Final Moments

Greg Burdon

Copyright Greg Burdon 2011

Published at Smashwords

I sometimes grow tired of taking lives. To wait in the shadows, unknown to those whom I watch, until that final breath leaves their bodies in the same instant their soul flies from this mortal coil. I did not choose to be what I am. I do not even know what to refer to myself as. I have been called many things in the past. But one thing remains a fact: when the time comes, I will have no choice but to take your life.

On this night, I felt that same tiresome self-reflection that I had felt many times before, questioning my influence on the lives around me. So deep was my pensive state that I dropped all pretence and allowed myself to be known to those around me as I sit quietly in my suit and tie, though of course they could not know my intentions. They could not know what I was waiting for. Particularly the young boy seated beside me, no older than 19 years, waiting for his train in the dead of night. He and I were the only souls on the platform. I sat, still, waiting, while he reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a box of those vile cigarettes that I see so many young people inserting into their mouths. If I had not taken the lives of countless men, women and children I would quite possibly have lectured him on the dangers of smoking such poisons. But as I was beside him, the cigarette was the least of his concerns.

He noticed me watching him. After placing one of the white paper sticks onto his lips, he holds out the box in my direction, a gesture of offering. “Wanna bump one, buddy?” he asks me.