MY LAST BREATH

I wake up to a chuckle, and I know he is watching me again. Clad in his nightgown and holding the lantern. He thinks I don´t know, he thinks I don´t hear him.  When he stands at the door while I simulate sleep for hours; as he pushes the door further and further as slowly as he can. He opens the door gingerly so that I won´t notice.

For eight nights he has done this, but it´s not like it surprised me. I knew he was a mad man from the beginning. The look in his eyes; the way he grimaced every time I looked at him. And yet, I hired him; and for a while it was fine, he took care of me, conducted inventory of my riches, watched the house while I was away. But as time passed, he changed.  He became crazier than ever, watching my gruesome eye for hours at a time. And that’s when I surmised he was planning something; and as the days went on, as he started coming to my room at midnight I derived the obvious, he was going to murder me.

But I wasn´t going to get in the way of his endeavor. For I am old, I have no wife or kids; I am alone in this world and frankly; I am ready to succumb.

So now, there he is at my door, holding the lantern. And I know that today is the day as he opens the lantern ever so slightly and a ray of light falls on my eye. He sees it, and this seems to electrify him as he runs abrasively towards my old dehydrated body. And I know there will be no one to corroborate my murder. But there is no time to fight now. He is here, at my bedside grabbing me by the wrist and throwing me on to the floor in a cursory manner. I allow my self one shriek to say goodbye to this world, and he moves my bed on top of me as I take my last breath.