There’s these little moments in life, often quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, where you suddenly come to know the outcome of something that has yet to happen.
I’m not talking about having some sort of vision, a strong gut feeling, or even some kind of sixth sense, but something that’s incomprehensibly stronger and far more absolute. There’s this click inside you and suddenly you just know.
The moment I gathered the courage to ask my crush to prom, I knew I’d be turned down. The one time I forgot to lock my bike before heading to class I knew it wouldn’t be there upon my return. That one day back in highschool, when a classmate was trying to impress some girls with some dumb acrobatics and ended up landing face first on the concrete, even from a distance I knew he’d shattered a few teeth.
And of course, perhaps most notably, when I was still a kid I went to visit a relative that was suffering from a terminal illness. I stood in the doorway after we had said our goodbyes, and I knew then that the moment I’d step away from under the doorframe and lose him from my line of sight, that it would be the last time I’d see him alive.
Sometimes you just know, and these are the kinds of absolute truths that never leave any room or margin for errors, what-ifs or whatever else you’d like to call it.
I received a call early in the morning from my mother, informing me that my father had been the victim of a brutal assault.
When I finally reached the hospital and witnessed the state he’d been left in, it didn’t take long for something to click in me, only this time I wasn’t cursed with a single piece of knowledge, but two:
The first: my father would not live through the night.
The second: I was going to kill whoever was responsible.
What I did not know at the time was that both of these occurrences would end up taking place merely a few hours apart from each other. *** I’d gone to a concert the night before and ended up crashing at a friend’s place when I got the call. My mother tried to warn me ahead of time in regards to the severity of my father’s injuries, but no amount of words would’ve been enough to prepare me.
Fractured skull. Broken jaw and nose. Missing teeth. Severed tongue and tips of three fingers. Brokens ribs. Slashed tendons. Left hand smashed to a pulp, the right arm broken and bent at different angles. Burn marks on his scalp, deep lacerations to the neck, back and thighs.
The list went on, but this should be enough to give you an idea.
He was left unrecognizable even to me, his own son, to the point where I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him. Instead, my eyes sought refuge in one of the darkest folds of the covers draped over him, as I tried in vain to make sense of the senseless act that had left him that way.
He was in his late sixties.
They’ve lived in the area for over 30 years, and sure, every now and then you hear about the occasional mugging or robbery, but never something of this nature. Not to mention I couldn’t even begin to think of a reason why someone, anyone, would go to such an extent and inflict that kind of punishment on an ordinary, honest working man.
That’s when I knew I’d kill the ones responsible, sooner or later. To me, that was the exact moment I became a murderer, even though I had yet to commit the act itself.
It’s hard to explain despite its simplicity and my clarity of mind at the time. To seek them out and end them didn’t really feel like revenge, at least not entirely, but more like a natural progression, the next logical step that would inevitably lead to some kind of closure, even if it meant spending the rest of my life behind bars.
I didn’t know when or how I would go about it, but I would find them, and kill them, and that would probably be all I’d amount to in my life. I’d make the local news and be the talk of the town for a few weeks, perhaps even a month, only to be quickly forgotten and reduced to a murmur between nosy neighbors every now and then.
And I’d be ok with that, because I would have done what needed to be done, plain and simple.
Finding the assailants was now all I could think about, and that’s why I decided to walk away from my father. While he still had somewhat of a pulse at the time, in my mind he was already gone, and I couldn’t bring myself to just stand there, helpless, waiting for him to take his last breath.
The moment I took my first step away from him I sensed a small amount of force being exerted on my wrist; my father’s hand, the one that still retained a semblance of its original shape, was pinching the fabric of my jacket. Perhaps it was nothing more but a reflex or muscle spasm of sorts, whatever people call it, but I turned to him and grabbed his hand with my own. There was so much I wanted to say but I just couldn’t find any words, so I just squeezed his hand gently.
I noticed then a strange marking on his wrist, which could’ve easily gone unnoticed thanks to all the extensive bruising across his body. Small enough to go undetected by most, but I knew it was something that shouldn’t be there, as my father was never one to get inked, if that’s what that was.
It resembled the roman numeral for 1, or maybe it was just a capitalized “i”. I ran my fingers against it, knowing that it wouldn’t exactly bring me any answers. It didn’t seem recent nor did it look like it had been put there by the ones who attacked him. In the end it just seemed inconsequential, nothing but an unrelated oddity.
My mind went blank for a second when I felt a hand softly grabbing my shoulder. I turned around and found my mother there. *** She had been waiting outside so I could have a moment alone with my father. When we stepped back out into the hallway, she told me to just go home and rest, saying I’d already done enough and that she didn’t want me there to just watch my father waste away in his last hours. I’m not sure if the resilience she showed took me more by surprise than her request, but I obliged.
Before I headed out, she mentioned she overheard a witness telling the cops about a suspicious individual seen fleeing the area where my father was found, near an unfinished apartment complex, the construction of which was halted a couple of years ago. The perfect hot spot for youths to run wild.
“Red cap, red hoodie, and a red jersey thrown on stop with the number three embroidered in white”, she said, before we shared a hug. She promised she’d go back home soon enough.
I burned the information she gave in my mind, and repeated it over and over again all the way back to our home, right until the moment where I took the last flight of stairs that lead to our apartment floor, only to find an old woman in a nightgown standing at the very top, as if waiting for my arrival.
I knew who she was, one of the oldest tenants in the building, but I didn’t remember interacting with her all that much, safe for maybe a couple of instances in the past. The sight of her threw me off, without even having to take into account her attire.
Just as I began to make my way up again, she raised both of her hands, palms facing up, a clear invitation for me to take them into my own.
“I’m so sorry about your father”, she said.
I stopped halfway up the staircase for a brief moment, just long enough to process that somehow she knew about what had happened, then pushed on since I didn’t want to leave the poor woman hanging there. She grabbed my hands tightly as soon as I got up to her level, and I found that despite her old age and small stature, she had a formidable grip.
“You need to be strong”, she said. “For your father. For your mother.”
“I know”, I replied.
“Please, allow me to say a prayer” she continued.
I tried my best to not roll my eyes and keep my face from making a grimace, and just nodded silently in agreement. She was just being nice, after all, and I couldn’t bring myself to just say no and walk past her. I closed my eyes, mimicking her, and hoped that it would be a short one at the very least. They didn’t stay closed for long, as she began to whisper something in a language I couldn’t even begin to recognize.
Something felt off about it.
Maybe I was put off by the sound of her lips smacking as she recited those alien verses in a hushed tone. Maybe I was uncomfortable thanks to her long nails, digging deep into the skin of my hands as she vigorously held them, no doubt leaving a mark of their own. Perhaps it was the sudden change in the air around us, which led to an intrusive and unpleasant smell beginning to take hold and make my head throb.
Or it could’ve been the fact that I couldn’t detect any signs of sadness or sorrow on her face. Granted, I doubt that she knew my father all that well and cared all that much, the problem to me was that she seemed joyful, perhaps even a little too much.
It could’ve been any of those things, or a combination of all of them. I didn’t want to be rude, but I was growing desperate by the second, wanting to just break away and hole up back in my apartment. The longer I stood there just waiting for her to be done with it, the more anxious I got. Sweating, heart pounding, head throbbing.
Just as I was about to reach my absolute limit, she suddenly let go of my hands and opened her eyes, staring right into mine with a wide, unflinching gaze accompanied by a quivering smile. After a silent pause that went on for far too long, during which neither of us averted our eyes, she suddenly took off, patting me on the shoulder as she walked past me.
“Tomorrow is a new day”, she began to say as she made her way to the upper floor, where she resided. “New day for you. For me. For all of us.”
She turned to face me once more and smiled, then proceeded to walk up the stairs. I stood there for a while, alone and without knowing what to make of what had just happened, or if there even was a point to dwell on it. *** I thought getting back home would bring me some peace of mind, even if for just a little while, but I was wrong. The moment I closed the door behind me I became increasingly anxious and restless over time, almost to a nauseating degree, as if a cloud of rot hung over me wherever I went.
I couldn’t sleep, nor could I bring myself to turn on the tv. My mother wasn’t picking up my calls, and I certainly wasn’t going back to that hospital anytime soon. I thought about maybe calling a friend, but I didn’t want to be that guy and put others in an uncomfortable situation. What could they do, right? And besides, I very much doubt I’d have the strength to recount what exactly had been done to my father over the phone.
At that point the more I thought about anything, the harder it got for me to breathe, which only made the throbbing in my head worse. I opened the window of my bedroom to let some of the cold night air in, and if that didn’t do the trick, I’d just have to go out for a walk.
I looked out the window and breathed in.
The street below was shrouded in darkness for the most part, save for a few lamp posts in dire need of maintenance that provided just enough light to illuminate some corners and a handful of parked cars.
It was empty at this time of night, but something did get my attention eventually; a red mass of sorts, shambling, moving irregularly. It had to be a person, likely on their phone which would explain the awkward pacing back and forth.
I looked long enough to the point where my vision fully adjusted, and as soon as it did and I realized what it was that I was looking at, I ran out of the apartment without hesitation. I was already almost halfway through the staircase before I noticed I had brought a hammer with me, which I firmly gripped in my hand. I recognized it instantly since it had always been one of those few tools my father stubbornly refused to replace over the years. Yeah, I knew what it was, but I did not recall grabbing it from anywhere as I headed out.
I didn’t have time to think, and did not stop running until I was outside, nearly out of breath. The figure no longer was where I had last seen it, but thanks to the adrenaline that heightened my senses - or at least made it feel like it did - I happened to catch it in my peripheral vision, heading off into an adjacent street.
I slowed my pace when it came into view again, just so I could keep some distance for the time being as I let it all sink in. The closer I got to it, the more certain I was that this had to be the guy-
A red cap turned backwards, with what appeared to be a crude design of a fish on it.
A red hoodie, with a red jersey worn on top.
The number 3.
There was no way for me to be absolutely sure that he was the one, despite all the signs pointing to it and even as I found myself following him to the same exact area where my father was found.
My mind had been a total mess for a while, and it only kept on getting worse, like I was almost struggling to finish a full thought. My body however felt more like it was running on auto-pilot, undeterred as if fully convinced of what had to be done.
The streets had been empty wherever he went, wherever I followed, and if he had planned on meeting others at the unfinished complex around 9pm, he had been the first one to arrive.
I had him all to myself.
He stepped under a lamp post and appeared to be fiddling with his phone, facing away from me and totally oblivious to my presence, which I had made an effort to conceal despite everything.
For a brief moment I questioned myself as to what was about to happen, what it was that I intended to achieve by following him all the way up there. I looked at my right hand and saw my father’s hammer, still there, and just like that the man in front of me became the one thing I most despised and hated in all of existence.
Not only for what he had done, but also for dragging me all the way up to the location where my father had been brutalized and left to die like a dog.
My hand wouldn’t be letting go of the hammer as much as I tried to relax my grip, so instead I let go of myself.
I didn’t run, I just walked towards him.
I say I walked but even now I distinctly remember feeling this strange numbness, almost as if I had somehow been pushed into a backseat of my own self and was seeing it all unfold as a mere spectator.
Countless thoughts flashed in my mind with every step I took to close the distance between us.
“Why hasn’t he noticed me yet?”
“Am I really doing this?”
“Won’t someone else show up and stop me?”
“Am I really doing this?”
I raised the hammer as soon as I got within striking distance.
The man’s face slowly turned to meet mine.
I took a swing before our eyes met. *** I was on my knees when I came to my senses, under the pouring rain.
The hammer was gone, my arms were soaked in blood nearly up to my elbows, and the man’s body lay sprawled on the ground next to me, his entire skull caved into a muddied paste.
In the end, I had gone through with it, seemingly.
I had done it, just like I knew I would, but it didn’t feel over, and I didn’t know what to do or how to feel about it. I struggled to get up on my feet and then just started walking away from the scene, figuring that would have to suffice for the time being.
If I could just make it home, I thought, maybe everything would be alright. Maybe I’d finally manage to fall asleep and wake up the next day without any memory of what I had done.
I had barely made it out of one of the empty lots next to the complex when a couple beams of light shone right at me. I shielded my eyes, and through the light and rain it took me a while to realize that it was a cop car, likely out on a regular patrol.
My stomach sank. I meant it when I said I’d be fine with being put behind bars after accomplishing what I had to do. I wasn’t scared or afraid, but I thought I’d have more time. I never thought this would all happen so quickly, on the same day, the same night my father died. Just thinking about what the news would do to my mother made me sick.
I fell to my knees once more, my bloodied hands and arms in front of me, in plain view for all to see. I knew they’d seen me, I knew they’d approach me and immediately figure out that I’d been up to no good. I had no reason to resist, no reason to fight back or make it harder for everyone involved.
I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life, all I wanted was for all of it to be over, and so I just sat there, waiting for them to come and get me. The passenger’s car door opened and a man emerged from it. He looked in my direction for a few seconds, from a distance of about a 100ft or so, then proceeded to walk towards me before stopping halfway. He stared some more, walked back to the other side of the car and exchanged some words with the driver.
The headlights turned off, followed by the car’s engine. The man in the driver’s seat stepped out as well, and both of them then proceeded to walk up to me, casually and unbothered by the rain. I remained motionless as I stared at my hands covered in blood, resting on my lap. The policemen’s heavy duty boots eventually came into view, and I braced myself for a never-ending string of questions before I would inevitably be taken in.
One of them held out a hand towards me, offering to help me get back up on my feet. I wasn’t exactly expecting them to rough me up unnecessarily, but I’d figured they’d just manhandle me as they’re often instructed to do in certain situations, and that would be that.
I took his hand and found myself back up on my own two feet almost instantly, and the moment I did, both men removed their hats and took a knee, one at each of my sides. Each one gently grabbed the arm in front of them, and with a piece of cloth they had brought along, they proceeded to wipe the blood from my arms, hands and fingers, or as much as they could at least, with the rain providing a much needed assist.
I felt like crying, and maybe I did, wouldn’t have made a difference to me or them with how soaked I was by that point. I didn’t understand what they were up to, or why they hadn’t spoken a single word to me yet. I had questions of my own, but the weight of everything that had happened on that day up to that very moment must’ve built up. I felt like I had a golf ball lodged in my throat, just unable to speak or produce any words, only getting choked up when attempting to do so.
One of them finished cleaning my arm before the other, and promptly got up and went back to the car without a word or even a glance in my direction. The other cop got done shortly after as well, and as he turned away and put his hat back on before heading to their vehicle, he stopped.
“Tomorrow”, he said. “Almost tomorrow.”
The two of them then drove off into the night, leaving me alone once more. The next thing I remember, which could’ve happened either a few minutes after they left or a couple of hours for all I know, was feeling something buzzing in my pocket.
My phone, which I hadn’t realized until that very moment I had brought it along when I stormed out of our place. Caller ID read “Mom”.
I picked up the call without a second thought, and placed the phone next to my ear.
“Time to come home”, her voice said, as the rain and all other sounds around me suddenly cut off. *** The main entrance door of our apartment building opened before me while I still held the keys in my hand, even though there wasn’t anyone on the other side. I looked down and saw the stair steps going by, my feet hovering them as I slowly ascended up the staircase, as if reeled in by an invisible thread.
I couldn’t really tell whether I was awake or dreaming, could’ve been a mixture of both, but as I passed each floor I swear I could see each of the tenants in their respective apartments. Where they were, what they were doing, what they feared and what they loved.
The door to our apartment was wide open, inviting me back in and closing on its own without a sound behind my back. My mother was there, and welcomed me with a warm embrace, and just like that an indescribable weight had been lifted off my chest. I felt like I could cry for days.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes”, she replied. “Come, we need to talk.”
She grabbed me by the arm and led me into the living room, where she sat me down before taking a seat opposite from me.
“I want you to know that your father and I, we’ve always loved you, always” she began. “I want you to remember that, because I know how hard it will be for you to hear this next part-”
Her tone shifted slightly, and a feeling of uneasiness began to creep back in as I saw tears beginning to form around the corners of her eyes.
“You failed us,” she said. “All these years we let you run free, hoping you’d eventually do something with your life, but you never did. You didn’t amount to anything.”
Her words cut through me like a sharp blade cuts through silk. There wasn’t a physical wound, but I knew I was bleeding on the inside.
She shook her head.
“We weren’t upset that you didn’t become someone. We were upset because you never even bothered to try.”
I clutched my chest, and even though I was sitting down I felt my knees and overall spirit weakening. As much as I wanted to get away, I was physically incapable of doing so.
“We waited all this time and prayed”, she continued, “only to see our own child slowly wither over the years before we even got to see him blossom. You don’t know what that does to a parent.”
She wiped her tears and smiled.
“So we did what we had to do. As your parents and out of love, we kept praying that someone, something would hear us. And something did.”
My chest was pounding erratically as I tried to make sense of what my mother was trying to tell me, and why.
One of her hands reached from across the table to grab my own, but I was so out of it that my body didn’t even register it right away.
“You understand?” she asked, softly. “You father and I, we didn’t want to die before seeing you make a name for yourself. We waited and gave you plenty of time, but since you weren’t concerned with becoming someone, we found a way to make something out of you, even if that meant giving up our own lives for the process to work.”
I shot up from where I was sitting and away from her grasp, backing myself all the way up against the wall as a wave of cold, sweat-inducing, indescribable horror began to drown me from the inside.
She got up from her seat.
“I know, I know” she said, as she tried in vain to comfort me. “I know how you’re feeling right now. I know about all the things you’ve seen, and heard, and done today, because we’re the ones who made it happen. Everyone did their part, all for you.”
My hands covered my mouth as a response to the shock I was experiencing. It was impossible for me to think clearly, until an image popped up in my mind, likely triggered by something she had just said.
The man in the red jersey.
The man I killed.
I don’t know why the memory of it only resurfaced at that moment, but in that split second where he began to turn to face me, right before I struck him, it wasn’t surprise or fear that I saw on his face.
It was happiness.
He had been expecting me. Worse, he knew what his role would be, and still welcomed it gladly.
An image of my father as I had last seen him flashed through my mind. I looked at my mother.
“The man I killed-” I began to ask, “was he even the one that did it?”
“No. I was.”
Her answer came swiftly and without warning. Silence took hold of the room for a painful amount of time that seemed to just keep on stretching on and on.
She took a step towards me.
“Your father was the first step”, she said. “It had to be this way. All part of the process. He did struggle with it in the end but…”
She paused, during which time I remembered the moment my father somehow managed to cling to my jacket despite his critical condition. Did it mean something after all? Was it like an apology of sorts, or perhaps just a feeble attempt at trying to get me to stay by his side, and prevent me from setting off this chain of events? I couldn’t possibly know for sure, but the thought of it alone was enough to widen the gaping wound inside me, one I felt like it would probably never heal for as long as I lived.
As the tears began to stream down my face, my mother closed the gap between us, and I made no further effort to evade her, for a part of me still desperately wanted and needed some comforting.
Instead, she quickly placed something against my cheek, a thin vial of some sort, and collected some of my tears before I had enough time to realize what she had done.
“This will be necessary”, she commented as she looked at it, before turning to me once more.
“We’re nearly done.”
She placed a hand on my head.
Oblivion. *** My mother’s voice is what made me come back to my senses.
“I’m really sorry” she said, “but we don’t have a lot of time left together, and I need you awake for this last part.”
She rotated me in such a way that had me now facing our balcony. I realized then that I was sitting in a chair but unable to move, despite not being tied down in any way. It felt similar to sleep paralysis, my body mostly numb and unresponsive no matter how much I struggled.
Fitting, considering I was living a real nightmare.
“Once I’m gone,” she said, “there will be only one final step to go through, and you must be the one to do it-”
She pointed at my laptop, which had been brought in and placed in the living room.
“I want you to use your own words and share with the world all that’s happened, in whichever way you seem fit. The more eyes you get on it, the better, but ultimately that won’t matter as much as the act of sharing itself. Think of it as a prologue to the new holy book.”
She climbed on top of the railing of our balcony. I wanted to scream but couldn’t, something she likely sensed when she saw the look on my face.
“It’s okay”, she said, without an ounce of fear or doubt in her voice. “I’m sorry that it has to be this way, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. We’ve seen first hand what they can do. I always knew you were meant for greater things. We won’t be here to witness it, but when you wake up tomorrow everything will be different. It’ll be worth it.”
She peered down into the street, 8 stories below, then turned to face me one last time.
“Please, don’t forget that everything we did was out of love for you.”
She leaped out of the railing, arms outstretched to the sides, and disappeared from view. I shut my eyes as hard as I could, as if that would’ve somehow prevented me from hearing the sound she made as she landed on the tarmac.
Two things happened the moment her body connected to the ground. The first was that I could instantly move freely once again, and the second was the immediate cacophony of sounds that violently erupted from the street below.
The sight I saw when I looked out of the balcony was maddening. My mother’s body had perfectly landed at the very center of an enormous, complicated sigil that had been outlined across a considerable area. Surrounding her were different sets of people, some wearing robes, others nothing at all.
I stumbled back into the living room, unwilling to look at that incomprehensible scene any further. Before I knew it, I found myself typing out this whole thing mainly as a distraction, never with the actual intent of sending it out.
I needed something to do, something to distract myself if only momentarily, maybe in doing so I’d somehow manage to process what exactly had been done to me. I’d like to think that in the end I still had a choice, I could’ve just gone to bed and hoped to wake up in the morning and realize that this had all been a bad dream. I could’ve thrown this laptop or even myself out the window if it meant preventing whatever it was they were looking to achieve with this “ritual”, if that’s even the right name for it.
A part of me desperately wishes to believe that this is indeed something that I could’ve done. But then what exactly had my parents given up their lives for? What would’ve been the point to all of this?
I had never asked for anything of the sort, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like there was some truth to my mother’s words.
Maybe I never wanted the hassle and the work, and had been waiting all this time for someone else to come along and just make that choice for me.
I feel like I’ve been pushed into a corner, forced to ride it out if not for the sake of my parents’ last wishes. I do not know what tomorrow will bring me when I wake up.
I don’t know if I will still be me.
Whatever ends up happening, I just hope that my parents can finally be proud of me, wherever they are.