Author's Note: This is actually the final chapter of a much larger story of the same name. But until I get around to finishing the larger story, enjoy this, my finest piece of writing (which isn't saying much). I know that this gives away the story, but (1) I was tired of letting it sit on my hard drive and (2) by the time I finish the actual story, everyone will have forgotten this particular piece anyway.
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Flaming Red
4:00 is a strange hour. The nightlife is over and the daylife has yet to begin. The world is soft, peaceful. The cool breeze, smell of air, and striking peace seems to be all one notices.
It's nights like these, when I can't sleep and go for a drive that I wonder if I'm really living. I don't think so. Living means feeling. I stopped feeling long ago.
Haven't I?
I rolled down the window and turned the radio up. Driving, feeling the wind in my face and hearing the radio playing, I can stop thinking. Some people drive to clear their head and think. I drive to stop thinking. The loud music drives the thoughts from my head, the road gives me something to concentrate on. Not thinking is easier sometimes.
Easier... the cowards way out. Humans were meant to suffer. If I can't suffer...
...am I still human?
There I go, thinking again. I turned the radio up.
Probably one of the reasons I was dragged into the Turks is my ability to seem to remain completely emotionless. It's because I don't think. Not thinking makes it easier to kill.
But not thinking is hard.
Once, I killed a pregnant woman. She was an innocent, in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Tseng said leave no witnesses. I shot her in the stomach first, let her live her final seconds knowing her child would never be born, then between the eyes. Tseng and Reno saw no emotion on my face, heard nothing in my voice. They were the same way. It was business as usual.
The didn't see me after I went home. They didn't see the five bottles of vodka, the drugs, the pills, they didn't see me in a drunken, stoned agony, screaming at God, begging Heaven and Hell to take the pain away.
They saw me two days later. They'll never know I didn't take the pills. They'll never know I passed out before I had a chance. I did my job and came back for more. That's all they'll ever know. I always come back for more.
My car found itself in front of Elena's condo. Not knowing quite why, I parked, got out, and knocked on her door.
There's so much she'll never know about me.
It took several minutes of knocking before a sleepy and disheveled Elena answered the door.
"...Rude? What the hell are you doing here? It's after four in the morning..." A yawn cut off her suprized greeting. I tried to smile, but it just wasn't in me.
She must have looked in my eyes, because she let me in. She always said I had sad eyes, whenever I bothered to show them to anyone. I sat down on her sofa, hands in jacket pockets, staring at the floor.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe?" Elena said. I shook my head, and she sat down gently on the sofa next to me. We sat in silence for a moment.
"So what brings you here?" my hostess asked. I took an envelope out of my pocket and handed it to her. She looked at me for a moment, then took the letter inside out and read it aloud.
"Dear Rude, as you are now known,
I would say I hoped you would be the one to find me, but what difference would it make? I don't owe you and explanation. But I couldn't leave without telling you how I feel. Not that you care. This is just closure, I guess.
You probably know by now that I played dumb, but I wasn't really playing. I really didn't know everything my father was doing, but I knew about the drugs and the extortion. I didn't say anything because I didn't want anything bad to happen. I just wanted to live my life, bland as it was, and let my father live his.
Why couldn't you just let me do that? You didn't need me, you really didn't. I was just getting use to being poor when you came along. I was actually starting to like my new life, crazy as that sounds. Then you showed me what I was missing, and made me help you destroy it.
How can I live with myself, knowing I helped you kill my family? I had a chance to be accepted back, but you made me help you kill them. I loved you, I trusted you, and this is what happens.
You probably think I'm a spoiled little rich girl who can't take the real world. Maybe I am, but I can't live like this. It's just easier this way.
Easier... the cowards way out. So I'm a coward. I really don't care anymore.
I guess there isn't anything left to say. Goodbye, William Fletcher.
Caroline Annabelle Ripley"
Elena refolded the letter and dropped her hands in her lap.
"I found it next to her body," I said. "She... she slit her wrists."
A strange thing happens when you stop and think: everything catches up with you. To use an old cliche, you can run, but you cannot hide. It's easier to go through life like an automaton. Do, don't feel. React but don't react. Get things done and don't look back. Don't ever look back because when you do you'll see a sea of faces saying "What have you done?" and " What is wrong with you?" and "How can you sleep at night?" and those faces aren't your victims because your victims have been gone a long time. Those faces are all your faces, they look at you with your eyes and chastise you with your lips and cry with your tears.
I killed my own father. I drove the only person who truly loved me to suicide. A hundred billion people can tell me this everyday for the rest of my life, but my sea of faces is the only thing that can make me feel the force of what I have done. I realized this sitting on Elena's sofa at 4:15 am on an April Thursday morning and I did the only thing I could do.
I cried.
I cried like a baby that morning, while Elena held me and rocked me gently, like my mother would have done when I was a child if she'd cared to. I sat on Elena's sofa and wept bitterly, like I left Caroline doing only thirty-six hours earlier. It took months to stop feeling sick when I heard the pregnant woman's screams in my head, it'll take years to forget Caroline sitting in the moonlight, wrapped in my bedsheet. The scratches she left on my back will burn even longer. I cried. My hands trembled, my stomach twisted, my head pounded, and all I could do was sob into Elena's shoulder and squeeze her arm.
I was still human.
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Flaming Red
4:00 is a strange hour. The nightlife is over and the daylife has yet to begin. The world is soft, peaceful. The cool breeze, smell of air, and striking peace seems to be all one notices.
It's nights like these, when I can't sleep and go for a drive that I wonder if I'm really living. I don't think so. Living means feeling. I stopped feeling long ago.
Haven't I?
I rolled down the window and turned the radio up. Driving, feeling the wind in my face and hearing the radio playing, I can stop thinking. Some people drive to clear their head and think. I drive to stop thinking. The loud music drives the thoughts from my head, the road gives me something to concentrate on. Not thinking is easier sometimes.
Easier... the cowards way out. Humans were meant to suffer. If I can't suffer...
...am I still human?
There I go, thinking again. I turned the radio up.
Probably one of the reasons I was dragged into the Turks is my ability to seem to remain completely emotionless. It's because I don't think. Not thinking makes it easier to kill.
But not thinking is hard.
Once, I killed a pregnant woman. She was an innocent, in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Tseng said leave no witnesses. I shot her in the stomach first, let her live her final seconds knowing her child would never be born, then between the eyes. Tseng and Reno saw no emotion on my face, heard nothing in my voice. They were the same way. It was business as usual.
The didn't see me after I went home. They didn't see the five bottles of vodka, the drugs, the pills, they didn't see me in a drunken, stoned agony, screaming at God, begging Heaven and Hell to take the pain away.
They saw me two days later. They'll never know I didn't take the pills. They'll never know I passed out before I had a chance. I did my job and came back for more. That's all they'll ever know. I always come back for more.
My car found itself in front of Elena's condo. Not knowing quite why, I parked, got out, and knocked on her door.
There's so much she'll never know about me.
It took several minutes of knocking before a sleepy and disheveled Elena answered the door.
"...Rude? What the hell are you doing here? It's after four in the morning..." A yawn cut off her suprized greeting. I tried to smile, but it just wasn't in me.
She must have looked in my eyes, because she let me in. She always said I had sad eyes, whenever I bothered to show them to anyone. I sat down on her sofa, hands in jacket pockets, staring at the floor.
"Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe?" Elena said. I shook my head, and she sat down gently on the sofa next to me. We sat in silence for a moment.
"So what brings you here?" my hostess asked. I took an envelope out of my pocket and handed it to her. She looked at me for a moment, then took the letter inside out and read it aloud.
"Dear Rude, as you are now known,
I would say I hoped you would be the one to find me, but what difference would it make? I don't owe you and explanation. But I couldn't leave without telling you how I feel. Not that you care. This is just closure, I guess.
You probably know by now that I played dumb, but I wasn't really playing. I really didn't know everything my father was doing, but I knew about the drugs and the extortion. I didn't say anything because I didn't want anything bad to happen. I just wanted to live my life, bland as it was, and let my father live his.
Why couldn't you just let me do that? You didn't need me, you really didn't. I was just getting use to being poor when you came along. I was actually starting to like my new life, crazy as that sounds. Then you showed me what I was missing, and made me help you destroy it.
How can I live with myself, knowing I helped you kill my family? I had a chance to be accepted back, but you made me help you kill them. I loved you, I trusted you, and this is what happens.
You probably think I'm a spoiled little rich girl who can't take the real world. Maybe I am, but I can't live like this. It's just easier this way.
Easier... the cowards way out. So I'm a coward. I really don't care anymore.
I guess there isn't anything left to say. Goodbye, William Fletcher.
Caroline Annabelle Ripley"
Elena refolded the letter and dropped her hands in her lap.
"I found it next to her body," I said. "She... she slit her wrists."
A strange thing happens when you stop and think: everything catches up with you. To use an old cliche, you can run, but you cannot hide. It's easier to go through life like an automaton. Do, don't feel. React but don't react. Get things done and don't look back. Don't ever look back because when you do you'll see a sea of faces saying "What have you done?" and " What is wrong with you?" and "How can you sleep at night?" and those faces aren't your victims because your victims have been gone a long time. Those faces are all your faces, they look at you with your eyes and chastise you with your lips and cry with your tears.
I killed my own father. I drove the only person who truly loved me to suicide. A hundred billion people can tell me this everyday for the rest of my life, but my sea of faces is the only thing that can make me feel the force of what I have done. I realized this sitting on Elena's sofa at 4:15 am on an April Thursday morning and I did the only thing I could do.
I cried.
I cried like a baby that morning, while Elena held me and rocked me gently, like my mother would have done when I was a child if she'd cared to. I sat on Elena's sofa and wept bitterly, like I left Caroline doing only thirty-six hours earlier. It took months to stop feeling sick when I heard the pregnant woman's screams in my head, it'll take years to forget Caroline sitting in the moonlight, wrapped in my bedsheet. The scratches she left on my back will burn even longer. I cried. My hands trembled, my stomach twisted, my head pounded, and all I could do was sob into Elena's shoulder and squeeze her arm.
I was still human.
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