The Final Hand

The Final Hand

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A violent little short story!

     This was the final hand.

     All introspection concluded, time to ante up.

     His only bet was that this would be his final game at this table.

     Every stride grew angrier and more deliberate. Every breath drew him closer and closer to the rage he knew would go untamed. He moved with a swiftness he had not felt in years, a surety that had been torn from him by the very person he was about to confront. This would be their final battle, and be it his waterloo—or his Hiroshima—he was prepared to fight it to the end.

     The only thing he had been sure of when he slammed through the large glass door at the front of the building was that he was here to let John Saunders know exactly how he felt. The particulars of the confrontation had been vague at best. Still, now, as the soft white of the energy efficient lights flicked by like the guiding lines on a highway, he was unsure.

     The office door loomed in front of him, like a gateway to the hell that was his life. It represented everything he hated about himself and his situation. It was that place he could never get to, and the disappointment that, inevitably, washed over him when he did. It was the talents he had taken for granted, and the daily drudgery he now faced as a result of his arrogance. Mainly, however, it was the shackles that held his learned lessons to this ground; the miser behind it was the guardian of his self-destruction.

    

He’s made more than his share of mistakes, he knew, but this man (this company) had poured the concrete in which those mistakes were set. They had created a metaphoric cellblock from which only the strongest, and smartest, could escape unscathed. The fact that he had come up just short in each category was a blade that eternally twisted in his pride.

     This, however, was the end of all that. He might not walk out unscathed, but he would certainly no longer be a cog in this wheel of self-servitude and shameless greed.

     Now, as this epic tale of slavery played out in the simple electrician’s head, the door was within three strides.

     The first stride, for the realization that had no idea what, if anything, he was about to do.

     The second—a glance to the left, then the right, to see if anyone was going to stop him. Bruce, the head electrician and only license-holder in the company, was not in his cubicle on the right. There was, however, a four-foot fluorescent lamp leaning precariously against the wall. By the time the raging man’s foot fell on his third stride, the lamp was in hand.

     Three is a number with infinite significance attached to it. At this moment in time it meant a lamp in hand, raised to the sky and a final step from complacency—to oblivion.

     Saunders’ hand came up, before his eyes, to offer a preemptory “I’M BUSY” to whoever had just opened his door. No sooner had the second syllable rolled forcefully off his tongue than had the door recoiled off of the wall and summoned his attention.

     It was too late.

     The foggy, white, glass tube came slicing through the air with the swift intent of a samurai’s sword—it accomplished nothing so graceful.

     As he raised his indignant eye to the sound that had disturbed him, the two prongs on the end of the lamp made contact with his temple. The impressive velocity with which the lamp was propelled, combined with the upward turning motion of John’s head, allowed the tiny, rigid, prongs to penetrate the skin. The deliberate follow through of the swing caused the first three inches of glass to shatter. What was left, in effect, was a razor sharp rake—and flesh for the raking.

     Momentum did the rest.

     Futility breathes a life of its own.

     It is a completely self-sufficient, wholly self-serving, undeniably all-consuming mental parasite.

     It is an overwhelming composite of emotions felt, and those same emotions denied.

     It’s an overwhelming, unrequited love, or the inability to give love back.

     It’s a fear of things unseen, and the lacking thereof, when pure terror stare right through your very soul.

     It’s the joy of a newborn child, and the limitless implications of responsibility that are born with it.

     Its acceptance, and surprise, and sadness, and anger, and anticipation of all, and fear of none.

     It’s all of these, frenzied, and feeding, on your thoughts and your actions ever minute of every day. It is the greatest human flaw—the ability to have, and to recognize, all of these emotions, all at once, or not at all.

     It is the ticking in the time bomb of humanity.

     It is futility…and it kills.

     It all transpired so suddenly, and with such lack of forethought, that it almost seemed not to have happened at all. But after a moment of involuntary introspection, reality began oozing its way back into the clogged arteries of his consciousness. And there was the faucet…

     …It ran crimson and clear as tears mixed with blood. His nose was replaced with several furrows of flesh, each one deeper than the next. Shards of white glass, imbedded in his skin, shone like pearls in an oyster as the light danced on the macabre pallet of his face. He opened his mouth to scream, but only soft gurgling noise’s escaped as blood ran through the hole in his cheek and made its way to the back of his throat.

     Involuntary reactions kicked in and he began coughing violently. Phlegm and blood rained down on his oak desk, and the sight of them brought tears to his eyes.
Surely this could not be happening!
The simple thought of it was pure insanity…

     …gushing from that un-natural cavity on the side of his face.

     What had he done?

     More importantly—what should he do next?

     He had been pretty sure, as he made his way through rush hour traffic towards the office that security would toss him out the heavy front doors after only a few minutes of ranting and raving. This seemed to be the standard procedure whenever a disgruntled employee showed up at the bosses desk with a chip on his shoulder—let him rant for a minute or two so he feels like he accomplished something and then put him back to the grind after a week of unpaid vacation. The stories he had for the boys on site would bolster his pride enough to allow the company to suck a few more years off his, otherwise, worthless life.

     Yep, worked like a charm every time.

     This, however, was totally unexpected. He had known how angry he was on the way in, but never in his life did he ever imagine himself capable of this—and he was pretty sure that no one else had anticipated it either.

     His thoughts were soon confirmed.

     His arm hung limp at his side, the jagged bloody tube still in hand, as he gazed upon the product of his malcontent.

     A dazzling crimson fountain spewed forth from John’s clasping hand, spattering the room like wind blown rain; shock and agony sent him spasmodic.

     Dave had a moment to realize the simple splendor of the gruesome act that, until it had actually happened, he had had no intention of committing. There seemed to him a sort of heavenly beauty in letting one’s emotions rage through the veil of right and wrong unchecked—as if it was the only way the universe could ever exist in absolute truth; with no man made barriers to hinder the progressi8on of the wheel. The thought, however brief and, seemingly, insane, gave birth to another, somewhat more serene thought deep down in his subconscious. It was the absolute freedom of spirit within that would allow him to unflinchingly accept the worldly consequences that were surely, even as he dreamed this dream of truth, rushing blindly towards his back.

     The thought broke and reality crashed violently back in.

     The fountain of life had baptized him from head to toe. He slowly began to turn towards the door behind him with the notion of defending himself from the coming onslaught.

     As the weakened mass that had become his body began to pivot his eyes became transfixed with the walls around him. They were like canvasses of agony slowly becoming home to all the distorted images of life that had ever danced through the empty cavern of his head. Ever changing, running in gravity gripped rivulets towards the floor; they were mapping out the intricate web of life’s deception as they went. The patterns were exquisite in their carnal interplay. It was like God making love to the barriers we’d thrown high before him and laughing at our inability to fully absorb his seed. It was the universe depicted in blood and spackle with some tasteless knickknacks and worthless family photos thrown in just for the pleasure of absurdity itself.

     This restless depiction of a world gone wrong slowly, but surely, faded from his vision ad was replace by the almost all too normal gaggle of slack jawed faces in the cubicle are outside the door. Gathered there, in the abyss of emotionless productivity, were the spiritless souls that had kept this listless fire burning for more years than Dave cared to remember. Their heads poked out from the cold gray confines of the cubicles, or craned above them with witless glimmer in eye. They all shared the same hope of glimpsing a peak of the, nearly weekly, ritual that had somehow replaced their Christmas bonuses nearly two years ago.

     There they were, in all their wretched splendor, as if the day had produced no more than the normal hum drum affairs. An eternity passed before the first of them awoke to the horror of the room he was standing in and, to Dave, it was like the birth of the child he had always wanted to have.

     One by one the stupor lifted.

     There eyes seemed to focus on the carnage wallowing behind him and the vision struck terror and confusion in their hearts.

     And therein lay the beauty; their hearts were beating, as they had not done in years. A situation had arisen that strayed so far from the life they had taken for granted and was now demanding their attention. There was no choice. Here stood, before their very eyes, a raving lunatic. Security was nowhere to be found. What were they to do? He could see the wheels turning; smell the smoke burning. They were about to think and react much the same way he had done only moments before. It would be an impulse they would have no control over, one way or the other, and the outcome of their actions would change many people’s live forever. In the meantime, if all was well with the world, everything would slow down for just a moment or two and they would gain a glimpse into some secret little part of themselves that they never, until this very moment in time, new had existed. He only hoped that it would, as it had done for him, change them for the better.

     There were three things he new for a fact now.

     The first was that John Saunders would live to tell this tale. He was glad of this. Murder had never, even in the absurdity of all his actions hitherto, been an option. This was something he knew in his soul. The wound was superficial and would serve many functions in the life of a man that had been Dave’s mortal enemy until his spilt blood had set him free. The primary function, he hoped, would be a newfound interest, and appreciation, in the family he had all but abandoned in order to run this ship of fools. There was no regret for pain and suffering—that which does not kill us makes us stronger.

     The second was that, whether by the overzealous actions of the newly borne larvae standing before him, or the blue parade of justice he heard barreling through the reception area, he would not live to see the fruit of his actions. It was not that he no longer had the desire to live; quite the contrary. While he never would have been able to express his lack of remorse, he would have gladly accepted his punishment and served his time with quiet humility. But he knew that this was no longer an option. The sea of emotions swelling towards him would simply not allow it to be so; and he would never deny them the euphoria that was raging through every fiver of his being. He would put up just enough of a fight to allow for justifiable homicide and then he would fall to the floor and assume his place in that wonderful tapestry that he had witnessed before. They would see this and they would live…

     …the third part of this splendor was simply that. He had live more in the past tree minutes than most do in a lifetime. He had raged through the closed door of his mind and found the entire world on the other side. He had done only harm that was already due to the world and had left the others to see to the rest. It was harm that would change thins for the better. It was the shock to the system that would, eventually, lead it to a better recognition of itself. That, after all, was what had led him to the place he was in now; it was the constant thought and examination of his own misguide situation ad a desperate search for his place in the world that had led him through those doors. All the while he had been seeking a rein with which to control his world. He had been examining it for a foothold that would allow him to climb out of the pit of filth into which ha had plummeted years ago, only to realize that it was only filth because that was the way in which he was taught to perceive it.

     And it was a heart full of love, and a mind quieted by peace that lifted him up to his seat for the final show. There—aloft in a chaotic cloud of electricity that his actions had created—he watched the credits role over the tragedy that had been his life.

     The true irony, he thought, was that his family and friends would view his life and subsequent demise as just that—a tragedy... they would whisper of what great potential h had pssessed and how he had wallowed away the whole of his days in a dead end job that would never pay what a star—that had shone as brightly as he had in the beginning—deserved to be paid. They would never realize—until their own final moments—that a stars job and its reward are one and same—simply to shine!

     And all of this because they, like him, would refuse to look for the beginning until they got to the end.

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