I Killed A Man Today

Authors Comment:

I wrote this some time ago as a “psychological horror” themed story. This is somewhat different from the sci-fi stories that I usually write.

I killed a man today.

He was an innocent, good-hearted person that hadn’t done anything to anyone, and I killed him.

I work in an assisted living facility as a male nurse. I never really wanted to get into nursing. My parents pushed me to become a doctor, but the furthest I got was a nursing degree. I couldn’t handle the pace of a regular hospital, so I ended up here, in death’s waiting room. I’ve been there for nearly ten years. It’s not a bad job, the money is ok, and it’s quiet. That’s a pretty good deal for a slacker like me.

The man we are talking about is, or was, a patient here. This facility is for the long-term care of severely injured and disabled patients. Most of them don’t stay with us for long, if you understand what I mean. He was one of the few patients who was here since I started at this place. We called him John Doe, since we never learned his real name. Even the death certificate has “John Doe” on it.

John had actually spent half of his life here. I found out from some of the other nurses that he was in his early 20’s when he was brought in. He was in his 40’s now. Tall, and lean, a little thin, but not gaunt. He was in surprisingly good shape considering his situation. The only outward sign of illness was his complete lack of hair. I’ve seen bald men before, of course, but this was different. He looked unnatural, sickly, although he wasn’t on any medication that would cause this.

He had suffered some kind of Traumatic brain injury that left him almost completely non-responsive, although he was not comatose. He had what we call “locked-in syndrome”. Sufferers are often mentally conscious and alert, but completely paralysed throughout their body.

John was a special case, he had limited movement in his facial and jaw muscles. He couldn’t speak, but he could sometimes hold a pencil in his mouth, and write words and short sentences when he felt strong enough. He could also make simple, guttural sounds, and slightly move his head, but other than that, he had no power of movement.

Most of the time, he would just lie there, staring. I never wondered what thoughts went through his head. The staff, like me, assumed, in our ignorance, that his mind was as sedentary as his body. We were wrong.

He never had any visitors, none that I saw, anyway, with just one exception. Once, years ago, I remember hearing a voice from his room. Since he never had guests, I went to investigate, and I met a woman wearing a hooded jacket seeming to float past me. She had just left John’s room, and she was crying. I called out to her, but she simply quickened her step, and then she was gone. I never saw her, or anyone else, come to visit John again.

About two years ago some Ph.D. students from a local university came to see John. They had found out about his case from one of our facilities administrators. Their Ph.D. was in medical devices and computing, and in return for using John’s case in their dissertation, they provided him with an invention of theirs, made during their research. It was a small computer, of sorts, that John wore around his neck. He held a straw in his mouth and used it to control the machine. It took advantage of his very limited movement and allowed him to speak by choosing words one at a time, to form sentences, which were then spoken aloud using a synthesiser. It was quite advanced stuff, way beyond me.

For the first few weeks, John used the device to ask for extra blankets or other simple things. But then he started to say more.

I usually work the night shift, I get paid more that way, and I don’t have much of a social life, so the strange hours don’t bother me. Nothing much happens at night, so it’s usually just me and maybe one or two other nurses in the whole place.

One night after I finished getting John ready for bed and had turned to leave, I heard his synthesiser calling my name. My actual name. That wasn’t part of his database of words, so he must have added it letter by letter.

As I turned, I saw him looking at me. His vacant, dead eyes were replaced with a piercing stare. He called my name again.

That night, he spoke to me. It was clearly hard for him, I could see him struggling as he grew tired. With broken, monotonous speech he told me things I never wanted to hear. Though his synthesised words were devoid of all emotion, they held such a depth of human suffering that I could almost feel what he felt.

He spoke of pain, of suffering so unbearable it could almost kill by the power of it alone. Almost.

I realised for the first time that John’s mind was as sharp as it ever was. He had the same dreams, the same hopes, the same desires as any man. He truly was “locked-in”.

That was the first time he asked me to kill him.

I refused, of course. I’m not a murderer. Or at least… I wasn’t. I empathised with him, I can’t imagine how I’d feel in his position. It must have been torture. But I just couldn’t do what he asked.

I had my shifts changed, I switched to days. The place was busier during the day, there were a lot more nurses around, so I could avoid going to John’s room.

Weeks went by, and I never thought of him. I am surprised and ashamed at how easy it was to forget about what he had said, and what he had asked me to do. It’s not that I didn’t care, I just couldn’t process it, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. But eventually, my schedule changed again, and I ran out of favours. I was back on the night shift. That meant I’d have to tend to John again.

For the next few weeks, things weren’t much different from before. I mean, it’s not like we used to have long conversations or anything, so there were no awkward silences or noticeable tension. But I did try to avoid his eyes. There was a deep sadness there that I never noticed before. We used to give John drops, to moisturise his eyes, since we noticed they would become slightly inflamed and teary. We assumed it was from the cold, dry air in the room. I now know that he was crying silent tears.

One night, near the start of my shift, I prepared to tend to John as usual. But as I approached his room, something felt different. I felt.. almost disconnected, like I was in a dream. This slightly disturbing feeling continued with me as I changed John’s sheets, turned him, and performed my usual duties. As I turned to leave, I heard my name from John’s synthesiser. I froze. I was still the only person he ever called by name, the rest of the staff didn’t even know he could do this. I looked around, slowly, and he was twitching and slightly turning his head, using all of his limited mobility.

He seemed to be motioning towards the table beside his bed, where his personal effects were. I carefully picked up and replaced his things until I heard his low, guttural grunt, his only natural form of communication. I was holding a piece of finely woven cloth, maybe silk? I unwrapped it, and inside was an old picture. I moved into the light so that I could see it properly, and that was the moment when my world changed. That was the moment when I knew I was about to become a killer.

It was a woman, and she was beautiful. It looked like the woman I had seen coming out of John’s room all those years ago, but here, I could see her face clearly for the first time. She had bright, sky-blue eyes, and a smile that made even my heart flutter, and I didn’t even know her. It was the most sincere, genuine smile I had ever seen, her whole face lit up. I’ve seen some fake, plastic Pan-Am smiles in my time, this wasn’t one of them.

It actually took me a few seconds to recognise the man in the picture. The long-haired, chiseled, good looks of the man John used to be. He was holding the woman, sharing her smile, and taking the picture of the two of them. They both looked so happy. It was then that I understood. It was like time stopped. I felt an unnatural stillness descend on the place. It was like we were the only two people on the planet.

John would never love again. He would never feel a woman’s touch, he would never feel her kiss, or hear her laugh. He would never feel the excited nervousness of asking a woman on a date, or the joy of hearing her say yes. He would never wake up next to her, or feel the contentment and happiness of companionship. He’d never have kids, watch them grow up, attend their football games, or teach them about life. He would never grow old with a lady beside him, after facing the world together.

He was truly alone.

The pillow felt like it was made from lead as I picked it up. My heart was pumping, and I felt sick. I swallowed, hard, attempting to control my growing nausea. I glanced at John’s eyes one last time, as if asking him, pleading with him, but his gaze told me all I needed to know. I looked away, and I did what I had to do.

It didn’t take long. He wanted to go. But it felt like an eternity.

The alarms! I didn’t even think of the alarms on the life support machine. As the other nurses rushed in I hurriedly pretended to revive John, but it was too late. I said I was tending to another patient when I heard the alarms go off in John’s room, and rushed to his aid. The official cause of death was respiratory failure.

I think the head nurse, Richard, suspected. But if he did, he didn’t say anything. What good would it do? John was in pain. So much pain. Not physical, but very real. What could we do for him? Keep him hooked up to our machines for the next 10 years? Or 20, or 30? That’s no life. Not for anyone.

I’m not asking for forgiveness, or for sympathy. I don’t regret what I did. But I had to tell someone.

Just remember, you don’t need ghosts or demons for a horror story. Sometimes real life is plenty. I know I’ll never sleep again.

–

I Killed a Man Today

-AdAstraPhoenicia-