Tell Tale Heart: Alternate Ending

The Perfect Murder

I knew this feeling. My heart; it pounded with a ferocity that burned the outside of my chest. The ringing pulsed so loud that it sang outside of just my ears. Surely, they could also hear it. The anxiousness scratched my nerves and caused my spine to ache, but alas, these are mere side effects that I know accompany the sweet relief to come. After such practice and exposure, you learn to associate the burn with warmth and the ringing with a kettle of tea.

I loved this feeling.

Perhaps this contentment that sat within me as I sat in this chair was the only thing that allowed my breath to release easily and my shoulders to settle. They didn't suspect a thing.

"Well good sir, we grant you our graciousness for entertaining this night, and our condolences for disturbing you at this hour. We bid you a good night." I led the two officers to my door with me trailing behind them. We bid our 'God be with you's as they crossed my threshold and traveled into the night, most likely to assess another perceivably innocent home. I watched the officers to the end of the pathway in politeness and finally shut the door.

As I did, happened the most peculiar of occurrences. As the door closed, and the latch finally hooked into its rightful frame, the ringing halted. The burn, therefore the warmth, grew cold. There were no bells. I was utterly, in the most basic sense of the word, alone. And it was in that instance, with my right hand fleshed tight to the door, forehead resting on the cool surface minutes, seemingly hours, after my guest's departure, and eyes casted to the threads of my slippers, that, I admit, madness touched me, brushed its fingers on my right shoulder with featherlight tenderness. Madness touched me, but I turned and gazed upon the sitting room on my own volition. I took in how the chill in my bones juxtaposed the warmth of the room with the clearest of minds. I felt the light of the room settle upon me like dust.

Therefore, I am not mad, and how dare you accuse me of so.

The next shift of events leads us back to his quarters. The chairs were as I had left them just moments before, probably still left with residual warmth from our previous guests. The bed was unmade, as if his reason for leaving this room was for a glass of water or a cup of tea; something mundane and temporary. As I was scrutinizing the state of his sheets, there was a distinct urge that compelled me to touch upon them, brush against the cotton as softly as madness brushed against me. Would I notice a difference, I wondered, between the parts of the blankets that he laid in and the parts that remain cool night after night? I was aware of his state of oblivion that he claimed to be in, but as I stand now in the same position that I have countless nights before this one, the only difference being the object of my attention's displacement, I cannot seem to stop myself from doubting his words.

You may ask what brought me to my next action, how I escalated from gentle brushing of fingertips to submerging myself in the sheets that he once laid. In all my honesty, I am not certain. Perhaps it was madness with its guidance, or a simple need for a shift in perspective. Whatever the cause, it was marvelous. The angle from which I laid made the room seem cavernous. I could see the door from which I watched him every night and I could fabricate it in my own mind. How the door creaks open ever so slightly to reveal my face, the shadows created by the lantern casting harsh, dramatic contours. Most pressingly, I could see the four floor boards that serve as his spontaneous casket. They were still tightly in place, as if they were never moved. Nevertheless, I felt as if I was the one being scrutinized in that moment. He was judging me through the seams in the floor boards. It's almost humorous how even when the most extreme measures are taken to alleviate a stress or discomfort, new stresses and discomforts from those extremities find a niche in your mind to settle. Was this what he felt? Could he sense me those nights, in the deepest parts of his soul, watching him, counting his breaths? Was he aware of the depth of my anxiety that his glass eye brought me, secretly craving the attention like those street performers in the city?

Could he sense me now?