Something a little differently formatted than the first two, I know, but bear with me. I promise it's worth it.
There is something remarkably clean about blood. Maybe it's the way that he feels there is nothing purer then that – simply blood, simply the solution that makes up everyone, simply the liquid that when lost, so is life. Blood is pure, clean, untainted.
It scatters over the white paper, is soaked up by it, red and cloying. The redolence clings to the air, trapped there, suspended on tiny strands of something. No matter how many times he does his job, there is nothing more to it then that. There is life, and then there isn't. There is flesh, and then there is blood.
The child doesn't cry. The child barely notices. The sad thing is that the child doesn't realize how dead it is by the time that all the blood vanishes into a hazy mist above its head.
One thing he's realized is that once the target is set, the target is only it. No matter how much he wants to impress on himself that the target is someone with a life, a family, a career, a future. No matter how hard he wants to remain human.
Losing humanity was the first sign for him.
He sets his gun back in his holster and calls him. The man he loves unconditionally in a way that no one but him understands. It's not sexual. It's not romantic. It's pure, purer than the red of blood, cleaner than it too.
The phone rings one, then twice, but no answer. The voicemail picks up but he doesn't bother to leave a message. A message would only result in a further delay of his routine.
He returns to his car. Another one of him is there – not a clone, but another one, like a brother or perhaps in this case like a son. The other doesn't speak to him. They don't need to speak.
He turns his sleeve and spots a speck of blood. The child's blood. Perhaps he wasn't as clean as he had suspected. His cleanliness is not for any kind of avoidance of blood. Dry-cleaning is expensive.
He wonders, briefly, if he's insane. He was sane once, he's aware. With a child, like the one he killed, and a wife. They were everything to him, before. Long before.
Before the war. Before the feeling of being trapped in lies and outrage, before scandal, before constant fear. But now he's simply there, living, loving someone who will never love him back for lack of desire, or perhaps lack of ability.
Partially it is his fault. The boy was not to blame. The boy had no connection to his own self, and no connection to anyone else around him. No connection; save blood.
Perhaps that was why he thought blood was so pure. It equalized. Everyone bled. Even the one he loved; bled true blood, not money, which is what others wanted to believe.
His wife had been beautiful. He remembers her in sequence and in fog, like a hazy day. He remembers small details of her. She asked him once to show her one beautiful thing each day.
He looks at the spot of blood on his white shirt cuff and can't look away. Today this is it – the most beautiful thing.
After she died he gave his mind over to the company. He had no more need of it.
He calls again, and this time the man picks up. "Is it done, then?"
"Yes sir." He replies smoothly. "Is there anything else that needs to be done?"
"No Tseng. That's fine, you should get back to the office." The voice on the other end goes silent, and he hangs up his phone.