(no subject)
Quiet & Smooth
As he ran, Joshua's tie flapped against his chest, his heart pounded. His legs burned, sending shooting waves of pain up his body. When he looked over his shoulder in the distance he saw his pursuer, a shadow of a man. Joshua took a turn into an alley and leaped over the trash can he found directly in his way. His knee buckled, but he kept pushing. To his left, a few yards ahead, he saw a non-descript black door. He threw himself at it, surprised as it opened.
He found himself thrown into a small room, as his eyes adjusted to the stark contrast between the light sunny day and the dark place where he now found himself, he realized he was on a landing, three steps below the actual room. He paused for a second, contemplating, then proceeded cautiously up the stairs. He then faced into a dark, hazy room. There were mirrors covering the top half of each wall. There was a bar to his right with five stools, four occupied. The men at the bar all sat in the same pose, hunched, looking into their drinks, still. Joshua noted the tall bartender looking directly at him. He also noted the booths along the rest of the walls, only one of which were occupied. Joshua sat himself at the bar.
"Vodka straight." His own voice sounded raspy in this dark room.
The barkeep placed the shot down in front of him, but Joshua knocked it back then ordered another. After swallowing his second drink, he ordered two scotch and sodas, one for him, and one for his guest that was to show up soon. He waited, staring hopefully at the bartender, praying for the bartender to be wise and knowing. He prayed for a simple escape, but the liquor started to hit him, so he just put his head down and started nursing his scotch.
The bar was silent, and as Joshua turned his attention to the only people in the place who weren't at the bar. A man and a woman sat off to his left in a semi-circular booth, around a small circular table. He also noticed the bar was lit only by a few small table lamps and dim overhead lights.
Joshua paid special attention to the woman. She was beautiful in a small black dress that accentuated her green eyes. Vivid and alive, they seemed out of place in this hazy, dark bar.
I can feel your heart beat.
Joshua hadn't heard that voice in years. The sexy, distinctly feminine timbre of it reached through the gap of time and tied his stomach in knots. It must be her eyes, he decided, they look exactly like… He stopped in his train of thought, caught in a moment of reflection.
* * *
She pulled her body against Joshua.
"I can feel your heart beat."
He paused, unsure of what to say. "Maybe this was a bad idea."
She pulled herself closer, her voice sounded quiet and smooth, "Who are you?"
With no idea what to do, he started to rise out of their embrace and put his clothing back on.
"Please, tell me, please," she pleaded, crying.
"It's better that I leave now." He pulled his tie up against his neck. "I can't tell you anything, because that makes you a part of it."
"Tell me something, anything, something about you. Please."
"I tell you one thing, I have to tell you everything."
"Please Joshua, I love you, but I don't know you."
"Adele… I've done very bad things. Things that could make you …not love me." He choked back the memories that came flooding back to him.
"What have you done?" she screamed. "Please, stop with the god damn word games. What have you done?"
He paused, shaking; "I've killed people Adele, for money."
She stared. She had stopped crying, but this was worse. Her beautiful green eyes cut through him like a dagger. They tore at his heart and something settled in his stomach. It felt like a weight had been dropped down his throat, and now he had to tell her everything. It rushed out, words tumbling over each other; his entrance into the military, his psyche profile, his discharge, his work. His entire life now seemed worthless. When he was done he swallowed hard.
"Which is why it's better if I don't ever see you. There are too many horrible things that I've done for me to ever be truly happy."
She stared at him, and then rushed towards him. She kissed him, her force reaching down inside him.
"You're not evil." She gasped, in between kisses. "You're not evil because of the way you've been to me. I can't believe that you're evil. You're misguided, but I can help you. Let me take this from you."
S
o he let her. He let her kiss his pain away from him; he let himself get lost in her, for a while, that was enough. Even he started to believe he was changing. No more jobs, no more killing, just her, and every night they would get lost inside each other, and every morning, they would be reborn.
They began to build, from that night. Day by day, things would be different, things would change. But he still kept his equipment in a cabinet in their house. It was their house now too. After two months, they had both moved into a house for both of them, to start fresh. He even started to feel happy. By the sixth month of living together, he felt looser, he got a job, and they vowed not to touch the money from his previous life unless they absolutely had to. He had started to become this new person, this regular man. Then it all went to hell.
He came home one night, loosening his tie as he walked up the stairs to their house. He unlocked the door and pushed it open as he bent down to pick up a newspaper. He heard the "thwap" of a bullet hitting the wooden post behind him. He immediately rolled sideways out of the doorway. There was a second shot was out of frustration, but he charged into the house, thinking only of Adele. He entered the kitchen and saw two things in the matter of a second.
The first was that Adele was on the floor, there was a dark pool forming around her upper body, and the front of her shirt was drenched in blood. The second was the presence two men dressed in black pointing silenced pistols at him. He instantly reverted back to the way he was 14 months previous, before that night with Adele.
He charged at the man on the left, grabbing a knife off the kitchen table, knocking him down and dispatching him with the knife. After, he rolled over and hit the other man in the legs, toppling him. He scuffled with the man for a few seconds, both on the ground, but Joshua got the upper hand and snapped the other man's neck, he lay limp in Joshua's arms.
He let go of the corpse and immediately turned to Adele. She was dead; they had shot her in the chest, directly over her heart. At first he felt nothing, then slowly, like the cold, a rage started to fill him. It started out in his hands, the ones that had taken the lives of two men recently, and many more before. His arms flexed involuntarily, the rage then moved to his torso, causing his shoulders to stiffen. After this the rage moved upward and downward simultaneously, he let loose a gut-wrenching scream as his legs buckled, unable to handle the weight.
It had been five months since then. He had checked the pockets of the men; one of them had a signed contract offering five-hundred thousand dollars for his life. The people who had taken out the contract are the same people that used to employ Joshua after the military. Joshua took his equipment, fixed his wounds, burned the house, and moved to Boston, where the boss lived. They hadn't found him yet, but he had been waiting, planning. He hadn't yet felt sadness, the hate had lasted him five months, and it would last as long as he needed it to. He had nothing anymore; he lived in a squalid apartment next to two junkies who didn't bother him. It was one of the few places that they wouldn't look. He had the boss' routine down by now; he planned to take him out soon. Get the job done, and move back into obscurity. He didn't know what he would do after, but he did know that this had to be done.
He decided on a day for action. He had planned it out well; the boss lived in a mansion with a basement side entrance. He could sneak in the basement unnoticed and move up through the house as the boss was sleeping, taking out the three guards on the way. Joshua was the best there had been; he could pull this off.
Joshua was ready. He holstered his pistol and started toward the door. Out of nowhere Adele's voice resonated through out him.
Don't kill, ever again, under any circumstances. That would mean I've failed, and I just couldn't stand that; I'd rather die. I'd rather you die.
She had said it one night, while they lay together, breathing each other in, being cleansed. In that moment, he remembered feelings, and the rage was no longer substantial. He didn't buckle, he didn't cry, he just stopped, breathing memories of her. He could almost feel her, almost, and right then: that was enough.
He heard a creak, and his eyes shot open. The doorknob was moving. Joshua took out his gun and waited. The door swung open and a man he did not recognize was pointing a gun at his head. Joshua ducked, and shot the first man in the chest twice. A second man came through the door and got a shot into Joshua's leg before Joshua hit him three times in the chest. Finally a gun came around the corner and shot twice, both missing Joshua. Joshua rolled into the doorway and shot the boss once in the arm, and then his gun jammed. Joshua screamed and ran out the doorway, knocking the boss over and feeling bullets fly by him as he ran out of the building.
* * *
That was how Joshua found himself here, sitting in this bar, unarmed and ready to die. He had no more rage, or motivation left in him. He'd failed Adele, he'd failed his training, and he had nothing left.
His leg hurt from running, and he realized this is the first time he'd really felt this sort of pain. Before it was always a pain mixed with certain strength, proof that he could take whatever the world threw at him. Now it was just pain, ugly and open for everyone to see.
Idly, and somewhat drunk, he noticed the bar was empty now, the couple had moved away some time ago, and the other men at the bar had moved on during Joshua's recollection. The bartender was nowhere in sight, Joshua figured he had gone into the back of the bar to get something. He turned to see a figure standing at the top of the steps, staring at him.
"Hello Joshua."
Joshua instantly sobered up. The figure was the boss. Almost the exact same as Joshua, peak physical condition, bland features, except his wound was in the shoulder, and he held a pistol loosely in his left hand.
"Boss, Hello. Would you like a drink?" Joshua said, motioning to the other scotch.
"Joshua, how nice of you."
"Yeah, well…"
"So you've given up, I see. Or is this some sort of odd trap?"
"No, no trap. I'm just keeping a promise."
"All right, I hope you don't mind if I keep this gun on you."
"Oh, by all means." Joshua felt no desire to kill this man, his brother, his comrade. "Out of mere curiosity, what the hell did you do with the bartender?"
"Oh, nothing, he's just downstairs until we're done." He paused,"You know why I had to do this."
"Yes, I understand. That doesn't mean it's justified."
"Oh I know. But really, when one kills people for a living, justification isn't necessary, now is it Josh?"
"No."
"Josh, I want you to listen to me very closely. Because this is going to be the last thing you hear now, and I want you to know this before I kill you."
"I can hear you," Joshua said, standing up to face Michael, who was already standing.
"Josh, this isn't like the movies. The bad guy wins, and he wins often, because there are so few good men, that, well, it's easy." He sipped his drink. "I want you to have a full understanding, though, of where you lay on this little line of good and evil. You are not good, just because some little French girl fell in love with you; you still killed men, and women, for no reason that any normal person would consider 'good.' Do you remember Paris?"
Joshua looked Michael in the eye, but he didn't see him. Joshua began to see Paris. Joshua had killed a family of three, a man, a wife, and a daughter. He still felt nothing for them; he never felt for them.
"Think of this not as murder, but as martyrdom. You're dying for your sins. You've killed many people, you deserve this. I hope you enjoyed your love though, while it lasted."
Joshua felt water flowing into his abdomen, and his entire body went cold. His bones had apparently turned to ice, freezing him from the inside. His brother's voice came to him as if through static, the words heavy, struggling.
"Now you'll die slowly, Joshua, for your sins."
Joshua saw his brother's face receding out of sight, replaced only by a severe white light. Adele's voice called to him from the light, and suddenly Joshua saw her floating above him, mystical and mythic. She was beautiful, yet something harsh resided in her face.
"Joshua," she spoke "Joshua, you've failed me. I've moved on, Joshua. There are many people here now, Joshua, here with me, and they told me things about you, horrible things, Joshua, horrible things."
His lips moved, but no sound emerged. His heart felt a pang of misery, worse than when he had held her in his arms after her death. This was the pain of rejection. He floated ever downward, reaching out for her.
"Adele…"
"No, Joshua. You'll never see me again Joshua. Stay with this misery now; it is yours forever."
Her face floated above her, cruel and beautiful, as he descended, downward, ever downward…
"Feel this, Joshua. This is what you deserve, what you have caused."
Still reaching for her, he finally collapsed into darkness.
As he ran, Joshua's tie flapped against his chest, his heart pounded. His legs burned, sending shooting waves of pain up his body. When he looked over his shoulder in the distance he saw his pursuer, a shadow of a man. Joshua took a turn into an alley and leaped over the trash can he found directly in his way. His knee buckled, but he kept pushing. To his left, a few yards ahead, he saw a non-descript black door. He threw himself at it, surprised as it opened.
He found himself thrown into a small room, as his eyes adjusted to the stark contrast between the light sunny day and the dark place where he now found himself, he realized he was on a landing, three steps below the actual room. He paused for a second, contemplating, then proceeded cautiously up the stairs. He then faced into a dark, hazy room. There were mirrors covering the top half of each wall. There was a bar to his right with five stools, four occupied. The men at the bar all sat in the same pose, hunched, looking into their drinks, still. Joshua noted the tall bartender looking directly at him. He also noted the booths along the rest of the walls, only one of which were occupied. Joshua sat himself at the bar.
"Vodka straight." His own voice sounded raspy in this dark room.
The barkeep placed the shot down in front of him, but Joshua knocked it back then ordered another. After swallowing his second drink, he ordered two scotch and sodas, one for him, and one for his guest that was to show up soon. He waited, staring hopefully at the bartender, praying for the bartender to be wise and knowing. He prayed for a simple escape, but the liquor started to hit him, so he just put his head down and started nursing his scotch.
The bar was silent, and as Joshua turned his attention to the only people in the place who weren't at the bar. A man and a woman sat off to his left in a semi-circular booth, around a small circular table. He also noticed the bar was lit only by a few small table lamps and dim overhead lights.
Joshua paid special attention to the woman. She was beautiful in a small black dress that accentuated her green eyes. Vivid and alive, they seemed out of place in this hazy, dark bar.
I can feel your heart beat.
Joshua hadn't heard that voice in years. The sexy, distinctly feminine timbre of it reached through the gap of time and tied his stomach in knots. It must be her eyes, he decided, they look exactly like… He stopped in his train of thought, caught in a moment of reflection.
* * *
She pulled her body against Joshua.
"I can feel your heart beat."
He paused, unsure of what to say. "Maybe this was a bad idea."
She pulled herself closer, her voice sounded quiet and smooth, "Who are you?"
With no idea what to do, he started to rise out of their embrace and put his clothing back on.
"Please, tell me, please," she pleaded, crying.
"It's better that I leave now." He pulled his tie up against his neck. "I can't tell you anything, because that makes you a part of it."
"Tell me something, anything, something about you. Please."
"I tell you one thing, I have to tell you everything."
"Please Joshua, I love you, but I don't know you."
"Adele… I've done very bad things. Things that could make you …not love me." He choked back the memories that came flooding back to him.
"What have you done?" she screamed. "Please, stop with the god damn word games. What have you done?"
He paused, shaking; "I've killed people Adele, for money."
She stared. She had stopped crying, but this was worse. Her beautiful green eyes cut through him like a dagger. They tore at his heart and something settled in his stomach. It felt like a weight had been dropped down his throat, and now he had to tell her everything. It rushed out, words tumbling over each other; his entrance into the military, his psyche profile, his discharge, his work. His entire life now seemed worthless. When he was done he swallowed hard.
"Which is why it's better if I don't ever see you. There are too many horrible things that I've done for me to ever be truly happy."
She stared at him, and then rushed towards him. She kissed him, her force reaching down inside him.
"You're not evil." She gasped, in between kisses. "You're not evil because of the way you've been to me. I can't believe that you're evil. You're misguided, but I can help you. Let me take this from you."
S
o he let her. He let her kiss his pain away from him; he let himself get lost in her, for a while, that was enough. Even he started to believe he was changing. No more jobs, no more killing, just her, and every night they would get lost inside each other, and every morning, they would be reborn.
They began to build, from that night. Day by day, things would be different, things would change. But he still kept his equipment in a cabinet in their house. It was their house now too. After two months, they had both moved into a house for both of them, to start fresh. He even started to feel happy. By the sixth month of living together, he felt looser, he got a job, and they vowed not to touch the money from his previous life unless they absolutely had to. He had started to become this new person, this regular man. Then it all went to hell.
He came home one night, loosening his tie as he walked up the stairs to their house. He unlocked the door and pushed it open as he bent down to pick up a newspaper. He heard the "thwap" of a bullet hitting the wooden post behind him. He immediately rolled sideways out of the doorway. There was a second shot was out of frustration, but he charged into the house, thinking only of Adele. He entered the kitchen and saw two things in the matter of a second.
The first was that Adele was on the floor, there was a dark pool forming around her upper body, and the front of her shirt was drenched in blood. The second was the presence two men dressed in black pointing silenced pistols at him. He instantly reverted back to the way he was 14 months previous, before that night with Adele.
He charged at the man on the left, grabbing a knife off the kitchen table, knocking him down and dispatching him with the knife. After, he rolled over and hit the other man in the legs, toppling him. He scuffled with the man for a few seconds, both on the ground, but Joshua got the upper hand and snapped the other man's neck, he lay limp in Joshua's arms.
He let go of the corpse and immediately turned to Adele. She was dead; they had shot her in the chest, directly over her heart. At first he felt nothing, then slowly, like the cold, a rage started to fill him. It started out in his hands, the ones that had taken the lives of two men recently, and many more before. His arms flexed involuntarily, the rage then moved to his torso, causing his shoulders to stiffen. After this the rage moved upward and downward simultaneously, he let loose a gut-wrenching scream as his legs buckled, unable to handle the weight.
It had been five months since then. He had checked the pockets of the men; one of them had a signed contract offering five-hundred thousand dollars for his life. The people who had taken out the contract are the same people that used to employ Joshua after the military. Joshua took his equipment, fixed his wounds, burned the house, and moved to Boston, where the boss lived. They hadn't found him yet, but he had been waiting, planning. He hadn't yet felt sadness, the hate had lasted him five months, and it would last as long as he needed it to. He had nothing anymore; he lived in a squalid apartment next to two junkies who didn't bother him. It was one of the few places that they wouldn't look. He had the boss' routine down by now; he planned to take him out soon. Get the job done, and move back into obscurity. He didn't know what he would do after, but he did know that this had to be done.
He decided on a day for action. He had planned it out well; the boss lived in a mansion with a basement side entrance. He could sneak in the basement unnoticed and move up through the house as the boss was sleeping, taking out the three guards on the way. Joshua was the best there had been; he could pull this off.
Joshua was ready. He holstered his pistol and started toward the door. Out of nowhere Adele's voice resonated through out him.
Don't kill, ever again, under any circumstances. That would mean I've failed, and I just couldn't stand that; I'd rather die. I'd rather you die.
She had said it one night, while they lay together, breathing each other in, being cleansed. In that moment, he remembered feelings, and the rage was no longer substantial. He didn't buckle, he didn't cry, he just stopped, breathing memories of her. He could almost feel her, almost, and right then: that was enough.
He heard a creak, and his eyes shot open. The doorknob was moving. Joshua took out his gun and waited. The door swung open and a man he did not recognize was pointing a gun at his head. Joshua ducked, and shot the first man in the chest twice. A second man came through the door and got a shot into Joshua's leg before Joshua hit him three times in the chest. Finally a gun came around the corner and shot twice, both missing Joshua. Joshua rolled into the doorway and shot the boss once in the arm, and then his gun jammed. Joshua screamed and ran out the doorway, knocking the boss over and feeling bullets fly by him as he ran out of the building.
* * *
That was how Joshua found himself here, sitting in this bar, unarmed and ready to die. He had no more rage, or motivation left in him. He'd failed Adele, he'd failed his training, and he had nothing left.
His leg hurt from running, and he realized this is the first time he'd really felt this sort of pain. Before it was always a pain mixed with certain strength, proof that he could take whatever the world threw at him. Now it was just pain, ugly and open for everyone to see.
Idly, and somewhat drunk, he noticed the bar was empty now, the couple had moved away some time ago, and the other men at the bar had moved on during Joshua's recollection. The bartender was nowhere in sight, Joshua figured he had gone into the back of the bar to get something. He turned to see a figure standing at the top of the steps, staring at him.
"Hello Joshua."
Joshua instantly sobered up. The figure was the boss. Almost the exact same as Joshua, peak physical condition, bland features, except his wound was in the shoulder, and he held a pistol loosely in his left hand.
"Boss, Hello. Would you like a drink?" Joshua said, motioning to the other scotch.
"Joshua, how nice of you."
"Yeah, well…"
"So you've given up, I see. Or is this some sort of odd trap?"
"No, no trap. I'm just keeping a promise."
"All right, I hope you don't mind if I keep this gun on you."
"Oh, by all means." Joshua felt no desire to kill this man, his brother, his comrade. "Out of mere curiosity, what the hell did you do with the bartender?"
"Oh, nothing, he's just downstairs until we're done." He paused,"You know why I had to do this."
"Yes, I understand. That doesn't mean it's justified."
"Oh I know. But really, when one kills people for a living, justification isn't necessary, now is it Josh?"
"No."
"Josh, I want you to listen to me very closely. Because this is going to be the last thing you hear now, and I want you to know this before I kill you."
"I can hear you," Joshua said, standing up to face Michael, who was already standing.
"Josh, this isn't like the movies. The bad guy wins, and he wins often, because there are so few good men, that, well, it's easy." He sipped his drink. "I want you to have a full understanding, though, of where you lay on this little line of good and evil. You are not good, just because some little French girl fell in love with you; you still killed men, and women, for no reason that any normal person would consider 'good.' Do you remember Paris?"
Joshua looked Michael in the eye, but he didn't see him. Joshua began to see Paris. Joshua had killed a family of three, a man, a wife, and a daughter. He still felt nothing for them; he never felt for them.
"Think of this not as murder, but as martyrdom. You're dying for your sins. You've killed many people, you deserve this. I hope you enjoyed your love though, while it lasted."
Joshua felt water flowing into his abdomen, and his entire body went cold. His bones had apparently turned to ice, freezing him from the inside. His brother's voice came to him as if through static, the words heavy, struggling.
"Now you'll die slowly, Joshua, for your sins."
Joshua saw his brother's face receding out of sight, replaced only by a severe white light. Adele's voice called to him from the light, and suddenly Joshua saw her floating above him, mystical and mythic. She was beautiful, yet something harsh resided in her face.
"Joshua," she spoke "Joshua, you've failed me. I've moved on, Joshua. There are many people here now, Joshua, here with me, and they told me things about you, horrible things, Joshua, horrible things."
His lips moved, but no sound emerged. His heart felt a pang of misery, worse than when he had held her in his arms after her death. This was the pain of rejection. He floated ever downward, reaching out for her.
"Adele…"
"No, Joshua. You'll never see me again Joshua. Stay with this misery now; it is yours forever."
Her face floated above her, cruel and beautiful, as he descended, downward, ever downward…
"Feel this, Joshua. This is what you deserve, what you have caused."
Still reaching for her, he finally collapsed into darkness.