you're immersed in an area in which you are totally
  incompetent; you are feeling emotions you have never felt, experiencing things you never thought possible.
  You place yourself totally in the hands of the other, hoping to make it through, and the sheer weight of
  this trust creates a bond stronger than you've ever felt." I take another drink as the glass is pressed against
  my dry lips. 
     "Now you have a reason for living, you feel whole, your  entire outlook on the world has
  changed. No longer do you have the anger, the bitterness which caused you to lash out at the world so
  callously. Suddenly everything in life has meaning and worth, and before you know it, you are happy. This
  is a lot more disorienting than it is alleged to be." I stopped, sure I was going nowhere. "Are you
  following me?" I asked uncertainly, my voice growing hoarse with the effort of talking.
  He nods, a wistful look on his face. "I've thought as you describe," he remarks, voice light and thin in
  the cold air of the dark room. "And still do. I've always believed--always had to believe-- that such lives
  are not possible for those like you or I."
  He holds out the whiskey, and I accept another swallow. "That's the problem," I tell him. "They're not.
  You see, all this time you are changing, becoming something new, something you never thought you could
  be. It's also something you are not sure you can handle, something you once looked down on. By the end
  of this transition, you are in an uncomfortable position, a person you no longer recognize."
     "I...begin to see the problem," he tells me earnestly, drawing forth a fine matte 10mm and
  checking the action.
  I ignore the passive threat, having had such nervous habits at times. "The problem is, this person you've
  found--this woman or this man--doesn't recognize you either. They may not have had the same background
  as you, or if so, they may not have changed in the same direction. The next thing you know, it's all fights
  and tears and long nights trying to convince the police to let you into your own house." He drinks soberly,
  I do the same as soon as he lets me.
  "When it's finally over, the feeling is gone. The new you has been destroyed, along with the old one. You
  are alone, broken, unable to draw enough breath to sustain you. Everything you had has been taken from
  you, and the end approaches quickly." I catch his eye meaningfully. "In one way or another."
     "You are not the bearer of good news," he notices.
     "Look who's talking," I can't resist, maybe from the alcohol. "But it's true. People like you and
  me, who've surrendered our humanity, can never go back. We're trapped in a cycle of bitterness which
  we created but which we cannot end. In the end, it boils down to the destruction of a relationship, a career,
  a life." I look at him seriously, holding his thin dark eyes with my own. "Take advice from me, don't do
  it. There is only one way for you to tread, and it is not that of the common man. Stick to your hollow,
  unsatisfying goals, make whatever mark on history that you can, then if you survive, retire to an some
  island where you will be too old and drunk to care what life makes of you. Believe me, the alternatives
  are far worse."
     "It would appear to be so," he murmers, giving me an appraising look. "You are not in a position
  to be envied."
     "Who was it?" I must know.
     "Hmm?" He doesn't appear to understand, or perhaps he is just trying to be coy.
     "Who hired you? Who put out the contract?" It pains me to be so blunt, so obvious, but my
  choices are rather limited.
     "You know I can't tell you," he admonishes slowly, pouring the last of my whiskey into the
  tumbler.
     "Hell, I'm dying anyways. Satisfy one question. Wouldn't you like the same?"
  He stands, paces, appears to give the matter some thought. "I don't know. Perhaps, in your case, I would.
  Perhaps not." He looks off to the side for a moment, then turns back to me. "Ospensci. You killed his
  father, ten years back. He's established a power base, making his move. This is more a show of force than
  revenge."
  Show of force, I laugh inwardly. Kicking a man when he's down. "Goddamn North American bastards,"
  I spit with an easy smile. "Never known when to quit. He'll be taken out within a month."
  He smiles. "What I figured, too. I'm not choosing sides in this; it's a just a job. The pay's good."
  Just a job. How many times had I used that line, to justify my actions to others or, even worse, myself?
  "Just a job..." I mutter silently. I think he doesn't hear me, which is probably for the best.
     "So," he stalls, turning away from me slightly, and I slowly reconcile me with myself. Nobody
  else out there anyway, really....
  He turns towards me, at least doing the courtesy of facing me with the news. "I promised to be through
  by dawn. How would you like it?"
     "That ten of yours looks pretty handy," I tell him with no real hesitation. Believe me, a bullet is
  one of the best ways to go. I know.
     "You sure you wouldn't prefer poison or a blade? I have both," he informs me this with a faint
  trace of pride. Service with a smile. I wonder with the humor of the damned if he expects me to leave a
  tip.
     "I'm sure." He hands me the tumbler. "Finish it," he offers generously, loading a round into the
  chamber of his Swiss pistol. I oblige, and he even gives me time to savor the fiery liquid. 
  I exhale, the fumes soaking up to my nostrils in a hot, dense cloud. "Temple, please." The blood is going
  to ruin my silk shirt.
  He complies, pressing the cold steel barrel just to the side of my right eye, so that looming in my
  peripheral vision is the blurred pinkish tan of his finger shrouded slightly by the trigger guard. "I thank
  you for the advice," he tells me succinctly. "I enjoyed our conversation." I swallow, nod slightly, then
  wait. It strikes me that I do not know his name, but in a few moments this triviality will be of no
  consequence.
     "Goodbye," the gunman says softly, and it is almost an apology.
  And I see his finger gently draw back
  
  
  
  
  
  
                           {The End}