Tear stained cheeks, a blood soaked shirt and a soul filled with regret marked the climax to my pathetic life. I’m only waiting for the police to arrive now. Things would have been so much better for me if I wasn’t such a fuck up. Every time I get a chance to make things different my temperament causes me to botch it. Trust me, I wish I wasn’t like this. I usually don’t wish for things, if I want something I work for it. But I really, really wish I wasn’t like this. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: I hate my personality.

I’m not a dishonest person, I tell the truth most of the time. I’m not rude either, I’m polite at all times. To say that I was witless or lazy would be a straight up lie. The amount of work I put into my health and education got me a fit body and job offers a year before I even graduated college. Make no mistake, what I’m talking about is that I’m too nice. Not too kind mind you, too nice. Two very different things.

Up until recently I thought they were one and the same but one is much more sinister than the other. Dramatic, I know, but trust me on this one. When you volunteer at a homeless shelter or help an old lady across the street because it makes you feel good inside, that is being kind. Being nice is something completely different.

Being nice is when you wave and say hello to your neighbor every morning even though you don’t like him.

Being nice is when your boss asks you to come in on a Saturday to fill in for someone and you smile and say “Sure!” even though you have something planned because you want that promotion.

Being nice is when you visit the in-laws every year to placate your wife even though they do nothing but passively insult you the whole time.

Being nice is when you walk into work on Saturday and the person you were supposed to fill in for is already here. Your boss knew that he was going to come in since last night but didn’t care enough to call and let you know. You decide not to make a big deal out of it because it might ruin your chances of getting that promotion.

Being nice is when you come home early due to a mix up at work just to find out your younger brother is sleeping with your wife. You have half a mind to run in there and confront them but you don’t because you realize it will tear the family apart. Instead you do some mindless shit you can’t even remember for the next eight hours and then come home acting like you were working the whole time. Months later your bastard of a brother even has the gall to ask you for help when he has money problems and worst of all, you help him. You help him because its the nice thing to do. Even though its clear he hasn’t given a shit about you ever since he you both moved out of your parents house. But I digress, I’m not here to talk about life circumstances. All I’m saying is nice people are nice because they’re getting something out of it other than enjoyment, even if that something is horrible.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Whether its being nice to a girl so you can get with her, being nice to your boss so you can get a promotion or being nice around your cheating wife for ten years so you don’t shatter whatever small semblance of your life you have left, being nice is clearly not the same as being kind. Its deceitful, addictive but most of all it tears at the soul. You’d be lucky to have any morals by the time you finally figure it out. Unluckily for me, I kept mine.

It took me a while but I found out there are other ways to dealing with things. Being a little more selfish, blowing your top once in a while. You don’t have to tolerate all the pain people put you through until you’ve hit the point you’re considering murder. God knows I’ve tried but sometimes you lose control and remove a couple people from your life-for good. There maybe some legal issues but that's the cost of keeping your sanity. Its too bad I’m only now starting to change at the age of forty-five, instead of when I was a kid. But it doesn’t matter now because my life is over.

I’ve mourned this life all I’ve could, ‘cleaned up’ the two biggest problems in my life and now all I’ve left to do is wait for the police to come for me. It won’t take long, the sirens have been blaring outside for five minutes now. Its been three since I heard the front door break down, I probably had around a minute left.

Looking down at my handiwork I smiled truthfully for the first time in years. Things have never been so clear for me until this moment, I genuinely understood what it meant to be happy. But its too late. I didn’t have any chance to enjoy the moment as the police are already here, shouting for me to drop my weapon. The arms of a cold, enfolding death are much more soothing than their calls for me to drop mine. The longed-for bullet finally put an end to the charade I’ve been living all these years. Hopefully the afterlife won’t be as cruel.