sanctum | short stories

what is it you fear most (the question or the answer)?

"I will be wild. I will be brutal. I will encircle you and I will conquer you. I will be more powerful than your boats and your swords and your blood lust. I will be inevitable."

~ Rachel Swirsky, A Memory of Wind

☀ ☼ ☀

Would you rather be a murderer or a corpse?

This is a question we all seem to avoid like the plague. No one dares ask it, and if someone finds the courage—or foolishness—to do so, no one would dare reply.

It's because we all already know the answer. We're all human and as a result, we all possess the same burning desire to live. Yes, we all want to be able to say that we're the kind of person who'd take a bullet rather than take a life. But when it comes down to it, how many of us would really do that?

Not many, I'm sure. We're all far too selfish.

And for many, the answer is an easy one. They would rather be damned than be dead, but that doesn't mean they're not afraid of their answer. To end someone's life, regardless of whether they are trying to do the same to you, is no easy feat.

But unfortunately, this is a question that usually only arises when a straight answer is needed within mere seconds. There can be no hesitation unless you wish for your option to choose to be stolen from you.

For me, that question arises now. With a shining silver blade, serrated and glinting murderously in the pale, wavering light of the moon, in his grasp, the bearded man in my line of sight advances.

He's made his choice. You can tell by his aggressive gate and by the way his nostrils flare like that of an angered bull. He doesn't want to be a corpse, and so he has chosen to be a murderer.

But like so many others, he's afraid of his answer.

His eyes are wide, nestled deep within dark circles that will only worse if he succeeds in his actions now, and they dart between me and his own shaking hands, restless and terrified. Those same hands are clenched, his thick, grimy fingers curled stiffly around the handle of his knife. And his bulky frame stumbles over his own shod feet, clumsy and radiating anxiety.

I stand here, observing his obvious display of fear in silence. He thinks he has the upper-hand because he believes he's willing to do something that I, a small and feminine male with a head of messy locks dyed an innocent sky blue in colour, would never even think of doing. 

That is his fatal mistake.

He can assume my answer all he likes, but he has no way of knowing what is really going through my head.

That is why when I move, my own blade like lightning across his throat, his eyes widen in shock. He was so focused on how scared he was of his own choice, that he never saw how easily I made mine.

It's not his fault, I suppose. This is not the first time I've made this choice, and it certainly won't be the last.

I watch as his chest slams into the tarmac, liquid crimson pooling around his features. Nonchalant and icily indifferent towards the scene.

He couldn't have known that I am someone who asks that question rather than answers it. And there is now way he could have known that when a moment comes where I have to answer it, I'll always, always, prefer to be a murderer over a corpse.