Ten Million Ways to Die

Ten Million Ways To Die

A breath engraved in half. A lardy body stiffed for a moment in a pious pose of an unutterable surprise, and only then rode its entire weight to internals of the giant seat. Beads of sweat flied through the air like raindrops, smoothly catching on the big window. The leaden bee nested in the chest. The second and the third followed her. A spasm played with the mouth, and yet it displayed an unexpected grimace: A satisfied smile. The iron landed on the parquet. The weakening footfall.

"Prisoner, do you promise to state in evidence truth, clean truth and nothing but truth?"
"I don't know. I don't know the truth. That's why I'm here."

By its cold presence, the triple-hardened steel added him a sense of power. That dazing, whispering and lying feeling of a self-importance. It reached all the way to his heart (yes, he sure had some back in the time), and filled it with a strange sensation. He glimpsed a subtle smile of a young lady. He looked at his watch. He can have her tonight. Her, or any other.
He felt the sweat soaking his shirt. He pulled off the imitation-leather gloves of his to adjust his tie once more. Unawares he caressed his own face. Smooth. In the gloomy outlay he examined himself again. He looks flawless. It would be shameful to forget anything. He's going to a wedding after all. Wedding, christening, funeral? Who actually knows...

"Prisoner, do you racognize this knife?"
"No. I've never seen it before."
"But it's yours. All the witnesses certified this knife belongs to you."
"This knife was covered in blood. There was never any blood on my knife."

The pulse quickened. He was running, without a destination. First door to the right. There always are some door! A toilet. He pulled his gloves off and washed his hands. The real murderers always wash their hands.

"Accuser, you said this wasn't his first crime?"
"That's true. His conduct sheet is incredibly long. And all the acts executed precisely the same."
"And he wasn't punished for them?"
"Of course he was. He had to write, what he did, a thousand times."

The woman was talking to another good looking man. Nobody knew him around there, and he needed someone close so much. He came and kissed her at length. She was so surpised she didn't even oppose. Her lips tasted like bitter almond, and her flavour was like the one of jessamin. It was possibly the prettiest woman he's ever layed his eyes on. Maybe. The man was screaming and all the waiters threw themselves onto him. He didn't want to hurt anyone. He really didn't.
There were dead bodies in the restaurant. Staring eyes and sweating hands, livid faces and cooling matter. There was about the same ammount of emotion in them, as there was in him. The emotions were running a marathon. The feeling didn't disappear, though. It transformed. It entered the clean, uncomprehending and weeping woman by his feet.

"Haven't you felt any mercy with them? Isn't there a bit of emotions in your body?"
"Everything I've done in my entire life, I've done because of a pure emotion. Everything was a manifestation of compassion.

The darkened cabaret offered a lowered entertainment of all kind. Nobody could look for art in here, unless it was at least a little vulgaris, blatant and salacious. And the art is never salacious. He was sitting by a table, watching a substandard show - half naked female trying to release a pleasing melody out of herself, all accompanied by a piano. He looked at his hands. Stuck in spasm, shaking like two naked guys in a January's night. Sharply false tones were passing through his spine and giving the song an unwanted tinge of loneliness and wasted talent.
"She sings godlike, don't you think?"
A fat little man sat next to him, with no introductions, undressing the hopeless singer with his covetous eyes.
"Would you like to spend a night with her?" he continued. "I can make it happen. And she's not expensive."
He ran over his lips with his tongue, awaiting a reply. Instead, the man walked away.

"Why did you kill that man? And what did you do with that girl?"
"The man was her slaver, and her slave. He couldn't decide. I got him rid of his suffering."
"And the girl?"
He shook his head, holding a thankful letter from Istanbul in hand.

The clean sky reflected the cerulean despair and the white sorrow. The neverending grief was falling from the skies in the sun rays more, than in the raindrops. The wounds burn, as if they were strewed with salt. The rows of graves and a low wall. Candles and sorrowers. Everything seemed so pointless, so insipid, so common. So his acts bring heartache? A dark smile above fresh grave appeared on his face.

"Do you feel sorry for what you've done now?"
"It was you, who digged them the graves."

Home. A gladless space, where the time stopped. The kingdom of flat, white walls. Geometrically precise, ice cold and eternally perfect entities watching from the god's heights the four walls, where a crime was born. Air turns into a space, space turns into a matter. The matter gains a shape. It gains color. It gains an appearance. Dead faces. Faces of the dead. Memento mori lighting in their eyes like small flames of the candles of the lives. The death is near. Staring into the walls. Crouching behind a painting. When you're laying quietly, you can hear her steps. You can hear her sharpening her knife.
Sirens ended the dreary silence. The eternity once more moved beyond the limits of the universe.

"Is that all?"
"Yes."
"Prisoner, stand up. From the right given to me, within this world and for good of the people, I sentence you..."

He opened his eyes. Dark and grey room beated him in the eyes with a merciless certainty. He dreamed again! He left his body again! An unusual feeling of self-awareness filled him like a flood. He discovered his physical reality - every singularity of his material self. No, he's not a murderer. He couldn't hurt a fly. And yet, guilt chokes him by a pitiless hug. Still, he can feel the quiet cruelty sleeping deep inside him. He will never get out. He can't, because just like it, even he is clutched by his surroundings with its trouble-free life. The golden cage, which is a punishment for a crime he can never commit.

"For a lifetime..."