{"id":405,"date":"2017-10-06T12:52:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T11:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/?p=405"},"modified":"2024-10-17T16:56:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T15:56:33","slug":"flash-fiction-i-am-become-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/2017\/10\/06\/flash-fiction-i-am-become-death\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am Become Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"
\u201cThird one in a fortnight. Jesus Christ,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cI\u2019m getting to know this area of woodland too well. Am I mad, or is this-\u201d
\u201cThe same tree?\u201d said Griffin. \u201cYes.\u201d
\u201cAny I.D. on the vic?\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t recognize him?\u201d
\u201cThe light\u2019s not so good here. Hang on.\u201d Taylor changed his footing on the step and angled the flashlight better. \u201cSweet J- Is that Frank Quinn?\u201d
\u201cWas,\u201d said Griffin.
\u201cSo what\u2019s that? One serial rapist. One child killer.\u201d
\u201cAnd one gangland don.\u201d
\u201cSomeone would appear to be clearing up shop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n


\u201cThat\u2019s how it would appear, but all of the forensics point to these being suicides. No foul play. No tracks. No defensive wounds. No tracks. No signs of anyone else being around or making these wastes of space check out against their will. We\u2019re getting the CCTV from the parking lot checked now. Won\u2019t be much to look at. Midweek, middle of the night, middle of winter, it\u2019s not exactly a hive of activity here. But if the other two cases are anything to go by, we\u2019ll see the scumbag arriving on his own, of his own volition, calm as you like, with a length of rope in his hands.\u201d
\u201cMakes absolutely no sense,\u201d said Taylor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been indifferent to people for the most part. Jogging past. Walking past. Using me as something for their dogs to piss on. For them to piss on. Or for them to fuck against. It\u2019s been a long time coming, but I\u2019ve finally run out of patience. Quite the achievement really, in the greater scheme of things. I\u2019ve lived through war and famine, through all manner of disease and pestilence. I\u2019ve seen them use sword and spear against one another, bow and arrow, fire cannonballs and bullets. Had my fair share pierce my thick skin or cost me a limb. They\u2019ve killed each other, buried each other, right in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it\u2019s my size. My age. But I\u2019m like a magnet. A beacon. A vessel. Used to be only squirrels that got on my tits, those parasites, crawling all over, up and through me, but then I found I could communicate with them, channel a particular way of thinking, convince them to move away, stay away, or when needs be, come back and clean up around me. In time, I discovered my powers of communication and suggestion stretched beyond bushy-tailed rodents and extended to slightly higher forms of life, that on this particular day took the form of two bickering children arguing over who saw which fallen acorn first and who deserved to have the most in their respective pails. I settled the argument for them by advising one to shut the other up permanently with a branch I had discarded in a storm the previous winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve seen all types. And whether they were lords or ladies, kings or queens, stable hands or kitchen hands, peasants or paupers, they were all the same to me. They still are. Like blades of grass, people are indistinguishable. And just as expendable. Mow them down and they just grow back. Like weeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a thousand years rooted to this spot, I have at last realized my purpose. My calling. This is my garden. Slowly but surely, I will rid the garden of all the weeds and return it to its former splendor. It may take another thousand years. But I\u2019m not going anywhere, am I?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMust be something in the air,\u201d said Griffin.
\u201cWell whatever it is, we need to fan it away,\u201d said Taylor, climbing down the ladder. \u201cI don\u2019t want another spate of copycat suicides.\u201d
\u201cRemember St. Colm\u2019s in \u201905?\u201d
\u201cExactly what I\u2019m talking about. High school kids are impressionable, do inexplicable things. Last thing we need is them being reminded of stringing themselves up as a way to be remembered.\u201d
\u201cThink the horse might have bolted on that one,\u201d said Griffin, directing Taylor\u2019s attention to the growing assembly of onlookers. In the front row: half a dozen teenagers.
\u201cOne of these kids is doing their own thing,\u201d Griffin said under his breath as one of them broke ranks and ducked underneath the cordon, walking directly toward them.
\u201cThat\u2019s no high schooler,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cIt\u2019s Frank Quinn Junior.\u201d
\u201cHoodlum in training,\u201d said Griffin.
\u201cHoodlum in mourning,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cWhich makes him even more dangerous if not handled right.\u201d
Two uniforms rushed up to stop the advancing youth, but Taylor stopped them. \u201cLet him on through.\u201d
Their sigh of relief was visible even in the dark. Frank Junior was no child. Six-four and two hundred fifty pounds or roided-up rage waiting to blow a gasket at the best of times. And now here he was, faced with his idol, his father, the only man he respected, hanging dead from a tree.
\u201cFrank?\u201d said Taylor. The boy didn\u2019t respond. He was on autopilot, eyes and attention focused only on his dead father. He gripped the ladder and climbed up onto the second rung, wrapping his arms around his father\u2019s dangling legs.
\u201cFrank, this is technically a crime scene, CSIs need to process before we can take him down. Sorry,\u201d said Taylor.
The words didn\u2019t get through to the boy. He climbed another rung and heaved his father\u2019s body onto his shoulder, loosening the knot in the noose around the older man\u2019s neck, and then letting the dead body drop unceremoniously to the ground.
He looped the rope around his own neck then, climbed up onto the bough and launched himself out into the blackness, his weight and the force of the drop being more than enough to instantly and very audibly snap his neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hardly had to try with that one. Much too easy. Maybe it\u2019s time to step my game up. Get a little more ambitious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all happened so fast.
No sooner had Frank Junior\u2019s body stopped swinging, all manner of criminal, deviant and lowlife began to show up, like flies to shit, in legion, blindly making their way to climb the tree and join their kindred spirits in the spirit world. How quickly a crime scene became a battlefield. Crime scene investigators were stood down in favor of crowd control and riot police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh this is getting fun now. All those battles I witnessed as an uninterested audience member. I had no idea what I was missing out on. One must make up for lost time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook around,\u201d said Griffin. \u201cIt\u2019s this tree and this tree only.\u201d
\u201cChrist, you\u2019re right,\u201d said Taylor, firing off another warning round that had zero effect on the wave of scum heading their way. \u201cThey\u2019re not interested in any of the other ones. All practically killing themselves to get up into this tree and kill themselves.
\u201cGet me the fire department or a demolition crew or whatever,\u201d said the detective. \u201cThink the quickest way to end this is to cut the thing down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait. What? Oh. Shit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThird one in a fortnight. Jesus Christ,\u201d said Taylor. \u201cI\u2019m getting to know this area of woodland too well. Am I mad, or is this-\u201d\u201cThe same tree?\u201d said Griffin. \u201cYes.\u201d\u201cAny I.D. on the vic?\u201d\u201cYou don\u2019t recognize him?\u201d\u201cThe light\u2019s not so good here. Hang on.\u201d Taylor changed his footing on the step and angled the flashlight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-fiction","category-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1389,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/1389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grahamwho.com\/grahamwrites\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}