The End Is Near

The End Is Near

Michael Roseburg looked at the clock. It was striking 11 in the night. The time was drawing near, passing leisurely like lepidopterists when they have a prey in sight. But he had to it, somehow, someway; he had to do what he had been sent by Him to do. Every man was sent to do something and he had identified what he had to do. There is a stage in everyone’s life where he looks into the mirror and asks if it was really worth it. Unlike every last time, this time the answer was yes. 
   
Six months ago, Michael Roseburg was the happiest man in town. He had just been promoted in office and was endeared by everyone who knew him. He was a family man and his family which comprised of his wife and son epitomized the ideal relationships possible. Altogether life was embroidered like broderie anglaise. But grief and joy are finely balanced in this illusionary place deemed by the residents as the world. One day, as Michael returned from work, he found all the lights out in his residency. As it was late, he didn’t think much of it. But the deathly stillness of the place gave the otherwise debonile man a haunted feeling. So he opened the door with the spare key unaware of what awaited him in the haven inside. The darkness inside looked menacing enough and as he switched on the lights, the darkness disappeared from the place and entered his life permanently. There, lay infront of him, stabbed through the neck, the corpses of his son and wife. He felt hazy, dumbfounded by the latest revelation which would turn out to be the brimstone in his life ahead. Just moments ago he was hoping to see the cheerful faces of his family. For them he worked, for them he rose and for them he could die. It was then that he decided that like an authentic loser was better than a false success it was better to die alive than to live dead. But he would not die alone.

For months, he searched for any clue of who the possible murderer was. What had he done to him that he had to pay such a penalty? Maybe nothing; but he would do now.
He gave up his job, his luxuries, his wants, his desires, his likes and dislikes and fully dedicated himself to the pursuit of the murderers. After several enquires, at last he got the knowledge of the man who masterminded several such murders. The reason was unknown. Michael got the address of the man through his contacts. Finally, after six months of haggling and data gathering, he was ready for revenge not only for his but for many other families which had been made to suffer by these Becquerel beasts. The End Was Very Near.

The clock struck 12 and Roger Humboldt was fast asleep, relaxing after another day of money making through the lives of innocent people who had nothing to do with him. Still, what once had started as a rift against Christians had now turned out to become his life and works he started to do to promote Jewism, had now become works to loot people off their belongings-both money and loved ones. And he did not care one bit for it. Now it was time to relax, the next day he had a lot of work to do. Only if it came.

Michael reached the building he wanted to see for such a long, long time. He expected no one to be there except his enemy but a man of his doings would surely not live without a security alarm system. Nevertheless he tried. Till six months ago, he was a very good citizen of the country. Now, circumstances had forced him to cross all barriers and he was breaking into someone’s residency and was also planning to cut him off. Human behavior he guessed. Stealthily, he climbed up the slanting roof, in his hand a gun and in his heart a still hammer which kept on knocking as if to say “You’re close”. So he continued. As he reached up to the window he saw a man asleep. “Yes this was surely the man”. His picture had been etched in his memory like and was at a place of the highest order. Cunningly, he knocked at the window. His brains worked like magic.The alarms didn’t go off. He knocked again, a little loudly this time, and moved a little aside on the slanting roof. He could hear the man’s movements. Yes he was coming nearer. Michael readied himself like a predator waiting to pounce on his prey.Just as the man opened the window he was taken down by the raging Michael Roseburg. He pushed the juggernaut inside the room and closed the window. Then followed the accusations. But the man seemed unimpressed. He calmly accepted the facts. Anger was boiling down inside Michael. His hands were cold and he could actually match the steel cold voice of the man by his own. “So as you accept, you should pay too”. But this guy, Roger Humboldt apparently was used to such encounters. Only this time, he had not masterminded it. Hoping to deceive Michael, he threw down a bundle of notes and as Michael looked at it, he immediately took out a gun. Pointing it at the pessimist, he laughed. But somehow, someway, his opponent was not afraid. And why should he have been. He had nothing, absolutely nothing to lose. All he could lose would be his life and he would not give a damn to have it back. He had been turned into a cold-blooded hardcore person and before Roger could even blink, he was shot in the forehead, above his eye. He shot again and again and again. Every month, every week, every day, every minute, every second, for the last half year, he had planned this. And now Roger Humboldt, the culprit’s lifeless body lay infront of him, amber eyes wide open seeing his death come and his life go away just like he had made hundreds of others feel. Now the tables had turned and there was a twist of fate. Divine vengeance? No one knew.

It was now four thirty in the morning and Michael Roseburg stood by the Thames on the West Minister Bridge. He had avenged his losses and revenge felt nice. But now, it was time to go, time to meet who had left him in agony and despair by their pain and suffering. To live life as he had was his fate. And fate would have it that he would be the one to finish the starter of all misdoings. It was his and his very own destiny. He had been sent to do a job and he carried it out to perfection. By the next two hours, a great news would burst in the underworld. But it was none of his business or probably it slightly was. Dawn was setting in but the time had come for him to put out the light of his life as the dawn had arrived there too. He took one last whiff of the cigarette, closed his eyes and his life flashed before his eyes. How good those early days were. A child is really the father of a man. It did not matter anymore though. He could hear the demon’s call. He looked at the sky and then into the water. He was happy. He smiled sarcastically, and climbed onto the railing. He closed his eyes and dived. Death came as did the end and the end was there.