The picture was finally clear, or as clear as it would ever become. Not that we understood how it all worked, and Robert took that secret to the grave. But with his final act, he freed himself. We understood at least. Everything became clear, and very, very dark.
Robert had jumped to a clean death, 20 stories down. Asphalt road, landing flat. I don’t need the doctors to tell me that death was instant. I finished up the paperwork just now, and the lamp on my desk is the last light that is on in the precinct. It is late. Whatever fight Robert had to win to make his final step, it took him the entire day to do it. We had him under observation, but our people did not follow him up the elevator, they had instructions to keep a good distance and should avoid being spotted at all cost, even if it meant losing him. They didn’t. He hit the road not far from their car.
Only a few stars in the sky today. Probably cloudy. So many people died, and we could do nothing. Our own mind holds us captive, like it did for Robert. Blind to the truth, to what was waiting beyond the simple facade of our ordinary lives. We had suspected Robert of many things and had never seen what was so obvious on the outside. His dishevelled looks. His eyes. I cannot forget his eyes. Remembering them now it is so clear that they were screaming out for help in a language more clear than words. But he could not put it into words, and that is why he said nothing. A force beyond our understanding was there. The part we did not understand, that was not to be understood, at least not by humans.
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What else could lurk there in the shadows? Maybe inside all of us? Did it come from outside and took possession of the man, or from the inside and emerged for reasons unknowable? I contemplate these things and what they mean for all of us while I play with my gun absent-mindedly. Hiding from the truth of my life. The pointlessness of it all. The mistakes we made, and the price that others paid for us. For me. Why should I not pay my due?
And it is not just that. Far worse is the knowledge I gained. That the world is a so much darker place than I had ever imagined, beyond the most terrifying in literature and philosophy. I cannot return to it like this. Our existence but a toy for others to play with. Our lives playing pieces on the board of a game, and nobody even shared the rules with us. Extinguished on a whim. How many of the cases we closed, how many of the suicides and accidents in the city have a deep, dark shadow that we just don’t see?
A lone moon shines on the city.
Slowly, calmly, the gun goes back into the holster. It is not hope that I have found. Just a stubborn attitude of not giving up. You can call it grit. I just thought too many people have already died, let’s not add one more. But hope, there is none left. This shadow will over me till the end of my days.