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It was another long day in Compass. Got my job done efficiently, as I always do, but it never satisfies me. You don’t bleed there. Not my opponent as my bullet goes right between their eyes, or me when a dual-bladed chainsaw runs through my back. But as long as it gets me up in the morning, it will do.
Like in every evening, I find myself sitting with a bottle of gin, cigarettes and Justice, drowning my bloodlust in alcohol and lighthearted stories that have already become white noise to my ears. I find comfort in this little tradition he started from when we first arrived in Compass. I find comfort in the consistent.
I never understood why that man offered me to sit together at the end of our first day. I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. It was awkward. We shared my flask, to his dismay with the taste of cigarettes he dislikes. I smoked. The silence was unbearable, so my mind filled in the gaps with nonsense as it usually does.
“So, tell me about yourself, Luciano.”
I murder for the highest bidder.
I feast on the moment the soul leaves the body of my target.
Everything I touch rots.
Slowly, my mind, too, rots.
“I am just here to do my job,” is all I said.
I was sure the silence was going to return and I could leave, but instead he laughed, telling me about one of his soldiers that was ridiculously committed to his job. I faked a laugh whenever he delivered a punchline. It killed time.
“It was nice getting to know you,” you know nothing about me, “We should do this another time.”
And so we did every evening. I brought a whole bottle of gin. We drank, he told stories, I nodded, and without noticing, I suddenly realized I recognize Cassiopeia in the skies of Italy.
I remember a night we sat on the roof. I saw the stars reflect in her eyes, moonlight caught in her golden locks.
My heart felt like a black hole out of one of his stories. The light of my life died out and left a bottomless pit. He placed a hand on my shoulder. I could feel his eyes on the tear rolling down from behind my glasses.
My body shivered against his touch. I was starving for it.
I lunged myself to his neck without exchanging any gazes, like a hunter pouncing on prey for a one strike kill. He didn't push me away, my blood rushed and arms snaked under his tank top. In no time we were undressing each other in a room I insisted would remain enveloped in darkness. The silence was filled with heavy panting, squeaking of a bed, and his voice calling out my name.
“It's been a while since I touched a living person,”
a thought escaped my lips.
He touched my scars, I felt disgusting. I've grown fond of that feeling of disgust. My scars are of a different kind than those I felt on his abdomen. I briefly remembered a story of a battle, but I couldn't hold onto it. My mind slowly reached a blank as meaningless pleasure replaced all those useless thoughts, till finally, we reached our climax.
I threw my head back in ecstasy as I heard her call out my name.
I couldn't hold back my tears.
I felt a hand trying to pull me down, but all I saw were my hands stained in blood, her corpse rotting under me. I quickly pulled back.
The next morning I woke up over her coffin, fresh wounds engraved to my wrists.
I am a terrible husband.
It didn't stop me from following my impulsive bursts of lust for that man in times to come, and each time, I would hear her. I would see her. Feel her flesh crumbling under my touch.
Till he finally managed to pull me to his chest.
The warm embrace of a man like him was a new experience. His big strong arms were nothing like her dainty ones, and his pecs compared to her bosom were worlds apart, but that warmth of another living being engulfing me… I almost had no trace in my memory of that sensation.
The silence was filled with his heartbeat and my pathetic sobs instead of my agonizing delusions.
I didn't have any tears left to stain her coffin. Good. The wounds on my wrists didn't multiply as fast. Strange.
And here he is now, telling me another story I intently listen to, pointing at the false sky he compliments for its realism, mentioning the name of a new constellation, and the time he visited there.
“You must really like your job if you can talk about it so much,” I comment, my curiosity for his reasons finally slipping off my tongue after all these months.
I puff out a cloud of smoke and watch it dissolve into the night sky, till Justice breaks the silence once more.
"That's not the reason why I constantly speak of it," I turn to him, caught off guard by his warm smile to match those equally puzzling words.
"I tell my stories to entertain you. I know you don't like the silence."
My eyes widen in surprise. To entertain
me?
My interest is piqued. “Huh. Is that so,” I quickly retreat to my dry responses to hide my confusion. What a strange reason. Why would anyone do that for me, someone he didn't know?
We look up to the sky. I count the constellations he showed me in the welcomed silence. She smiles to me from above, but quickly melts into the artificial moonlight. All I see are the stars speckled all across the sky.
Is this what you saw back then, when we were sitting together on the roof?
What a beautiful sight.
I feel a hand intertwining with mine, its warmth spreading to my chest. It's been so long since I felt my heart beat. I feel transparent.
“After all, I leave no man behind.”
The last time words lit my face with a smile was when I held her tight in my arms, and she delivered her words of love to my ear.
… What a strange man.