Our hero, under the molten orange sun, contemplated the ancient sin of murder. To have another man slain was plainly wrong. The mansion had been newly decorated, so the accidents of death, as blood and guts, would render the maids’ work moot.
Our hero walked through the streets of the city, whose citizens were entering the slow crawl to death by fairy’s foot. Yes, the act of killing was wrong, and anyone who did so or is complicit in the act deserved harsh judgment. Yet, as our hero’s sense of morality came largely from manga, he was unable to grasp why precisely it was wrong. From a philosophical perspective, the boy’s death had little meaning in the enormous sea of the universe. Unfortunately, the universe mattered very little to our hero, who simply wanted to be paid.
In fact, if he refrained from killing, he would be executed, and his own death, dissolving the drug trade, would lead to the boy’s death. Thus, killing the boy would be purchasing life at a discount, halving its price. But regardless of this happy math, the crime still weighed heavy on our hero’s heart, as the boy would not be very happy dying.
As our hero had been out of sight for a few hours, the boy greeted him with the most horrendous string of insults, though there was no object to his complaints, he was merely very bored. Meanwhile girls were ordered to feed the boy beer and pat his stomach.
At the end of a better half of an hour, our hero finally had chance to speak: he had a present for him. The boy asked to see it, and stood. Face to face, our hero gave him the hat. It did not fit. Thus came another, louder, longer string of insults. The boy was relieved, as he now had a genuine complaint. This was the best gift of all.
Our hero removed the dagger from his rear and thrusted it into the boy’s stomach. How did he muster the courage to do so? He imagined he was cutting into a pig that was long, long dead.
The boy’s stomach burst with blood. It covered the entire room, our hero, the girls, the windows. In his rage, the boy groped for a letter opener on his desk, painted it with blood, and lunged at our hero, only to enter the blade again, as our hero still held out his hand. The boy screamed in agony, again, made his hands into fists, but could not hit our hero out of weakness from a loss of blood. Taking pity on him, our hero raised the dagger again – only to hit too low, slicing the boy’s manhood in half.
The boy turned, his manhood a fountain of blood, spraying the girls with this blood, then fell headfirst and died.
Though not truly. He screamed for a few minutes more until the blood covered his mouth, drowning him.
The girls resigned that day, and our hero was promptly arrested for murder. Prison was dark and mean; the fare every day was gruel soup, every other day it was gruel sandwiches. The only recreations in prison were to throw one’s feces at the other, and to die from illness and disease. The city’s budget did not allow for more.
He disliked prison so much that he longed to be an adventurer, and, sword in hand, cut open the bars of the prison and freeing these fellows, who, regardless of whom they have murdered or ravished, deserved a chance to amend their ways and improve upon themselves, no matter how little this improvement might be. However, the very concept of prison seemed to contradict directly the concept of man as a temple of justice and virtue. He eventually became so despondent that the prisoners reserved their feces for happier men.
He was taken before a court, with the elegant woman, acting as prosecutor, and a judge. The judge was very old and could hardly keep his eyes open. The prosecutor put sole blame on the crime on our hero, explained the wages of murder were more murder, and admitted there were no witnesses interrogated, and no legal precedent for his crime, as no one in the city killed a man, much less a boy, at the time of twilight before, and the law did not specify when murder should not be done. Seeing this, our hero should be fined a great deal of gold, to be owed the city. When the judge awoke, he agreed, banged his gavel, which was his only true duty and chief love in life, and adjourned court. Thus our hero was a free man.
Upon receiving the fresh air and bright sunlight, he saw, driven by carriage, some friends he had made in prison. His experience would have been a great deal worse without them. They exchanged words, he thanked them, they wished him fortune, and he bade them farewell, as they were led to the gallows.
© 2025 François-Marie Lee