The Imaginary: 054
<2004-02-08~11>
This time I’ll skip the gory details, straight to this instant that captures him wheezing and disjointed and pointing a pistol, and me reassuming my meditative attitude (I don’t want blood everywhere in case he hits me).
(Gory details, I must throw in, are very much against my nature.)
‘You’re making this way too rough,’ he pants out. ‘If I’d just gotten you the first time ….’
‘Meditation has its quirks,’ I beam at him. ‘Why do you want to kill me?’
* * *
‘You know very well why.’
Even if I had not recognized him, the dark intensity of his voice would have told me why. A friend of mine once said that hatred is the left hand of love; and so I have to look for the love that lurks behind the murderous impulse in this man, and bring it forward, in the hope of saving both of us.
He has gone on talking, and that’s already a beginning.
* * *
‘Oh, I just felt booored.’
So casual is his tone that I do not doubt his madness for an instant. This means the harming of one of us, sooner or later—and that leaves me but one choice: the choice I’ve made thirteen years ago.
‘You won’t find a cure here,’ I smilingly assure him and stop my heart.
(Over the years, I’ve come to embrace death, but I still don’t like physical pain.)
At the sight of my sagging head, his eyes widen, and his first shot goes terribly wide of the mark, puncturing one of the paintings on the wall. (I idly wonder if this would raise its price in the eyes of the collectors.) Then icy rage steadies his arm, and the next five shots find my body unerringly.
I can’t help laughing at his impotent ire when blood doesn’t spurt out but slowly trickles down from the wounds, almost coagulated already.
(Nor could I give up anglsan, the joy of inflicting spiritual pain, that holiest pain among pains. Meseems there’s enough sadism left in me for another coming back.)
I take another moment’s delight in his furious pummeling the lifeless face—ghee, there’s blood on his knuckles!—then turn my gaze towards the Universe.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
I start making a mental list of his assets. Honest; persevering and self-denying (even now, he doesn’t let the pain in his sprained joints dim his wits or undermine his determination); compassionate: he might have started with the gun, yet he chose a metal tube instead that would have knocked me off and spared me any pain ….
‘There are thousands of other ways to make money,’ I say. ‘Do you want me to find you a job?’
* * *
‘I want easy money.’
I play back the cold mockery of his words before responding, ‘I do not like your answer.’ I stare into the blackness of the barrel in cold anger. ‘I shall not trade this life for it.’
* * *
BANG! SLAM! Eeek!