The Choices We Make

It’s my fourth funeral this week and I spend most of it wondering if anyone notices the mustard stain on my dress from the last funeral’s catering. If they do, they don’t say anything but I catch a few rogue glances from the neighboring pew.

After the service, I join the queue to offer my condolences to the bereaved. I shake their hands one-by-one and say “I’m sorry for your loss”. When I glance up at their face, I focus on the bridge of their nose. If I looked into their eyes, I fear they’d hear my thoughts screaming “It’s my fault they’re dead”. Not that them knowing would fix anything. Their loved one is still dead.

On my way home I stop by the mall to buy another black dress in case the mustard stains never come out of this one. I don’t know when the next funeral will be but it’s never too far away. They just keep coming.

At the mall, there’s a group of young teens—of course there is; the mall is the natural habitat of teenagers—who are all wearing shirts of metal bands named after various facets of death. I find myself wondering if any of these kids have seen death or been affected by it yet. By their age, I was already an instrument of death. I hope they are luckier.

I quickly find a dress and change back into my street clothes, hiding both black dresses in my trunk before I head home.

“Hey babe! Did you have a good day?” Christine calls from the kitchen. She thinks I’ve been at work all day, which isn’t a complete lie.

I wander into the kitchen and kiss her on the cheek as she cooks us risotto for dinner. “Mm, smells delicious! Pumpkin?” I stick my finger in to sneak a taste.

She slaps my hand away. “Hey! No tasting before it’s ready.” She winks at me. “Yes, my love? I adore a food-based nickname.” She lets out a hearty cackle that fills my soul. “And yes, pumpkin is dinner, too. I added coriander and cumin this time.”

“I don’t know what those are supposed to taste like but what you’ve made here is heaven in a pan. Truly, I don’t deserve you.” I tell her this often, partly in hope that she someday believes it and finds someone who does deserve her. But I’m too selfish to let her go just yet.

“Go set the table. I’m thinking the pinot gris with this so put a bottle of that on the table.”

The aroma of the spices fills the kitchen and wafts with me into the dining room. In the wine refrigerator in the basement (after I’ve already checked the wine cabinet upstairs), I find the citrusy white she was asking for and bring it back upstairs just as she sets our plates down.

There’s nothing to say during dinner because words would only take us away from the divine offerings on our plates, the luscious pumpkin enlivened by earthly spices with the fresh notes of parsley and arugula on top. As I say, heavenly.

By the time we go to bed that night, we are feeling happy and warm, wrapped up in each other until she falls asleep and I untangle from her so I can also fall asleep. Her slight snores are a lullaby to me and I’m soon fast asleep as well.

When I awake at 5 a.m., my phone’s light is flashing. I take it with me to the bathroom and close the door. The text reads:

New job for you. Meet me at the fishmongers at 7.

The ‘fishmongers’ in question, is actually an abandoned jail known for killing the infamous “Fishmonger” mob boss back in the ‘80s and is now only used for illicit meetings and paranormal investigations (which is convenient because if an illicit meeting is caught on tape by them, it’s just written off as the Fishmonger still running things from beyond the grave).

I get off the bus a few blocks away and walk around the long way so any bus cameras record me going away from the fishmongers. Stealth 101.

My ‘employer’ of sorts is already there when I arrive, waiting behind the usual pallets with a manila folder of my target. No words are spoken as he hands me the folder, both of us wearing gloves. With a nod, he leaves.

The folder contains a picture of an old man and a young woman, a picture of a green Honda civic showing its plate number, and an address a few hours away.

My best guess is that he’s having an affair and his wife wants him dead but I’ve seen enough in my time to know that things are rarely as simple as they first appear. Besides, it doesn’t really matter why in the end. All that matters is that the job gets done.

Back when I started, I thought I’d have to be stealthy but in these parts, it often doesn’t matter. At least that’s what I was told as I was trained in the art of bomb-making until I was a skilled craftswoman.

I head off to my supplier and purchase what I need for this job then set to work getting it ready.

As my fingers work the well-trodden paths along the wires, setting up an explosive device with the automatic movements of a machine, my mind drifts back to the teens I saw the day before, their blatant mockery of death, and their camaraderie. When I was around their age, I built my first bomb and took my first life. It wasn’t something I had wanted to do at the time, but I had to. I didn’t have a choice.

At least that’s what I told myself at the time. But over the years, I’ve realized that I’ve always had a choice. Every day I make a choice to keep going with this life. I could stay home, be a loving partner, get a ‘real’ job, perhaps. But the smell of C4 and the adrenaline at the spot of danger keeps me feeling alive in a way that nothing else has.

On the way to my job, package safely tucked away in the trunk, still unarmed, I stop by my storage unit. It’s full of boxes.

I open the nearest box and add the latest funeral brochures. Someday, perhaps, I’ll allow myself to feel for all of these people, their families, their friends, the lives they could have lived. But that isn’t the choice I make today. Instead, I stuff those feelings deep into the box with the brochures and seal it tightly, locked in a dark room.

Back on the road, I near my target address. It’s a motel out in the sticks. The green Civic is parked around the back where a suspicious partner is less likely to see it. Perhaps my first instinct was right…we all eventually suffer the consequences of our actions, one way or another.

My job is done quickly, the years of experience making for a smooth transfer, and then I’m off back toward home.

At a gas station most of the way back, I text Christine to let her know I’m running a bit late that night, got caught up in a project at the office, does she want me to pick up a Chinese on my way in? Her voice is chipper as she lists off what she wants from our favourite place, causing my heart to swell in my chest.

I wonder when my consequences will finally catch up with me? But for now, I choose to ignore the fear and focus on the few moments of being happy that I’m allowed before the guilt returns to roost.