Cause and Effect (560 hits)
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Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2005-08-30 00:21:00 EDT
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CAUSE AND EFFECT:
- A woman is convicted of murdering her husband and is sentenced to life in prison.
- An unidentifiable software glitch in a laser welder at a manufacturing plant in a Michigan assembly line, causes one in every 300,840.00th titanium 0.060 inch diameter pin to be improperly shaped.
- Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico clashes with cold air from the north and an anomaly of weather is born.
- Five year old Paternal Twins, a boy and a girl, are left parentless and are split up and given to different foster homes.
Murder begets imprisonment.
Error begets a flaw.
Air Streams mix and bring destruction.
Life circumstance gives birth to tragedy.
And so on and so on, and the world turns and people are born, and then die.
Cause and Effect is a motherfucker, it doesn't leave much room for coincidence. It's at the root of everything when you think of it, and right now, I'm thinking it's an evil bitch.
The farmhouse before me is quiet and picturesque. It stands sadly majestic and gleaming white in the afternoon sun, in stark contrast to the soft gold of the wheat field surrounding it, like an understated temple in a desert of gently waving sand.
I'm standing outside of it and my hands are shaking because I have to go do my job and I don't have the stomach for it anymore.
The sun peeks out from between two clouds and caresses the cold sweat on my upturned face.
Birds sing in a nearby tree. Their song is soft, joyful, and almost completely alien to me.
I feel out of place without concrete beneath my feet and the chaotic bustle of the city to lose myself in. I've only ever been in the country twice before and the last time was so long ago that it's become lost in the jumble of a million other distant memories.
I do not belong here and as I take a tentative step towards the door, the birds suddenly stop singing and the silence is deafening. I feel like that gunfighter in the Saturday afternoon westerns, after he steps into a saloon and the piano suddenly stops and everyone turns and looks at him, except this isn't a saloon, and I don't have a six shooter on my hip.
My gun is a semi-automatic with a silencer, and it's in a shoulder holster under my suit jacket.
.
Behind me, at the end of the long winding dirt road that brought me here, there are too men in a large American made sedan waiting for me. One is an Ox, the other a Bulldog. They are brutal men, little more than thugs. They are the closest thing I have to friends and they're here to make sure I do my job, or if need be, do it for me, but I can't let it come to that.
I need to pull my shit together. I need to get a fucking grip or I'm going to end up lying in one of these wheat fields; nothing more than bloated rotten food for the crows; High priced bird chow wrapped in a three thousand dollar suit.
I should never have come clean with Mr. Gilanno.
"What the fuck you mean, retire?" he yelled, "You're 35 years old! Look at me, I'm 68 and I still work boy!... so you gotta kill some peoples sometimes and it gives you nightmares... It ain't personal, it's business. Why you gotta get all weepy about it? C'mon Kid, you're the best I got. You think I could ask one of them dumbasses like Tony or Ox to do what you do? Them two shitheads got their good points but brains ain't one of em. I invested a lot of faith and money in you Kid. Don't you tell me that this is the thanks I get. Now pull yourself together, go out, and do what you do best. I got a special job for you..."
The old man's rant carried on until he was satisfied that his disgust at my request was more than clear.
I listened, nodded, and finally capitulated, and it took me awhile to figure out how he knew about the nightmares, but then I finally realized it must have been Carla. She loves me but she's more in love with what I do.
I wanted to argue with the old man but there's no explaining weakness to someone like him. There's no room for anything but the basest sympathy in the souls of corrupt old men. Approaching him like I did was a mistake of epic proportions. It told him I've gone soft. It told him I'm afraid, and when people like me get afraid, they usually go to the feds and bring the family down with them.
I scared him and it's stupid to scare someone who's got you by the balls.
Mr. Gilanno is as close as I've ever come to a real father so I nodded and listened as he told me of the man in the farmhouse and how he'd turned states evidence against him 10 years ago. I did my best to ignore the acid burning in my guts as he filled me in on the details about how he'd copped a deal with the feds and went into the witness protection program along with his family. The Boss had been tirelessly seeking his whereabouts out ever since and now he'd found him.
I watched years of stored up hatred ripple across his thick pale face, and when the time came, and he turned his rheumy eyes and sagging jowls to me questioningly, I swore I would make him proud.
I put on my soldier face, to show I haven't gone completely soft, but the damage had been done. I'd lost his trust and he insisted Tony and Ox go with me for 'backup'.
A bead of cold sweat runs down my forehead and brings me back to the now. I straighten my jacket, gather my will, and move to the front door of the house.
There's only one vehicle parked here so there's a good chance the target is alone. I think I can do what I have to do if there's not to much killing to be done. I'll do the deed and deal with the effects of it later. Maybe the old man was right after all. Maybe this is just a passing faze, a way of my mind hardening itself.
I stop at the door, reach into my pocket and pop open a bottle of antacid pills, and then chew down a chalky mouthful to ease the volcano in my stomach.
Behind me, in the solitary old maple tree, the birds resume their afternoon chorus.
I raise my hand to knock on the door while mentally preparing my 'Broken Down Salesman' story, but the thick wooden plank is slightly ajar, and I decide to let myself in instead.
It's better for me this way. I look about as much like a salesman as the boss does a saint... and who the fuck holds a grudge for ten years anyways?
I pull my pistol, click off the safety, and push the door open far enough to peer in.
The hall beyond is empty so I ease the door open far enough to let me squeeze in and then count myself lucky the hinges are well oiled.
The hall is long, narrow, and covered on both sides with pictures. There are openings on the right and left - midway down - and a door at the end, which is ajar as well. The wallpaper is rustic and flowery and the dusty hardwood floor beneath my feet is solid and does not creak as I cautiously creep forward.
I take care not to look at the pictures on the wall, the less I know of their life the better, and my resolve is fragile at best.
Part way there, I can detect the faintest flicker of light from the opening on the left. I stop just short of it, and quickly peer in. The living room beyond is just as rustic as the rest of the house, save the modern flat screen television. The volume has been muted and it's flickering ghostly images of the weather channel on the far wall. There's an old couch in the corner, set against the stairs to the second level, and there's a figure curled up on it, under an old brown blanket, sound asleep.
I can make out a tuft of brown hair and a delicate hand and decide it's a woman. The skin on her fingers is far from smooth, which tells me she's not young, and there's a pale line on one where a wedding band used to be.
She could be the targets wife, or a simple housekeeper but the rule remains the same; associate with a Rat and share his fate.
I'm going to have to do her like I'm going to do the old man, but it can wait, I need to find the old man first.
A quick glance into the other opening reveals a kitchen full of more country antiques, and it strikes me that the place is like a museum, every rustic trinket, and bit of furniture a little too dated, as if the people who live here are trying hard to be something they are not.
The Boss was right about these people and the knowledge of it steels my resolve. I turn on my heels and creep the rest of the way to the end of the hall, then peek into the study beyond the partially opened door.
The old man is there. He's sitting in a wheel chair. His hair is short, messy and grey. His face is gaunt, his cheeks are colorless, and he's looking directly at me with eyes that can't see a thing. His jaw is slack and a thin line of drool glistens wetly along the left side of his stubbly chin. He's a shadow of the picture the Boss gave me but a shadow is enough for what I have to do.
I don't have to be a doctor to tell he's a vegetable. I've seen that look before on the dying, the dead, and men who have been beaten too hard. His heart is pumping but his Id is faded, it has taken flight and gone somewhere else.
I step in, gently close the door behind me so as to block the sound of the silencer, and comfort myself with the knowledge that all I'm about to do is kill a dead man.
A second later, there's a click and the pistol jerks in my hand. The old man's head snaps back then slowly rolls forward. His eyes remain open and unchanged, as his lifeblood streams out of his nose and the hole in his forehead to turn the front of his white T-shirt into a crimson bib.
Its done... I did it.
I've fulfilled my purpose in the world again and I think I'm going to be able to file this kill away with the rest. My hands are shaking and the acid is back in my guts but I think I can handle it, so I turn to the door, open it, and then reflexively put my pistol against the head of the woman on the other side.
Her body goes stiff and her breath catches in her throat, as does mine, as I look into eyes I haven't seen in 30 years, and a face I shouldn't recognize but somehow do. I'm looking at a vision of my mother, just as I remember it in my dreams; The face of a sad woman, shortly before she was taken from my sister and I - a year before she killed herself in prison.
It's been too long. I shouldn't be so sure, but I am and it confuses me. Maybe it's her eyes or the way her top lip curls out like mom's used to, or maybe it's that mythical connection I've heard people associate with twins. Try as I might, I can't deny it, and yet, it still takes me a short forever to figure out that I'm about to put a hole in my Sister's head.
My hand is shaking and my finger is trembling on the trigger. I want to squeeze off the shot or move the gun away. I want to hug her or shoot her and I can't figure out which until she opens her mouth and speaks past the tears brimming in her eyes, with a voice that is both strange and familiar.
"It's you."
Oh God, it is me! What have I done?
She looks past me to the open room beyond but I'm blocking her view. I want to grab her by the shoulders. I want to tell her that it's not personal, that it's business and I'm nothing more than the tool of evil old men, and I hate what I do, and I hate myself, but I can't break free of the shame flooding me long enough to speak.
My shoulder's slump of their own accord, the arm holding my pistol drops limply to my side, and I tell her I'm sorry with my eyes.
She stares at me in confusion for a moment and then pushes past me into the room beyond, and a moment later, her high-pitched wail tells me that the old man was her Stepfather.
I turn and stumble down the hall in a daze. There will be no heartfelt reunion and no afternoon spent in tearful reminiscence with my long lost sibling. I've brought her death when I should have brought her answers. I've ripped her life from her when I should have given her the missing pieces.
Behind me, comes the sound of a desk drawer being ripped open and frantic hands rifling through it. A moment later, the familiar sound of a pistol slide being worked charges down the hall and then I hear her sandaled feet in the doorway.
She's sobbing and saying something but she's too hysterical and I can't make sense of it and then the hall fills with the sharp crack of a small caliber weapon and a slug smashes into my left hip.
The pain doesn't hit right away but my knees wobble then give out regardless. I go down hard, without really registering it, and then a second later, I'm grunting and forcing myself back to my feet.
The pistol sounds out again and a hot slug punches into my back, low and a little right of center. The force of it sends me to my knees again and I think I can feel something deep inside me burst open.
She's not yelling anymore. Her breath reverberates down the narrow hall, hard and fast as I return dazedly to my feet, and then I can feel the barrel of the .22 press against the back of my head.
She hesitates and I turn my head so the cold metal is pressed against my temple. I won't deny her, her rightful revenge but I don't want to end up like the old man I just killed either. A temple shot is a surer kill than the thick bone at the back of the head and her bullets won't be designed to come apart like mine, there's too much of a chance it'll circle the inside of my skull rather than shred my brain.
For a moment my hand tightens reflexively on my weapon, and my survival instinct kicks in full force. The urge to turn and put a bullet into her heart is strong but the picture on the wall beside me catches my attention.
A man pushes a little girl on a swing in a park. Her hair streams behind her, much like her flowered dress, frozen in time. Her face is beaming wide-open joy and she's happier than any memory I can dredge up of my sister allows. The man I killed was less than a shade of the man in the picture but I know enough to realize that little girls remember their father that way regardless of what they may become, so I open my mouth and let the words slide out.
"Do it."
And she does.
She pulls the trigger and firing pin number 300,840.00 shifts in its seating. It hits the cartridge off center and shatters, and the gun jams rather than giving either of us peace.
I'm thinking about Cause and Effect again. I'm thinking that coincidence is what happens when the most unlikely effects happen at the most unlikely time and I'm thinking that another name for that is chance.
There's a soft thud behind me as Jamie falls to the floor and begins to sob quietly, and for a second, I'm tempted to give her my pistol, but my murder won't bring her solace. At least, none of mine ever has, so I step painfully to the door, open it, and leave her and the house behind.
She's a dead woman unless I set things to rights. She'll suffer under Ox and Tony's thick hands if I don't throw them off track.
My leg and back are wet, and I feel lighter than I should... hollow almost, but I trudge down the long winding road towards the car and try to come up with a plan.
I mean to set things straight but there's an undeniable voice in my head telling me things haven't been right for a long time, and now they'll never be right again, for me or Jamie.
I can see Ox and Tony up ahead. They're swapping jokes and sharing a cigarette and when they see me, Ox hands the cig down to the Bulldog and saunters towards me while the other starts the car.
I'm out of time and I don't know what to do. My head is swimming and I suddenly realize that I'm still holding the pistol in my hand.
I could shoot them both. I could end their lives and figure out something from there but I don't have the strength left to pull the trigger, let alone raise my arm.
I stumble and go down in the dust, and then Ox has me in his tree trunk arms and he's half carrying me, half dragging me towards the sedan.
"Jesus Kid, where you hit?"
"Deep." I reply, and then he's putting me into the front seat of the car and strapping me in.
"Sokay Kid, we'll make some calls, get you fixed up."
I gurgle laugh because there's no fixing what's coming.
Tony the Bull starts the car and we get underway. His flat round face is a mask of concern but I'm not convinced it's all for my wellbeing.
"You get em?" he asks "You get em both?"
And just like that he gives it all away. Just like that, I know the Boss sent me in, knowing full well that the daughter would be there too. He sent me to murder my Sister because man, when someone has that over your head they might as well have your soul on a leash.
Ox coughs loudly in the back seat and the Bulldog shoots a look to him via the rearview mirror that says "Shit, I fucked up didn't I?"
"Yeah" I grunt "I got em both. The girl had a gun."
And I'm thinking that maybe the lie is enough. Maybe it'll give her time to get lost again, but there's something nagging at my fogging brain and then I hear Ox pop the clip out of my pistol and eject the remaining round out of the chamber.
"Jesus Kid." He mumbles nonchalantly "You must be better than the Boss says. You killed two people with one bullet."
"Ahhh Goddamn it." Groans the Bull as he pulls the car to the side of the road. "Why'd you have to go and do that?"
I don't bother answering.
The sedan glides to the side of the road and the power window on my side rolls down. I hear the clip slammed back into place in my pistol and the seatbelt around my chest and shoulder tightens painfully as Ox pulls it hard from behind, locking me in place, as if I had the strength to put up a fight.
"Sorry Kid... Orders. We like you... really we do." Says Ox while Tony nods in sad agreement. "It's not personal just so you know. It's business."
The barrel presses hard against my temple again, as the big man makes ready to spray my brains out the passenger window, and I realize it is personal. It always has been personal. There's no way of escaping it when you snuff out a life. I understand it too late, but at least I finally do. Their going to teach me the lesson that my conscience has been trying to for the last two years, and when they're done giving me what I deserve, they're going to go back and do the same to Jamie.
I close my eyes tight and suddenly I know why the world is tilted on its axis.
A hot frenzied wind pushes through the open window, as if Hell has heard I'm coming, and is reaching for me already. I should fight, it's in my nature to go down swinging, but I'm tired and empty.
Cause, effect, chance and a lifetime of wrong choices rip through my mind in the split second before the trigger is pulled. I open my eyes, expecting to see fire and brimstone, but there's nothing but branches and leaves smashing against the windshield. I open my mouth to tell Ox to hurry the hell up, half expecting my sentence to be cut short, but instead of a bang I hear Bulldog yell "What the Fuck!" and then the car fills with an ear splitting sound - like a lung shot elephant - and the Tornado rips it from the earth and sends us to oblivion.
It's as if the storm in my mind has taken physical form and has come to reap justice for everything I've ever done. It's as if the hand of God himself has come to punish me for my sins and I scream Jamie's name, high and clear, until the otherworldly howl of the vortex is joined by the sound of metal grinding on metal, grinding on something else, and everything blinks out.
The world comes back with a hiss and a roar. The sound builds and then goes out as if someone's has flicked a switch, and I'm still in the car. The windshield is gone and the engine is missing, and I can feel glass in my face and scalp. My bones grind when I try to move so I think better of it. I manage to turn my neck enough to see I'm alone. The Bull is gone save the strangely pristine index finger of his right hand, sitting perfectly centered on the leather driver's seat. His gold ring still glints dully on the jagged digit. The rearview mirror is miraculously intact and I can see a chunk of flesh and bone where Ox's body used to be in the back.
In my minds eye I can see them being sucked out of the twisted wreckage of the sedan, their bodies torn to pieces by the jagged debris, bits of earth and metal and God knows what else, slicing through the air a hundred miles an hour.
I'm broken, shot, and bleeding out. I'm alone in the car with nothing but a growing umbrella of pain, my Demons, and the living nightmares they bring, but it's almost ok.
I think I understand the question that's been nagging at me. I think I finally get the puzzle of Cause and Effect, because it's not a puzzle at all. It's the realization of choices. The choices I never thought I had, and should have been making all along, because we are Cause and Effect, every goddamned one of us.
And maybe coincidence isn't just that. Maybe it walks hand in hand with divine providence, a tool used by some higher power to wake those of us up who have lost our way.
My body and soul are shredded but I'm still alive and that's something... that's a miracle.
I'll never be able to make things up to Jamie, but maybe one day, I'll find a way to forgive myself, and that's something too.
I'm not nearly done paying my dues but, for once, I'm ready to start.
I have some hard choices to make and when the time comes, I'll bend my back to the task and make them, but first things first.
Right now, I choose to do something I haven't done in a very long time.
I choose to live.
User Reviews
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-12-30 00:11:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
jonnyx is such a fucking cocksucker
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-02-15 19:48:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
"worth reading"
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-27 10:31:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Horray for the elite 8!
(At least I lost to the eventual winner.)