'You should kill me.' The words filled the small one roomed apartment as he said them. His voice had changed since i once knew it. It was darker, angrier. It sounded like the voice of a man who had not had a drink in a very long time. There he stood in the darkness of our apartment. He leant against the windowpane looking out into the fading light of the evening. I began to speak but words could not fathom the act he had just asked me to do.
Ordinarily i would have assumed he was joking, yet he said it with such certainty and such an unwavering tone that i was sure he was not. 'I said you should just kill me' he said it again, not even looking at me but keeping his gaze turned from me. Forever looking out the window to the streets of London below.
Unsure of what to do i did what i hope anyone else would do in this situation. I half walked half ran to try to comfort my friend and find reason in his strange request. Once at his side i was met by the same cold indifference that would suggest we were not the childhood friends i had thought but strangers meeting in unwelcome conditions. He had summoned me here with hurried writing and simple posting and now stooped upon the window frame. One arm leaning upon the sill and the other slumped above him on the small open top frame. This open window cast a cold breeze through the room and made the atmosphere even gloomier than it was in that absecnce of artificial light. Still his eyes were transfixed upon the street, his brilliantly pale green irises highlighted even more so by the bloodshot whites of a man who had been weeping heavily or enraged to madness.
'You're upset' i whispered. I was frightened of him, he seemed distant and cold, so very cold. More and more a sense of impending danger crept up my spine and attacked my brain into making me want to flee. But i did not, i could not. I was not about to leave this man with whom i had shared a close companionship, becoming almost like brothers, when he was asking for death. 'Why on earth should i kill you my friend?'
'Dont you call me that, not anymore' he growled and turned that ghostly alien gaze towards me, the emerald irises shining brilliantly even though we had turned from the light to the shadows. I felt unnerved the fixed stare of his eyes into mine and yet unable to break it. 'I am unworthy of such honorifics now' his jet black hair fell infront of his face as he said it. He was shaking and i noticed he was becoming more and more unstable. Finally the shaking increased speed to full spasms as he emitted large painful sobs. I put my arm to his shoulders in an embrace to console him but he wrested me away and once again turned to burn me with his gaze. 'I have told you two times now and i will not ask again, you should kill me, right here and now! While the sun is upon me!' he stood in the small patch of sunlight made from the window. It cast a hazy yellow glow to the apartment making all the objects in there look old and timeword and dirty. Ii had no idea why he had wanted me to come here and whose apartment this was. All i knew was that i wanted to leave and keep him to his insanity.
'Why damn you? Why must you insist upon this madness?' I spoke slowly and calmly so as not to anger him and kept my distance of him at all times. Staying out of the light.
' I am no longer pure, my soul is stained with sin' these words probably shook me the most. He was a devout catholic and shied away from any form of carnal desire. Unlike myself whom has come to him in a drunken stupor more than once pleading for 'gods forgiveness'. As if reading my mind he then spoke again.
'I have given you repentance for those sins now you must do the same for me, kill me and end my torment i cannot continue as i am.' He fell to his knees and wept ever more so. In the light the tears hit the carpet and i could have sworn id mistook them for blood. I ran to him and in my haste i had not noticed the sunlight slowly fading behind the buildings and the rising smoke from his body.
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