To Take a Life

I stand ready to take a life. My instructions are clear, but I hesitate. How could you not hesitate? He stands before me so beautiful and individual. Certainly there are those that easily surpass him in function, in beauty. But would any of us remain alive if the only criteria for being destroyed was that there is someone better?

I don't want him to die. I don't want to be the one to kill him. I know why he must die though. The temptation to ask again for confirmation of my orders passes as I find reassurance in my purpose. I take my hammer and I strike a blow. CRACK! his body gives way beneath my blow. CRACK! It's surprisingly easy to crush his bones. CRACK, CRACK! I stop caring. CRACK, CRACK! Faster and faster I commence the work of destruction upon him. I'm getting good at this. 

What kind of a monster am I?

I stand upon the remains of what once was, and weep for the life that I have destroyed. As his body cracks, a part of his essence breaks to dust and drifts passed my face. I smell it.

It smells like bone tastes. I've only tasted human bone on one occasion*, but I'll never forget that taste... that smell. 

I hit him, and then I start tearing him apart one piece at a time. I hit him again and tear at him. Over and over this process continues and he utters not a syllable of protest. Then all at once he starts to fight back. Sharp! my hand pulls away instinctively and I stare at it, frowning. The sharpness fades and is replaced by a dull ache. Exactly like what happened to my heart when I began to strike the first few blows. 

My blood streaks down my upraised finger in a line. I watch in silence as it collects at my knuckle and drops like a tear. 

As it splashes in the dust at my feet it pulls in on itself and forms into a sphere, separate and distinct from its surroundings. It's neither mine nor his any longer. As if my blood and the blood of the one I have killed combined into something else entirely. As my blood continues to drip slowly from my hand I think, "At what point do I lose too much of this and cease to be alive?" Maybe close to the same point when I started thinking of this as a pile of tiles and not a shower. 

We are not so different as they would have me believe.

*getting my wisdom teeth out, it's a very interesting story, you'll have to ask me about it sometime.