For Those of You Running with Scissors

Fluent in the language of bee spies, he was to be trusted by no one. His mouth, yes, his mouth was a monster’s fable. A nightmare where only the vile and venomous feel comfortable. Only words with an edge that could cut concrete would sleep there; words that were rougher than a night in hell would walk through carefully, mindful of the dangers. It was a great benefit to all that he would rarely talk.

He spent most days wishing he was a friend. One of those true allies that would give up his life for someone else. The fact that he would be giving his life for a country was little comfort, none at all actually. What good is a country he’d often wonder. It’s merely a place, a space, a sea of faces he would never meet. No, it wasn’t enough to die for a stretch of land, or a group of strangers, he wanted more. But he was not to be trusted, even his thoughts were suspect. It might have been that he thought this simply to amuse himself, to pass the time as he’s waiting to stab someone in the back.

Having never truly been given a way out of his current career, he often wondered what he would have been had he not learned the whisper of Morse code. He would often imagine himself running a hot dog stand. He saw himself complaining about the weather when he’d have a bad season, or murmuring to himself coarse words in praise of events that brought in costumers. His thank-yous would claw at the backs of those costumers, haunting them for weeks. Little children that heard him speak would grow up believing in hell, believing that they had heard the screams of those trapped there dancing the dance of agony.

He’s asleep now. Breathing deep breaths that kick at my ear drums. When he exhales I hear the escaping air scream with a mix of delight and terror. I was not sure whether I could go through with this, whether or not I could kill him, but with each second that passes I am driven further into certainty. It is as though his very breaths are begging me to end it, to end his life and with it their suffering. Yet still, he knows the language of bee spies, a language I had always wanted to learn. If only he was capable of teaching, only that would have saved his life.

I leave him in a pool of his own blood.

-Jakob Lint