It was another one of those dark and rainy nights.
Water droplets born from the clouds started kissing the Earth gently at first, and then more passionately, and finally the force was so much that the kiss morphed into a tormenting, piercing pounding.
In the eeriness and the sepulchral silence of the graveyard where soulless corpses took refuge, stood a man, the rain bouncing savagely off his black umbrella. Cold lines cut across his face, hardening his visage; but the coldness of his heart far surpassed the coldness on his face.
He looked grimly at a singular line of graves, all identical save for the numbers engraved on them. They bore no epitaphs or announcements like ‘Here lies…’ On the tombstones were just engraved a number, and a date. There will be just one more tombstone, and after that I’m done, Zephyr told himself.
He looked at the long line of identical tombstones – the people he had killed. He never cared who they were, what they did, if they had kids; it was his job to kill, and it was something within him which told him to bury them; No names, no status, no discrimination; all those meaningless entities perish with the person and they were all buried together in the same soil, subject to the same maggots, and ultimately crumbled to the same dust. Death was the inevitable unison which bridged everyone irrespective of anything.
Zephyr had only one person left to kill, and it only made things easier that he hated that person. All his deaths had been for the living, for the job; his last kill was for himself, because hate was consuming him and he could bear with it no longer. He had tried to relate to this person throughout his meaningless existence, to seek refuge, to understand what he was all about, but he could never figure out. Whenever this person stood in the graveyard of soulless corpses, Zephyr always thought that this person didn’t have a soul either and that the only difference was that this person was a walking corpse.
There had never been another side to this guy except the killer side; there was only cold calculation, colder feelings and of course, the coldest heart.
The rain was now ceasing its relentlessness; Zephyr shook the raindrops off his umbrella and with haste in his strides, reached the undertaker who had been doing the business of engraving the tombstones of Zephyr’s victims.
“This is your 110th, Mr. Z” Stated the Undertaker.
“The next one will be my last one.”
The undertaker was not precisely happy to hear this, because the business of burying murdered people and keeping the whole thing under wraps was an extremely productive business. But the whole foundation on which he had been given the contract was the usual ‘no questions asked, none answered’ one, but now since the contract was going to terminate, the undertaker could take it no longer.
“Who were all those people you killed?” He queried.
Zephyr too, had no obligations anymore as this was going to be his ultimate assignment. He took off his coat, pulled up a rusted chair, and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The undertaker looked at the cold angles on Zephyr’s face and shuddered. The whole room was dimly lit by a few dull bulbs; Zephyr wondered - was this because the nature of the undertaker’s job was like that or was it because he didn’t want to see how weepy or ugly his clients were when they were grieving someone who died; but then, you can’t exactly expect freaking colorful neon lights on the display at an undertaker’s.
“I killed them because I was asked to, and the dough was good. I am as clueless as you are about their identities. It was just look at this picture, go kill him, take your money, shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck outta here.”
“Why did you do it? You would’ve annihilated so many families and you would’ve destroyed a large number of people who could’ve made a great difference.”
“What’s done is done” stated Zephyr, taking a contemplative puff at his burning cigarette.
“Now how come you’re stopping?”
“Well, you’ve been my only friend and you’ll soon find out.” And with an air of enigma about him, Zephyr turned to leave. As he shut the door behind him, the undertaker wondered- I didn’t even know him and he says I’m his only friend. What a sad ass life he must lead.
Perspiration drenched his palm as he clutched his faithful GP-100 Ruger Magnum pistol. For the first time, his heart was throbbing and adrenaline was pumping as he cocked his gun. He could see his last victim in front of him; Hate bubbled up inside him and threatened to cause an unprecedented internal explosion. This had been the advantage of not knowing any of his other victims. They were just meaningless faces and there were no connecting roots. Here the roots ran so deep; they were welded together and nearly indistinguishable.
His last victim- Victim Number 111. A nice note to end it on, he thought. He messaged his undertaker – Collect it at the usual place.
Zephyr saw his last victim for the last time, and pulled the trigger.
The undertaker went to the usual place and saw the victim; in front of him was a mirror.
The undertaker buried the last victim in that sepulchral row of graves. The only difference was, this tombstone read differently –
Here lies Zephyr, the man responsible for this entire row of graves including his own.
