There's no such thing as dying with dignity. Anybody who works with death will tell you that. The ones that fight death will tell you about how the body breaks down, gives up, lets go. The ones who clean up after death will tell you about how the body doesn't get a chance to experience dignity. Too fast, too unexpected, too messy. It's always the same: ugly and never dignified. You can live your life full of dignity but there's no dying with it.
Anderson had worked with death for a long time. His job was to clean up after death and to solve the riddle it would leave behind. He often wondered how immune he'd become to it, how mundane it all was. One of the first things they tell anybody with death as a colleague is that you will get used to it but everybody is a human being who experiences emotions and everybody should remember that. He still remembered the first crime scene he ever went to; such a long time ago but the vivid memory would never leave him.
A young woman murdered by her husband. Shot at least 25 times. Blood everywhere. Signs of a frantic struggle to protect herself, to live. The smell. Oh, the smell. The smell was another thing they told you about first but you never understood until you experienced it. Anybody who works with death will tell you about that smell. The stench of death. In times when Anderson wondered if he'd become detached from death he simply remembered that first crime scene and the smell and it made him realise that he could never be completely detached.
Anderson stood in his bathroom in front of the mirror. It had been exactly one year since the death of Sherlock Holmes. The fake genius had died without dignity. He -unlike most of the cases Anderson was sent to- at least knew he was going to die. He chose to die. Jumping off a roof and having your body slam into concrete leaving you crushed and bleeding was not dignified. Had he chosen to die though or was he forced into it? He knew the answer as he looked at his reflection. Sad. Pathetic. Murderer.
He'd helped murder Sherlock Holmes. He was pulled into it by Donovan; her so tempting, so willing, so seducing. She was pulled in by an evil genius; he so brilliant, so cunning, so manipulative. The evil genius had shrouded them in a fog of manipulated feelings and bias. They only saw what he wanted them to see. Wandering in the fog in search of the truth there are only two final outcomes: To wish you were right or to wish you were wrong. When the truth comes clear and shines its way through, only then do you find out which one it is.
To wish you were wrong.
From the second the truth had shone out, from the second the fake genius had killed himself, Anderson had been living in a mixture of the shining truth and the dark, empty shadows it caused. Through dark and light with guilt and anguish as his only companions, he fought with the fact he was right and the desire to be wrong. A war where neither side could win.
Even his sleep did not offer him respite. He had nightmares every night. He thought he'd have gotten used to them after a year. What a deluded thought. He was falling, always falling, Sherlock always with him. They tumbled and plummeted sometimes towards the ground, sometimes through nothing but fog, sometimes just into darkness. He could always see Sherlock's face in his nightmares. Those cold, piercing, blue eyes burned into his. They sent chills trickling through his blood, into his heart, then down his spine. The chills always paralysed him so any attempt he'd made before of stopping them both from the never ending falling were now obsolete. Sometimes he'd try and scream sorry at Sherlock and explain how he was wrong. The screams were always silenced by the eyes.
The sad, pathetic, murderer stared back at him from the mirror. His own eyes were red from the constant lack of sleep and also lifeless. He'd always wondered about the question of could you look a person in the eyes and kill them? He was looking at himself now. Could he kill himself? Follow in the fake genius' footsteps? Sherlock hadn't looked himself in the eyes when he'd done it. He'd just stepped off the roof and gone, gravity had done the work. Was looking yourself in the eyes and killing yourself the same as looking another person in the eyes and killing them? If death is always the same then shouldn't the killer be equal?
He'd always seen suicide as selfish, especially the ones who threw themselves in front of buses or trains. The delays to public transport it caused and the poor drivers who hit them and sometimes never recovered from it. If he wanted to commit suicide he wouldn't do it that way. So what did that leave? There were many possibilities with death and he'd seen them all but most of them he was too much of a coward to consider. A gun to the head was preferred. One quick pull of the trigger and darkness. Not the smothering darkness currently possessing him but the soothing freedom. A gun he'd taken from work lay on the side of the sink now. He tore his eyes away from the murderer and picked it up, his hands trembling.
That first case came once again to his mind. She'd been shot all over her body. There was no dignity there. It doesn't matter how death is achieved, what means you take, who the person is, every body is same on the inside and every body is a remarkable miracle. There is no dignity as the body struggles and fights death until the last second or as the body is destroyed. Our whole lives we are waiting to die, cheating death each day by the wonder that is the human body but we also come one step closer to death each day. How right it is then that we should fight for the right to live at every chance we get.
The gun was pressed to the head, his eyes back on his reflection. The darkness within him was trickling through his veins, chasing his blood. Blood still safe inside. His heart was beating faster. Was it racing to prove he was alive? To stop the darkness? Pounding. Racing. Beating. Fighting. Always fighting until the last second. Always.
Could you look a person in the eyes and kill them, the sad, pathetic, murderer? Trembling hands. The struggle. Where was the detachment, the mundane, the immunity now? Thoughts of the never ending falling with those cold, piercing, blue eyes. Fighting. One last fight. One last struggle. One pull of the trigger. Body always the same of the inside. Death no longer a colleague. Soothing freedom of darkness. The stench of death soon to come. Death is always the same. There's no such thing as dying with dignity.