The sun was bright, the sky was a beautiful orange and gold, and the grass was a greenish yellow color. A tall, slender cat with fur as gold as the sky and short, jaggy hair like the grass, sat on a lawn chair, he was reading a newspaper and was smoking a black cigarette. He grunted and folded the newspaper in half and set it down on the arm of the chair, he stood up, stretched, took one long drag on his cigarette and carefully made smoke rings, trying to make them perfect. He admired the rings floating around, then he lifted up his boot, and put out the cigarette on the sole of it. He flicked the butt away on the lawn, and reached into his pocket and pulled out another one, and then went into his other pocket for his matches, he opened the book of matches to find that it was empty. He had an annoyed look on his face upon seeing this.
"Jethro! Ya mind gettin' me a new book of matches?" he shouted through the screen door, couple minutes later, a cat that was a spitting image of his father came out in the backyard, with a book of matches.
"Here ya dad." He smiled and handed the matches to his father.
"Hey, thanks son." Lit a match and put it up to the cigarette.
"Hey dad, can I try one of those?" the young teenager asked eagerly, the father just laughed.
"Maybe when ya olda, we can have good ol' smoke togetha." he slapped the teen on his shoulder. He gazed into the sky, and had a tranquil smile on. The son looked at the sky too with awe.
"That evenin' sky is probably the most beautiful thing I've seen."
"I'm goin' to have to disagree with ya there son" the boy looked at his father, "all my years of bein' a hitmen, I've found out what the most beautiful thing in the world is, ya know what it is?" the boy shook his head, "its life, mate."
"Life?" the boy asked.
"That's right, I mean each time I go out to kill a bounty I realize it, just before I pull the trigga. Life is beautiful, every part of it. It's precious and a wonderful thing to have. And ya want to know what else is the most beautiful thing in the world is?"
"what?"
"A person, a living being. Ya know, those religious blokes say that a human was created from 'God's image', now I don't really believe in that stuff, but I do agree with that concept. A person is beautiful, a man, a women, a child. They're all beautiful, like life."
"But, if life and people are beautiful, then why do kill for a livin'?" the teen asked.
"It's because I do it to feed my family, it's my profession, I have a reason to do it, just like the cops, or military men, or somethin' like that. Ya got those video games where ya shoot people and kill them, or movies or TV shows that have violence in em, people can tolerate that because its fake, it's not real, however let me tell ya, to see someone die, like REALLY die, it's terrifying. The first time I had to kill someone I was shaking, and hesitating, because I knew I'll be taking away someone's life, not just their life, but their family, friends, everyone who knew him, and with just one pull of the trigga, you take it all away from them. It's sad, and no matta how many times ya do it, you'll neva get used to it. But those people who choose to kill anotha person without a legitimate reason, they're the worst kind. I mean, why would you just WANT to kill somethin' so beautiful? It boggles my mind, literally each I think about it." The father took a long drag on his cigarette, and puffed a long stream of smoke out of his mouth, "let me tell ya boy, there's no such thing as the grim reaper, cause everyone in the world, IS the grim reaper. We all control each other's fate, it's true. I could choose not to kill the man or women I'm supposed to kill, but ya know what? I do. Why? Cause it will benefit me more that they die, cause if they don't die, I don't get paid. And that's true for everyone else out there, life's just too valuable, and people are too greedy." The father put out his cigarette and took out a new one, he lit it again, and inhaled deeply. He checked his watch, and then quietly smoked his last cigarette, "it's about time for me to go to work, Jethro. See ya later mate." He ruffled the boy's messy hair, and walked towards the house.
"Wait, dad." The boy called, the father turned around and looked at the boy waiting for him to talk, "Dad…what about those people who …ya know, kill themselves?" the father took a deep breath, and walked back to his son.
"Well, Jethro some people…just forget how beautiful life is. The world is full of beauty, full of colour, but to those people, all the colours seem to just wash away."
"Oh…I see…" the son nodded.
"Jethro", the boy looked up, " Promise me that you'll learn…"
"Learn what?"
"Learn to love yourself, so ya don't hurt yourself. And learn to love others, so ya don't hurt them. Okay?" the young teen nodded, and the father smiled in approval, "see ya tonight Jethro, I really got to go now alright?"
"Yeah, see ya later dad." The young boy watched his father go through the house, and listened for the front door to close. He looked at the setting sun again, noticing that it wasn't quite as beautiful as it was before, but at the same time, he felt like he was looking at high class art. He then noticed the newspaper on the arm of the lawn chair, he picked it up and saw it was the business section, the head line read: "The Four Aces, Acing Through the Competition". He began to the read the article: "A new business has surpassed many competitors the last couple months, and is now a big corporation in Sydney. The huge success of the Four Aces is unbelievable, with the founders of it being formal members of a large group called the "National Australian Authority Committee", or NAAC for short…"
It was late, and mum wanted me to do an errand, since dad hasn't come home yet. I wonda where he is, if he was goin' to be late, he would've called sayin' so. I needed to buy some extra groceries since mum is plannin' to have her friends ova tomorrow…I was walkin' down the street ,it was late at night, and I decided to take the long way home, cause I wanted to look around town a bit. I walked through some alleyways and then I heard a crowd of people and lots of shoutin'. I rushed ova to see what all the racket was about, there were a bunch of police cars and swat vans outside, they all were pointin' their guns at an abandoned house, people were crowding around tryin' to see what was happenin', but the police were shovin' them back, and blockin' them. I stood and watched the crowd hustlin' around, eventually people started to get bored and left, so I took my chance and went up to see things up close. Then suddenly a man busted out of the house and pointed a gun at the crowd of police, my ears were ringin' and a police officer shielded me, I could hear faint sounds of gun fire, it went on for a good five seconds, and five seconds of gunfire feels like one year of total war. The officer let go of me and I looked to see a man, a man with gold fur, tall, slender, and bloody. I think it was from that day on, I began to forget how beautiful life is.