Violet

Alone in the silent classroom of white tile floors and brick walls that seem to swallow me, the teacher at the front of the room is discussing the fall of the Roman Empire and her eyes keep twitching towards the clock every two and a half seconds.  Beside me a girl taps her manicured nail in a soft, uneven pattern.

I realize I am surrounded by the unrolled paper towel roll that softly blows in the wind, by the single hair that strays from a messy pony tail, by the taunting hum of the millions of computers and printers in the room. The multiple conversations of no academic meaning, buzz, getting louder and louder.  Each small sound of my torture comes together in an orchestral crescendo that pounds in my ears.  

On the inside I am scared; I feel the terror that is foreign to my innocent heart.  It is a heavy weight, and you know, that my heart would be equal in weight to the feather of Truth from Ma’at.  You who know my cleverness though could guess the image of my outer body.  Would I ever let my truest enemies know my state of fear?  Never!  Not I.  That is, until I saw her.

The girl from my nightmares -- my true fear was set in front of my by Satan.  The death of my parents came back to me in the most innocent of forms: a child.  Yet you, my friend, who know me, know that a child is one of the least innocent forms of life.

In front of me as I sat in my brick-laid prison, a seemingly innocent child tapped away at the electronic lives in her video world.  As the clock hand moved, so did hers, killing the innocent, her screen alight with their blood and their soft cries could be heard from her headphones.  And I found myself wet with tears for their sacred lives that had been taken from them by a mere child.  My flooded eyes could not stray from this act of an inhuman monster;  how could a child of such a glorious God commit such a horrid crime?

The teacher called upon me asking me to answer the question, but how could I when such acts of indecency where being performed in front of my very soul; the class was entirely silent as they waited for my answer that never came. The girl in front never noticed the eyes staring at her bestial actions.

Before I could answer, the bell chimed announcing the end of my mental suffering.  The flow of endless innocence into the hallways surrounded me as I fled the premise.  And as I walked into the pouring rain and towards my home, I soon realized I wasn’t alone.  Oh, the pain I had endured in class, and was it done yet?  Had I not seen and felt enough pain for many souls?  And yet there she was, behind me.

Overhead the ravens circled like vultures preying on the dead and weak.  I looked behind to see Rose still walking, her mind elsewhere but her soul in Hell.  I stumbled in my attempt to stay on the path of lightness as her fake, sweet voice calls me towards her.  Beneath her feet I could almost see the ground giving way to let the flames of Hell lick at her.

“Violet, come walk with me,” she called.  

You, my friend, know the level of my cleverness and to disguise my contempt for this poor excuse of a human being I turned my head to smile at her, then quietly walked up my driveway.  

Late that night, I began to think as I always do.  I wondered what life would be like if we were rid of such a demon as Rose; would life better from the death of such a creature?  Or could her impudent behavior benefit us in the ways of Yin and Yang?  I soon formulated a plan, a clever plan indeed, to make her suffer the pain she has unleashed unto others.  A way to give her a taste of her own medicine.  Her video game would come to life and she would be the assassin.

The next day was the beginning.  It was the day that Rose would begin to realize what the feeling of regret really was.  I had decided to cause death before her very eyes, and put their death is her hands.  She would feel her own pain.

The day was uneventful except for the plan formulating in my mind.  How I wish you could have seen me, with such cleverness and caution did I speak to Rose.  Never would she expect the events to come.  After school I skipped down the stairs and stepped into place beside Rose.  We walked at a slow speed, and I kept glancing down expecting to see the gates of Hell.  She quickened her pace to be beside her elderly neighbor.  Down the road I could see an oncoming bus.  

Quietly and secretively I stuck my foot half an inch to the side, not much by any means, but enough to make a difference.  I watched with a look alarm on my face, you who know my cleverness know this facade.  Rose stumble over my barely outstretched foot into her elderly neighbor.  She watched as her minuscule stumble caused pain.  Her neighbor was pushed off the edge of the road and into the path of the oncoming bus.  I could almost see her hands outstretched in horror, stained in the blood of her neighbor.

“I, oh my gosh. I-,” Rose sat on the sidewalk in fear and awe.  Take that you demon!

“Come on Rose, you didn’t mean to.  You couldn’t help falling into her!” I pull her to her feet almost too 
harshly.  “Come on, we should really get you home.  Rose, please we need to go home!”

I have dragged this wretched excuse towards the apartments I’d seen her walk to before.  Ha, my cleverness I wish you could have seen.  I had figured out all the information I needed but being so clever I didn’t let on to all my knowledge.

“Rose? Rose please, what is your apartment number?”  I pretended to be desperate and heartbroken by the previous tragedy -- little did she know.

“666,” is all Rose can mutter. Ha, such a number for a demon from Hell.

I gently pulled her over to the elevator, my heart pumping in anticipation.  We waited in silence while I gently comforted her until the elevator beeped and opened it’s majestic door to show us a shabby apartment hallway. Taking Rose by the hand we made our way to her door.  Looking back at her, she was screaming, her eyes darting every which way, staring at the red.  She screamed at me to get her away from the red and fell into a heap on the floor.  Gently, I lifted her up and pulled her into her apartment.

I lead her down a hallway peeking into each room to see which one is hers.  Eventually I came to a room that is purple and dark with a small bed in the corner.  Her clothes are strewn across the floor and hang in a closet that is opened slightly with hangers that are barely peeking through the doors.   Her window is slightly open allowing the curtain to gently dance in the wind.  

Turning back to Rose, I harshly grabbed her arm and shoved her into the room.  I walked in slamming the door and locking it.  Rose seemed to wake up at the sound of the door and turned to me with fear in her eyes.  For a moment she almost seemed innocent but I knew the truth of her soul.  She must pay for those other people’s lives and hers would be sufficient.  

“Violet, is everything okay?”  her voice shaked, what an actress she was.

“Everything soon will be,” I softly whispered as I walked over to her.  To hide proof of my deed I slipped latex gloves onto my hands.

I stroked her hair as tears cascaded down her cheeks and dropped onto the floor.  My hands slowly lowered down and grasped around her neck.  I felt her pulse quicken as my hands began to tighten and she began to squirm.  Her hands were grabbing at mine, trying to stop me and I looked into her eyes; they plead for her life but that is one wish I would not grant.  I let my hands loosen and fall to my side when I didn’t feel her pulse anymore.

Looking at her collapsed body on the ground, her eyes were shut as they would remain and my deed was finished.  Taking her limp body in my arms I carried her to the closet.  So clever am I that I make this death look like a suicide.  Slipping a hanger around her neck I hooked the hanger onto the bar on the closet and let her hang there -- dead.

Sitting down at her desk I pulled out some paper’s she’s written and got to work.  I sat there for an hour, perfecting my masterpiece with hundreds of crumbled papers on the floor.  Finally I had my finished piece and I felt as though a thousand lives had been avenged.  My piece read as follows.

Hey Mom,

Obviously because you are reading this I have passed on. I am not sorry for what I have done to myself, only what I have done to the people around me. Don’t be sad for me, I’m not worth it, besides it won’t matter seeing as I have already passed on through the light anyway.

Rose

I placed the note on the floor below Rose’s feet that dangled an inch off the ground.  I heard the apartment door open and I could hear the high heels of Rose’s mom clicking on the hardwood flood.  

“Mrs.Gaudium, how are you today?”  I spoke so innocently and sweet.

“Good, thank you.  And you are?”

“Oh excuse me for not introducing myself.  My name is Violet.  I’m a friend of Rose’s from school.  She asked me to meet her here but I can’t seem to find her anywhere?”

“Oh, that is unlike Rose.  Oh well, she’ll turn up somewhere.  Would you like to stay and have dinner with me?”

I am so confident that I had done a complete job of killing Rose that I nodded my head and turned towards the kitchen.  We sat in silence for a good part of the meal, but it was peaceful.  I kept thinking about Rose in the bedroom and how many lives were grateful to me.  But I kept seeing her eyes, my hands were pumping from the pulse I felt in her neck.  I felt as though her heart was pulsing along side my own -- thump, thump, thump.  

My hands turned sweaty as I thought of the note that I wrote for Rose -- thump, thump, thump.  I looked up at Rose’s mom but she just smiled at me and continued to eat.  She didn’t seem to know that her own daughter was dead, limply hanging in her closet.  Thump, thump, thump.  Her pleading eyes, the note, her quickening and dieing pulse beating.  

I stood up pushing my chair back with a screech.  Rose’s mom looked up at me with concern and I started screaming.  Rose’s eyes were right before my very own, pleading for life.  My hands writing her suicide note and in my mind I saw red ink writing death all over.  Thump, thump, thump.  Her pulse is quickening.

“I killed her!  She’s dead- go look!  Hanging in her room- dead!  I did it to avenge the lives of those she cared nothing about!  She had to pay!”

Her mother screamed and ran into her daughter’s room and the last I heard was her crying and screaming at the death of her only daughter.  Gone.  I had completed my job.