Thursday 4 September 2014

Your Time to Die - A short story to start or finish your day with.




“Your time to Die”


The night was fading away as the first streams of the sun’s rays peeked over the horizon to herald in the start of a new day. In the distance the sound of waves crashing upon the shore, an almost soothing sound to an almost defeated man, a lost man with little knowledge of what had happened to him over the last eight hours.

Paul Harris sat on the low rock wall at the edge of the car park nestled high above the water below, the trees around the cleared parking area rustled softly with a new morning breeze that cooled his hot and aching skin as it blew in off the open seas below.

The cuts and abrasions he surveyed on his exposed arms were nothing compared to the gaping wound in his left thigh and his lower right abdomen, a makeshift tourniquet made from the shirt he was wearing the previous night tied a tight as possible soaked in his precious life’s blood dripping above the leg wound.

As he coughed Paul wiped away a small drool of blood as it bubbled in his throat, leaving him with a metallic, coppery taste that had basically been the main stay of the last eight hours.

“What the hell happened to my life” he whispered softly to himself and he closed his over tired eyes, dragged in a deep breath, as his left hand searched his pockets for a cigarette.

Paul found the cancerous stick and shakily placed the enclosed tobacco and filter in his dry and crusty lips. Using his trusty Zippo he watched the flame dance for a few seconds then dropped the lighter back in his pocket, inhaled deeply and coughed out smoke and with it blood infested spittle.

“Linda what did we do, what happened” he said to himself again as he thought of his beautiful wife, thirty six never had children and her body was still as good as any twenty year old.

He delved inside his memories and thought back to the previous evening, the fun before they even left the house, the drive to the bar, the plans they had for a quiet night away in a ritzy hotel, room service, hot showers, steamy lingering love making.

That was the plan they had been looking forward to for the last three months, it started ok and the sex was fantastic but what was to happen in the wake of their enjoyment was not ever part of the plan.

 A solitary tear run down his face as his mind drifted back to the image of his wife, as he exhaled and coughed again spitting a congealed blob of blood to the ground, he wiped the vitreous fluid away once more as he remembered the last time his eyes drank in her visage.

Her body ruined, all but destroyed and why, what benefit did it serve anyone, she was a beautiful woman who never hurt anyone, he sobbed loudly now and the sun’s rays were oddly comforting him in a blanket of unseen warmth as he allowed his head to drop down between his open knees.

The fight he put up just too still be alive at six o’clock on this beautiful yet torturous morning was almost all too much for him.

“Lisa , I’m sorry I wish it was me and not you” he sobbed softly as a shadow engulfed him and blocked out the warm morning rays of invigorating light, that almost made him feel some small sense of normality  for all of a fleeting few seconds.

“I can accommodate that for you” the voice said, and as he looked up his neck opened and spilled his tongue out of his throat with a rush of what blood there was left in his body. The meaty appendage flopped out like a grotesque meat tie on a blood red shirt.

His last image was that of a shadow outlined by the sun’s rays and a voice that made his skin crawl.

“Die”!
Copyright -  Graeme Hawke

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