The Man

The Man had been awake for an hour, yet still lay in bed trying to imitate his breathing pattern to mimic that of someone still asleep. It was dark, the curtains which were uncharacteristically undraped hung back to reveal the contents of his room in a grey monotone light. He had been woken in a startle and his hand in the grasp of unconscious motion reached for the Beretta that lay under his pillow. Everything he could feel and remember was odd. It was as if he was a completely different man. Firstly he hesitated to give in to an immediate reaction of jumping out of bed, pistol in hand, and instead opted to lie in paralyzing fear where he was.

The Man had been afraid of the dark when he was a kid in a childhood mostly unlived. It would haunt him at night with its strange sounds blanketed by a shroud of black he could not see through. He had not been as afraid as he was at this very moment since he was a kid. His heart pounded as if it were to fling out of his throat, every attempt at regulating his breathing was shot, cornered and dangerous eyes flitted to and fro within half shut eyes that only opened for a second at a time in fret that they would reveal something within the opaque light. 

The Man had encountered in his line of work many people who shared this same condition amongst the suspicion of death in the night. Scared, wild, illogical. He was not these things. Not normally. He was a cold hearted killer. He no longer feared the night because from experience he knew the night only contained men such as himself, and usually some form of armament in their hands, one appropriate for the given contract. But now The Man felt like those he punished for their greed and ambition, or maybe a lack of. 

Suddenly as if in waiting for the Man to come to an Apex of fright, a sound emitted from behind him in the very bed he lay in. A new emotion entered. One not of the repentance most feel before death, one not of sympathy for those he was yet to join. The Man could only label this unknown aspect of his humanity that came with the new sound as what a man feels before his very life is taken. The feeling of the presence of supernatural death, a scythe along his spine, The Man presumed. 

The Man had overcome a very important threshold of fear. No longer was he paralyzed in waiting for It to strike. He raised his body forward as if coming from the grave with only the thought to remain looking forward. He heard the snarl of a beast grow louder, the cool wisp of breath that came from something not of this world. He imagined this monster to be a great big wolf, with black matted hair and blood in its teeth that growled. Or a Rattlesnake that slithered amongst the bed and up his body till the scales reached the back of his neck and it hissed.

With the hand that had so calmly taken other men's lives now shaking uncontrollably like branches in a hurricane at the thought of his own end, The Man slowly inched his arm leftwards. He would not see his death. He would simply feel it. For to feel it was all he felt he could possibly do till fright and the strange entity that now occupied his body overpowered him. He would feel the muzzle of the Dog, or the tail of the Rattlesnake, or the rectangular slim cut of the barrel of a Gun.

The Man's arm hung steady and with a final drip of pure unadulterated fear that ran down his spine from the top of his back to the very middle he touched the Thing, the Thing which would kill him… And it had soft flesh. Smooth and warm to the touch. His fears quenched as a fire in summer's shower, he followed his hand downwards and felt the inwards crevice of an elbow, and yet further the touch of gentle fingers that called to his own hand. He looked over and there he saw the cause of his festering emotion which now lacked dread yet held that solemn unknown feeling, and it was The Women. Long jet black hair lay as deep as ebony in the white linen pillow, complemented by the milky light of the night as if the very moon was just for her. And he, The Man, knew he had died. Today he died and became anew. And what he felt was love, he presumed.