The Morning After

I put my head on the cold pillowcase, feeling her small hands with mine as I tried to be numb and at peace for a second. I didn't want to believe I had done this, but there was nothing I could do now. I tried to forget, I tried to stop shaking, but even when my mind tried to stop screaming, I still felt the gun in my hand. It felt like the gun was glued in my palms, and it felt as if I moved now, the gun would go off, and add to this act I had done.

I finally pulled myself up off of the freshly made sheets, and I pried my fingers off of the gun. I put it on the desk a few feet from the bed, and I pushed myself away from her. She remained still, as if she had never been awake when everything had happened. I could see the blood on my hands, and though the sheets had once been a light green, they were now black in a majority of parts.

I walked to the window and looked out. I saw trees swaying in the wind, I could see the lights from a house a mile away, and I wished I could be outside now. But I was stuck in this place, a place I knew I would never really leave. My body may not be present in the room, but every night, for the rest of my life, I would dream of being trapped in this room, left to stare at her, pretending she was asleep.

I couldn't cry - what kind of person like myself would after doing this? I was ashamed of myself for feeling any emotion. I had been angry enough to come here and do this, but now I felt as if I felt the pain of someone who was still unknowing of my crime. I looked at the white carpet, now stained with blood in some parts, and I saw the feet of the woman who had come to protect her child.

I walked towards the doorway, and when I looked at the result of my first murder, I bit my tongue until it bled badly to keep myself from screaming - but it didn't help. I wanted to collapse and die when I had looked at her mangled corpse, her arms cut open, her chest and throat bleeding, and her eyes still looking for the door. I turned my head away and I walked by her slowly, trying to rub out the image of her and her daughter.

As I quietly walked through the house, I saw the husband who had come to try and stop me. I guess it was a good thing he had tried. He would have been living in agony if he was not dead. I stopped and thought to myself, just as I was when I lost them. I smiled sickly to myself and I continued to walk now, ignoring the bloodstains on their carpet now.

I looked through the house silently. She had done a beautiful job with this place. It was a shame it was being wasted - but she brought this on herself. And on our daughter, who now lay as she did now - dead. She could not have sensibly thought I was going to let her take everything from me without reacting.

And now perhaps we were finally set. I took in deep breaths while her lungs ceased to function, my heart beat while hers bled. And each time I thought of her and how we were set, I couldn't stop myself from also thinking "And so does my daughter's." My daughter's lungs ceased to function. My daughter's heart bled. My daughter was gone like she was. And then, I think, is where I knew I did not have much of a chance left.

I had murdered them in the early morning, two perhaps, and now I could see the sun starting to turn the dark rain clouds gray. It was now the morning after. And as the rain now became visible, I looked at my hand. Though it was covered in blood, I could still see my wedding ring.

I turned around and I began walking towards our daughter's room. I did not bother stepping on her body - she had used a knife to my heart more than once, and this was just my boot to her neck. I stepped into her room and I bent down. I could see her face well now, her eyes closed, but the heavy blood flow that had occurred not so long ago may have closed them for her. I picked up her small hands and I took off my wedding ring. I slid it onto her ring finger. It didn't fit - I know it never would now, but there was nothing else I could do now.

I stood back up and I saw the gun I had used to take her life a few inches from her knees. I closed my eyes and picked up the gun, and I began to walk out towards the backyard. I stepped on her mother's corpse again, still not caring. I opened the back door and I looked up. My clothes were getting drenched in the cold rain, but it wouldn't matter soon.

I checked to make sure the gun was loaded. I smiled when I saw that it was. I sighed now, seeing the house that would be on the television soon. I thought I would cry for a second out of some kind of sick joy that finally, I had done something with my life.

You would have thought my daughter being born was the best thing in my life, but I had been young. She had been six when I killed her, but I was twenty-two. I had been married since I was sixteen to that girl who I thought I could never see go, who I couldn't be separated from. I had dropped out of school to be with her and my daughter. I threw away my future without a second thought for her. And this was how she repaid me? By taking away my daughter, the only thing I had now, and marrying this bastard who she had loved instead of me, even when our daughter had been born, even when I married her, even when I got a job and paid for our own apartment?

How could she have ever thought I was not a suitable father? How could she have thought he was better than me? How could she have just thrown me to the curb and forgotten me so quickly? Was I really that replaceable? How could she think, how could she even imagine, she could think she and that bastard were better than me, so much better she could take away my child, so much better that she could file that divorce and take my things? Well, it didn't matter too much anymore, now did it? She was dead. He was dead. Our daughter was dead. Everyone but one thing was ripped away from her. And now it was time to take away the last thing.

I now opened my mouth and took in my last breath. I felt the cold metal from the gun on my tongue, and smiled. I closed my eyes, and I pulled the trigger. I fell to the ground, the bullet going straight through my head and pounding itself into the cement, and I bled.

I don't remember any pain from this - I've been told the brain doesn't remember pain, and from my experience, I can tell you it does not, at least not for me. But still, even as I was dying, I still remembered how much I had forsaken.

I gave her everything - my love, my daughter, my money, my devotion. I gave her my life.

And that was the last thing I had to take from her.