‘It was Valentine's day and I refused that girl. I was too shy. Was that it? No, that was not it.’
The pen scratched the words out.
‘Was it that time when I had first had a sip of alcohol secretly without my parents knowing?’
Again the sound of scratches emitted in the air. That was not it either.
‘They were the thugs of the street. They asked me, “Do you want to do us a favour?” How could I say no. They were the cool guys. The whole neighbourhood respected them. I nodded my head furiously, I was just a kid. Was it that time?’
The room was completely dark except for the dim light that emitted from the candle. The electricity bill had not been paid in months. Our writer liked the darkness. It calmed him.
‘It started off with ‘Do you want to do us a favour’. It’s what you call… the gateway. Soon enough, I went on be the person who actually held the money. Someone else was the courier. Finally, I was the one who actually managed the whole thing. I didn’t have to do anything, just sit on the torn sofa and watched the people come to my lackeys with their crumpled notes. The cops gave me stares on their patrols, but I didn’t have anything on me, they couldn’t do anything. I digress’
Cockroaches did not even bother to be stealthy, in the kitchen they scurried about looking food, but it was all over long ago. The dirty dishes that piled in the in the kitchen were already cleaned off food.
‘From there, it went to hurting people, beating people, that was the way to get things done. Did I regret that too?
Our writer picked himself up from the table and went to the toilet. Even before he opened the door, the smell assailed his nose. The stink of shit and piss. He had not paid the water bill either. He whipped his thing out and a little urine poured out. He walked back the toilet. In the darkness, his hand felt out, clinking against a few bottles. He picked one up, twisted it open and upturned the bottle directly above his mouth. A little bit of whiskey dribbled down his throat. The scratching resumed.
‘Dark long eyelashes, the way her eyelids closed, there couldn’t be anything more beautiful than that. It was the way I took her that was horrible. Then I just left her…’
The pen tapped on the paper. Could our writer scribble more? He was so old, his body only had skin and bones, skin that wrinkled and folded up.
Suddenly, light exploded into his darkness. Someone had crashed open the door and light poured in the from the corridor. He scribbled the last line.
‘Are these my regrets? Fuck that, I’ve lived a full life’
He put the pen down and pointed the gun at his visitor. His visitor too had a gun stretched out in his arm.
“For mother”, he whispered and our writer’s son fired the weapon. The writer, of course, did not pull the trigger.
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