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Drink, for Tomorrow
May Not Come
A "Take Your Pick-Axe" Honorable Mention
Option Cby
Roger Kincaide
There’s nothing worse than realizing just how alone you are. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been there for all my friends, I’ve given them that shoulder to cry on and all those other stupid clichés friends do for each other. I go out of my way to make sure that they know I’m there for them, but when I need them, I find myself alone.
“I have to work late,” one tells me.
“My wife is pregnant, she won’t let me out of the house,” the other says.
Sure, these are legitimate excuses, but all I want is an hour of their time to have a few beers and expel the small bit of depression that’s twisting and contorting my insides. Exorcise the demon by way of the holy brew and good ol’ fashioned conversation. But no. Everyone’s too busy. After all I do for them, they can’t spare an hour.
Fuck ‘em.
It’s what led me to this; the silver dollar rolling from finger to finger on my hand, the pickaxe strategically placed in view of my hostage to fuel his fear of me. How could he do this? he must be thinking. He was a friend. And he would be right. I was a friend. But he was not, and therefore, he will pay.
“How about having that drink now?” I ask him, standing from my chair.
He nods violently, of course, agreeing to anything that would make me release him. If I told him to suck my dick, he’d do it, just to go home and cry like the little bitch he is. But even if I did ask him to perform such an act, the g-string stuck in his mouth wouldn’t allow him. It was enforced with masking tape, gagging the selfish son of a bitch to the point of vomit – and that’s what I was hoping for. I wanted to watch the asshole writhe in chocking displeasure as he vomited out bile that wouldn’t go anywhere but down his windpipe, and if I told him that g-string belonged to his wife, he would most definitely sicken with the thought of what I could have done to her.
“Nothing worse than you did to me,” I would tell him.
But it wasn’t just the abandonment that was the icing on the cake of my violent act. It was the fact that this man, the one I called my best friend, managed to take away the interest of a woman who had her eye on me at work. He hired her, took her under his wing, then made it virtually impossible for me to get a word in about anything when the three of us were together. Threesomes never work, and it was time to eliminate one of us from the equation.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask him, my face inches from his.
He turns his head, trying desperately to put distance between us, but the chair he was tied to proved too strong. I smile at my handy work, the fact that I can restrain a large man against his will. I smile at the fear in his eyes – the look of pure and utter horror he displays when his eyes gaze upon me, his captor. It’s enough to give me a slight hard on, the power of being in control, the fact that I’m doing something he never thought I was capable of.
I spit in his face just for shits and giggles.
He doesn’t think it’s so funny.
“You know,” I tell him, taking my seat in front of him. “You disappointed me. For weeks, I kept this shit inside because you didn’t have the time to talk to me. This is your doing. It’s your fault.”
He mutters something I can’t understand, and I don’t care to. I tell him to shut up, but he doesn’t. He repeats his incoherent words…three syllables that suddenly ring clear…
I’m sorry.
He repeats it again and again, the tears falling from his eyes like the streaming flow of urine coming from between his legs.
I’m sorry!
“Of course you are!” I say. “Of course you’re sorry now that I’ve got your attention. What happened to being sorry when I needed you? What happened to being sorry when I needed someone to talk to and you weren’t there? You’re sorry now because I’ve got you right where I need you to be sorry otherwise you’d never say it.”
Once again, I stand from the chair where I’m seated.
“I’ve been depressed for so long, I forget what it feels like to be happy,” I tell him. “It’s time I take my anger out on where it stems.”
I turn my back on him and head to the corner of the otherwise empty warehouse. I hear him scream, but I don’t give a shit.
I take hold of the pickaxe, getting a feel for the weight of the weapon in my hands. The wood from its handle stays clasped in my sweaty palms as I quickly walk toward him, toward that wonderful look of fear.“This is your own doing,” I say to him again, and I drive the pickaxe into my own skull.
Blood splatters over his trembling, sweat soaked body.
I fall to the ground, the pickaxe imbedded into the front of my face, and I know I’ve succeeded. I killed myself, but I killed my friend in the process.
The last thing I hear before the darkness takes over is his scream – and somewhere, in the back of my dying mind, I can feel the freedom.
I am free.
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© Kincaide, 2006