There was a knock at the door.
Nigel and I weren’t expecting anyone: we were both sitting in the living room reading while vegetables were slowly stewing in the kitchen. We shared a quick silent glance, and then I got up to see who it was.
I looked through the keyhole and saw the last person I expected to be standing in front of the door. It was our next-door neighbor, the grumpy old man who never missed the opportunity to give us the evil eye if he saw us in the hallway. A slight shiver went down my spine. I remembered that day when my not-at-all-pleasant experience with him led to a moment of weakness that nearly ended with me being possessed.
Nevertheless, I opened the door. Perhaps he wanted to apologize. Or he just needed help with something. Whatever the case, he deserved to at least be given a chance to say what he wanted to.
We stood there, just looking at each other silently for a few seconds. In his eyes I could see an unfathomable sadness that caught me off guard. It seemed impossible to hide. How was I only noticing it now?
“Your name is Isaiah Hargraves, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is…” I replied, slightly confused by the question.
He nodded his head and took a deep breath. “I have to talk to you,” he said. “It’s important.”
“Please come in,” I invited him, standing aside so he could enter. He made his way into the apartment, one small footstep at a time, as Nigel came out from the living room to see what was going on.
“What the heck!?” he snarled the moment he laid eyes on the man. “What is he doing here!?!”
“Nigel, please,” I tried to calm the situation. “Mister… On second thought, I don’t even know your name.”
“Mills,” he said. “Archibald Mills.”
“Mr. Mills says that he needs to talk to me. And it sounds like it’s something I should hear.”
My lips pursed and my eyebrows arched up. Nigel instantly recognized it as the face I always make when I feel like I have to do something that I know he wouldn’t understand. Sure enough, his ire instantly died down.
“Alright then,” he said, stepping towards the kitchen. “If you say so, then I believe you. Would you like some tea, Mr. Mills?” he asked with just a hint of venom.
“No, thank you,” Archibald sighed. “I don’t deserve anything from you.”
Both of us were taken aback by what he said. Not just the words, but how he said them. Profound self-loathing oozed from every syllable. It became clear to me that he wasn’t kidding: he had to talk to me. Something had brought him to the dark place he was in and the only thing that could help him out of it was to bare his soul.
He made it to the living room, and I pushed an armchair towards him so he wouldn’t have to make the effort of reaching it. As he lowered his old bones into it with a heavy sigh, I sat across him.
“Whenever you’re ready to say what you need to, I’m ready to hear it,” I said to him.
“I actually thought this would be easy,” he said with a hushed, raspy voice. “That I could just walk in here and spill everything out. But just now it dawned on me that I never actually told anyone what I want to tell you. It’s just been fermenting in my head for decades now. And it’s not easy to open the jar and let it out.”
“Take your time,” I tried to encourage him. Soon enough Nigel emerged back from the kitchen, holding two cups of mint tea. He gave one to me and placed the other next to our guest.
“I knew Ezra,” Archibald said after a long pause, and I immediately leaned forward. After that unassuming beginning, the floodgates seemed to open. He told us everything: how he fell in love with Ezra Rowse while they were both at the Academy, how happy he was to be with him and how that happiness was cut short when he accidentally shot him. Nigel and I listened to the story in rapt silence all the way to the end.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“That’s… a lot to take in,” I said. Truthfully, I had no idea what to think. The tale had left me emotionally overwhelmed and drained at the same time. But more than anything, I felt sad. Sad for the tragic way Ezra’s life ended just when a glimmer of hope had appeared on the horizon, and sad for the way it turned Archibald into an empty shell of a human being. Nigel instantly appeared at my side, pulling me next to him. He’d been with me long enough to notice when my feelings got a little too intense for my own good.
“I had to tell you,” the old man muttered. “I’d already done one unforgivable thing… I couldn’t bear doing another,” he said, and his voice began to shake.
“Mr. Mills,” I said after my sorrow subsided. “I don’t think that word is appropriate in your case. ‘Unforgivable.’ Every sane person who listened to your story would conclude that what happened that day was a mishap. A tragic mishap, but a mishap none the less. You didn’t want to harm or kill, you weren’t handling a weapon irresponsibly, your judgement wasn’t faulty… You were just trying to do the right thing. People make slip-ups all the time. You just had the misfortune of making one at the worst possible moment.”
“There’s nothing you can say that can change the fact that Ezra might still be here if I hadn’t pulled that trigger,” Archibald said coldly. “I killed the only person I truly loved and then didn’t have the courage to own up to it. I am scum. I’m not worthy of the air I breathe. If I wasn’t such a coward… I’d just end it all,” he stammered, beginning to weep.
As always, I couldn’t help but feel some sort of compassion for him. His own guilt gave birth to a voice inside his head that kept telling him that he was no longer worthy of happiness and love. This voice had beaten him down into submission and convinced him that what it was saying was true. It was hitting maybe a little too close to home. I knew a thing or two about what it was like to have a voice inside your head trying to sway you to its side and convince you you’re something you’re not.
“Archibald…” I began to speak, trying to follow my own train of thought as it unraveled in my head, “I know it’s probably the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in your life, but you have to forgive yourself. Because literally nothing good is coming from you still standing in one place and denying yourself the right to live your life. Not for you, not for anyone else.”
He just stared at me with his huge, watery eyes.
“At the same time,” I continued, „perhaps the best way for you to actually restart your life and continue where you left off would be to finally take responsibility for your actions. I guess what I’m saying is… there’s always a gap between doing something and admitting you did it. And what you’ve done is taken that gap and stretched it into a huge limbo. You’ve been drifting through time and space, constantly delaying what you know is the logical next step since you were fifteen. Until you take that step, you’ll remain in this state, constantly giving your guilt even more ammunition.”
Something changed in him when I said that. He wiped his tears and looked at me with a quiet determination, as if I’d somehow reminded him what he came here for in the first place.
“That’s what I told myself, actually,” he said. “I want to come clean. I can’t let someone else’s name be tarnished because of something I did.”
“Do you know what that was just now?” I asked him. He just shook his head, curious as to what I was getting at.
“That was you taking your life back,” I said. “You’re finally doing something that isn’t simply vegetating in this aimless state you’ve been in for so long. So what if it took you 50 years? Better late than never.”
“Better late than never, eh?” he said with a tired smile. “I guess that’s it then. I need to turn myself in.”
“What happens if he does that?” Nigel asked, turning towards me.
“Under law, it’s involuntary manslaughter,” I answered. “A base sentence for that is twelve to eighteen months. But it can be increased if there’s reason to. The fact that he waited this long to confess probably won’t do him any favors.”
“It’s fine,” Archibald sighed. “I’ve been withering between my own four walls for practically half a century. Jail can’t be worse than that.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me. The case I took upon myself that day I arrived to Strona was now nearly complete. There was but one thing that needed to be done.
“Nigel, can you bring it?” I asked. He just nodded his head and got up. Moments later, he was back with Bubba’s – or, rather, Archibald’s – class photo. I was weary of touching it after what happened in the forest.
“Is… Is that?” Archibald stammered incredulously.
“It is,” I confirmed. “By pure luck of the draw, our landlord picked it up after you left it all those years ago. It’s what started this whole investigation. There’s a spirit lingering around it, unwilling to leave this world. Ezra’s spirit. It’s obvious now why it chose to cling to this photo. It thought you still had it. And all this time, Ezra has been repeating one thing only. ‘I miss you.’”
Archibald’s lower lip quivered.
“He’s been patiently waiting for fifty years,” I added. “I think it’s time you set him free. He deserves to move on, and so do you.”
----------------------------------------
Archibald hesitated for a second, but then extended his pale, bony arm. Nigel handed him the photograph.
The moment Archibald’s fingers touched the photo, a wave of elation rushed through his body, awakening feelings that he’d long put under lock and key. Every single happy memory with Ezra replayed in his mind. He could practically feel his soft, unkempt locks at his fingertips, the smell of spring blowing in the breeze, laughter echoing through the corridors of his mind. All his worries and fears faded into non-existence, and for one blissful, all too brief moment, everything was perfect. It was as if the world itself was a joyous, eternal song, and every fiber of his being was swaying to its rhythm.
For so long, Ezra’s only wish was to be reunited with his first and only love.
At long last, the wish had come true.