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Down in the Dirt magazine (v081)
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Untitled

Alexander Leleux

    Rain poured down upon the wretched pox that blemished the earth with its infectious disease. Thick noxious clouds loomed over the peeling scab, the heavy roar of thunder drowning out the screams of the innocent. What had once been a beautiful city was now nothing more then a withered husk. Shattered street lights no longer bathed their inhabitants in the safety of their warm glow. Now only an array of dim neon lights cast shadows across the alleyways which festered with graffiti and dry blood as a plague breeds puss and boils. The pollution that man once called air now reeked of smoke and death, the bitter metallic tang of blood overwhelming the taste.
    Where once had been a man among men now sat a drunken, tired creature. Thick black greasy hair matted down his collar like an unkempt mane, obscuring the blood shot eyes that had once been the most beautiful of crystal blue. Dark sags lay beneath his eyes, scars and bruises littering his unshaven face. He rubbed a grimy hand across his weary face, taking another swig of his newest bottle of the cheapest and hardest liquor he could buy. He gazed over the pile of now empty bottles that lay streamed across the alley floor, randomly counting the number to amuse himself but quickly lost attention at about seventeen. He then let out a ragged sigh, gazing up to the black sky and feeling the rain fall upon his cheeks.
    ‘You’re disgusting...’ he muttered quietly to himself, seeing his reflection in every raindrop that splattered upon the cold cement. “You will never be good enough... You were never conceited enough... You will not rise above...” The words played across his lips and through his mind over and over again, a parrot that had learned to copy the words he had been told from the very beginning of his life.
    He looked down at the broken beer bottles, his abusive drunken father. He looked down at the used heroine needles strewn across his lap, his careless drug addict mother. He had become everything he loathed and hated in this life, now the very embodiment of all he feared and hated.
    He did everything he could to betray his roots, studied hard in school, got a job, even found his way into the police academy and graduated at the top of his class. That was when he met her, the love of his life and the woman of his dreams. That was all another life now, a memory faded into nothingness through years of neglect.
    He had betrayed his love and himself. The stress of seeing the death and suffering in others was more then he could handle. He turned to alcohol for comfort but was quickly consumed. It was a quick and hellish descent from there, drug, prostitutes, and other atrocities to which he could no longer look himself in the eye. He was a monster, a danger to his wife and his new born child. He vowed that the outcome would be different. He would not be like his parents...
    His lips curled into a soft, almost warm smile as he finally came to the realization of the task that had been set before him. He reached down ever so casually to his belt and slowly drew his gun from its holster, the barrel sliding smoothly from its leather bed. The gun had been given to him with the responsibility and duty to protect others. He would uphold that vow one final time. He would protect his family from the horrible monster he had become. The thought delivered comfort to his despondent heart as he pulled back the hammer, the muzzle nestled so tenderly against his temple. “I love you....” He muttered quietly to the rain as the image of his wife and child. Tears of joy and absolution rolled down his smiling face as he pulled the trigger, and then he felt only peace.

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