Day 2,456

I don't remember where the knife came from or even the moment I held it but Lord how I remember the way it felt to plunge it right into his heart. Between the third and fourth rib then aim up and push til their eyes go cloudy and they stop struggling - just like mother taught me.

I think she taught me that, I remember it being said in her voice every night before bed, even when she was away. Maybe she never told me that, maybe it was always some part of me that kept repeating it to myself as a comfort, as a way to remind myself that I always had an option.

He hadn't done anything especially against me. It wasn't like I was holding a grudge or avenging someone, I just found myself holding the knife and hearing mother's words and the life faded from his eyes like fog over a field first thing in the morning. He was so perfectly still for the first time in a long time.

Maybe that's why I did it - to bring him back to that calm and still child I grew up with, to bring everything back to how it used to be when we were children and all we had to concern ourselves with was whether or not there was something to eat at the end of the day.

I must has sat with him for hours. Long enough that his body had gone stone cold by the time someone called the police. Before all their chaos unfolded it was just us in that peaceful, still,silent moment - cold and warm, alone and together, alive and dead.