Murder Makes You Human

Dear Diary,

Hello, I guess. It’s been a while since I’ve written in you. I think the last time was back when I was fifteen and all I had to worry about was acing my science final and asking Chelsea McNeil to the Spring Formal.

Things are a little different now.

Now I have a bounty on my head and at least three different law enforcement agencies looking to collect.

It’s 3:00am and considering I’ve been up for about 52 hours now I should probably get some sleep.

If only it were that easy.

I checked into Motel 6 about an hour ago, giving the tired desk clerk my best “don’t ask questions” look as I accepted my room key and hoisted my huge duffel bag over my shoulder.

I had originally planned to have a shower and sleep for a couple of hours before paying the front desk in small, crumpled up bills and continuing on my merry way. This plan seemed great until I stepped into the shower to find a nest of spiders had claimed their territory along with at least three other living things that I can’t quite identify.

I decided to lay down and try to sleep, but the springs digging into my back refused to let me rest.

Or maybe it was the cold draft coming in from the window that kept me awake.

Or perhaps the odd smelling stains which I’m trying very hard not to think about.

No, I think it’s the dead body in the closet.

Have you ever read Edgar Allen Poe’s “Telltale Heart”? In it, the narrator was so riddled with guilt over committing murder that he thought he could hear a dead man’s heart beating. 

That’s not what’s happening to me.

There’s no deafening “thump thump” coming from the closet and driving me mad. The only heartbeat I can hear is my own. Blood rushes in my ears and my heartbeat continues to race, thudding in my chest until I feel as though my ribs might break under the pressure.

There’s a dead man in my closet. 

What do you think of that, dear diary? 

There’s a dead man in my closet and a gun in my pocket and a pit in my stomach and an emptiness in my chest that threatens to swallow me whole.

I can’t breathe.

Neither can the man in my closet.

If you were a person, dear diary, I’m sure that by now you would be laughing at the sheer absurdity of this all. Two days ago I was an accountant at a small startup, and now I'm hiding in a motel with a dead body writing in my childhood journal.

Even I’m laughing. 

Hysterically, as a matter of fact.

My heart isn’t beating as loud as it was. The dead heart in my closet still isn’t beating at all.

Does this make me a bad person? I mean, not just the murder part, but also the running, and the deception, and the fact that I feel absolutely no remorse whatsoever.

None.

At all.

There’s a dead man in my closet and a gun in my pocket and yet my conscience is clear. As clear as the sky on a cloudless summer day.

Murder doesn’t make you a bad person. Sure, in the eyes of the law it seems like it does, but it doesn’t.

Murder makes you human.

Personally I’ve always thought God was a little harsh on Cain. I mean, Abel probably wouldn’t have lived all that long anyway— no one did back then- so was it really necessary to make Cain wander the earth for 730 years?

Seems a bit melodramatic to me.

The modern day justice system tends to take the opposite approach; instead of extending a murderer’s life, they shorten it via the death penalty. Injection, electric chair, hanging, the options are endless.

Even a gunshot to the head at point blank range.

Death is death is death.

The only difference is that for some people it’s quick and painless, and for others it’s a torturous, drawn out process that leaves them begging for the end.

When you think of it this way, I did the man in the closet a favor.

A bullet through the brain is one of the better ways to go if you ask me. Although, to be fair, I’ve never died before, so perhaps my opinion isn’t all that trustworthy.

Maybe when I shot him he felt the white hot pain explode in his right temple. Maybe he felt the burning bullet dig a tunnel through his short circuiting brain. Maybe he felt the small weight settle beneath his skull, just above his left ear,  moments before he was snatched up into a white light and whisked off to the other side.

Or maybe his mind went black as soon as the gun went off with a bang. A very loud bang. I wish I’d had a silencer.

I’ll have to pick one up for next time.

I’ll also need to pick up more duct tape because I ended up going through more than I thought I would. He was a squirmer.

I’d grab a couple more bullets too, but I feel like that may be something the authorities monitor when looking for fugitives. Probably.

I hope they don’t monitor duct tape purchases too. Or 2:00am motel bookings.

What if the tired looking front desk clerk noticed my not-so-vaguely body-shaped bag and called the police as soon as I got to my room. What if they’re surrounding the building right now, preparing to bust down my door and shoot me dead on the spot.

They’re probably not.

If the cops were coming they wouldn’t wait an hour and a half to get here.

Right?

Unless the call came in right as they were pulling into the McDonald’s drive through in search of coffee and donuts. Then surely they would finish their food before surrounding the motel and busting down my door to shoot me dead on the spot.

Or not.

The front desk clerk was tired and it was 2:00am. Plus, I smiled while I threw the body bag over my shoulder and even waved once I had the corpse balanced properly.

Also, if I was arrested in the middle of the night then you could be sure I wouldn’t be paying $10 for a stale breakfast tomorrow morning.

You know what they say, money makes the world go ‘round.

That’s why I accepted $10,000 in exchange for this random guy’s lifeless corpse, no questions asked.

Funny enough, the person who hired me was actually a sweet old lady. Well, I guess she wasn’t really all that sweet, considering she hired me to kill someone.

In her defence, this guy was really annoying.

Even when I had him bound to a chair he wouldn’t stop talking my ear off. 

After ten minutes, I actually wanted to shoot him.

Although, I wish I’d gotten clearer instructions on what to do with the body.

All I was told was not to leave it at the scene. No problem, I brought a body bag and all was fine.

Except now I have a dead guy in my motel room closet.

Oh well.

It’s already 4:00am and I’m starting to get tired, so I guess I’ll deal with him tomorrow. I’ll probably have to burn these pages, too.

For now, I’ll lay on my springy bed amongst the odd smells and weird stains, allowing the cool draft to lull me into a dreamless sleep.

Dear diary, thanks for listening.

Goodnight.