“Is.” Chapter 1

        Ugh, Christ. The things you got to do to get what you want out of life.

Trigger—brains—wall. The quicker a figure gains reign, the richer I get from the call. This time was no different. Same result. Same ole’ shit. He bent his will. The man that held the gun just killed his best friend. They always do. Can’t blame em’.

         Slowly, I pulled the blade back away from his wife’s neck and slipped her fallen nightgown back upon her shoulders. It’s a shame that it came to this, yet it always does. People are a lot braver at the end. They have a lot more courage when it’s not their life on the line but that of a loved one. Unbeknownst to them that their lineage is already in the ground.

         Hiroki knows this.

                 That’s why He sends me.

         The quivering man could not loosen his grip on the still smoking pistol. His eyes did not divert from the now faceless body that sprawled out before him. After a few seconds, the bullet’s ring roared its way out of the basement's dungeon and into Zimbabwe’s bare desert above. In the freed echo’s haste it left behind deafening silence. Neither the quivering man nor his family made a peep. In fact, the only sound came from the faceless man’s physical life spiraling down the drain in the floor. The gunman’s wife laid crumpled in the fetal position on the concrete. It was quite impressive actually. She remained in complete silence even as I stepped over her to approach her still trembling husband.

         Although the gun still had 15 bullets left in its clip, no trigger ripped at me, as if I didn't exist . Instead, he held the gun in the same position that he had shot his friend—dazed. A few more quick steps and I stood directly next to him. Still, his eyes did not divert from his slain friend.

         “I… I did it,” he admitted. I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or to himself. Not that it mattered. He certainly was no longer the man he was that morning. As expected.

         “Yep,” I replied and put my hand on his shoulder. We stood like that for a moment—or a lifetime—depending on which of us you asked.

         “I did it,” he repeated. The marinade of his acts bubbled into self-realization.

          I could have explained to him that he didn’t have a choice, nor that it really mattered since he would soon be joining his newly departed friend. Fuck it. What’s the point in that? He’s not the only one with problems. Instead, I simply reached down and took the gun from his hands.

         “Congratulations,” I said. “This must be a big day for you.” The man turned to me revealing his newly hollowed eyes.

        “What now?” he asked.

        Trigger—brains—ceiling. The man’s wife was no longer silent.

         Brain matter drips from the ceiling like red, white, and blue stalagmites. His wife’s wails are understandable considering she just witnessed a “murder-suicide.” Nevertheless, her screeches intensified when she rushed over to grieve her dead husband’s body. The screams pierced my ear drums so I pistol whipped her upside of her head. She fell unconscious between the two decapitated bodies and unknowingly bathed herself in a tub of their blood. But she would not die today… at least not physically. If her inevitable hysteria ever subsided she may even have went to the police with her story. Not that it mattered. The two highest-level UNITA rebel leaders were now gone and the Zimbawebean government received what they asked from Him. From then to eternity’s end, Zimbawebe government officials were happy to be forever in debt to Hiroki. As expected.

        Meanwhile, I just hoped the bullet didn’t strike the soul—his or mine.