Matchsticks

A scienefiction based drama, Short story. Find it on Amazon here to support me -

Matchsticks
A short story written by Jack Fitzpatrick

A knock on the door was enough to change my life. Enough to alter everything that I was headed for.

 

“I can at least save this time line! This dimension or reality or wherever the f**k I am!”
He had the heavy style pistol pressed against my temple, it was a pain I hadn’t experienced before. I wasn’t a soldier, or a cop or even a criminal. I wasn’t tough. I wasn’t hardened. I was just some guy. Some nobody. I wasn’t really much of anything to be honest. Never really was.

“But I haven’t even done anything!” I sort of exclaimed a half shout, but what came out was more of a shriek.
“YET! You’re missing one specific f*****g keyword right there!”

He towered over me. He looked quite different from me it was hard to believe that we were in a way, the same man. He dressed darker and heavier, his hair longer and messier, he looked dirty and roughed up and his eyes were full of rage.

“Look man… me… Isn’t telling me a big deal? Won’t my knowledge change everything? If I Know the whole story, I can completely avoid it. Altering it quite easily.” I thought of every science fiction movie I’d ever seen, it sounded like complete nonsense but here I was, pleading to a man I’d one day be.

“I wish it were that simple.” He quieted down. He actually leaned off of me and sat back down opposite me. He didn’t look at me and he muttered what he’d said, as if ironically; talking to himself.
“Look kid,” Kid being an odd term for him to use on me I felt, “This ain’t the first time this has happened. You know how I found out about all this? Some a*****e wearing a trench coat and s****y haircut told me a whole bunch of bullshit when I was... Funny... Around your age.’

 The man gestured towards himself, making it obvious that this description matched himself.
 “He sounded like one of those f*****g preachers off of that street. You know, the kind that go on about how “The end is nigh.”

So what are we supposed to do then? As I had it, If I knew the facts I could avoid the situation. He tells me each detail about my life, I’ll just lead in the other direction. He continued working a dead end job? I’ll quit. He found the love of his life? I’ll stop dating. He wears f*****g trench coats and doesn’t cut his hair? I’ll wear blazers and get a buzz cut; whatever the f**k he wanted really as long as I wasn’t dead by the end of the night.

“Wisdom comes with time I guess, kid. I am not really sure how to tell you in a way that will help. He told me last time, When I was in your shoes about 20 years back, and I didn’t listen. He warned me about... her, and I chased her. He warned me about what would happen... And I let it happen. And he warned me about how I’d handle it… And I couldn’t.

Maybe you’re destined to become me, kid. Maybe we are just bad people. Maybe in a way, you are already me. Perhaps evil doesn’t get created, perhaps it’s born and you’re already infected.”

He stood up now and aimed the barrel towards me, with a straight arm towards me his posture looked quite withered and ruined.

“I know what you’re thinking. That’s what years of emptiness can do to a man.  I have an advantage over you kid, because I remember this moment. It was pretty f*****g significant.”

“You don’t need to kill me.” I spoke quietly now. I attempted to sound serious but I could tell this man had been through a lifetime of s**t. Experienced enough to have lost his empathy long ago.

“It’s the only way kid.”

The dark empty room around contained dust particles which floated through the cold air, visible only where the moon light shone through the cracks of blinds on the windows. With my back to the back wall I had been sitting at my desk in the main room. He leaned over it with a look of anger yet determination in his eyes. I don’t think he wanted to kill me. But I do believe that he believed he had to.

“So what the f**k happens then old man!?” I stood now. Shouting. My fists on the desk as I stared at him.

“Alright. Maybe We can fix this together. Maybe if I do a better job at this than the me before me... Then we can do this. When I was you he yelled crazy bullshit at me. He’d become manic. Maybe his experience was worse. Maybe I’m just sane enough to fix it all and break the cycle.

It’s a few years from now. You’ll be working this same s****y office job that we both know is killing you. It’s a soulless job that you only keep to get by. You don’t realise your potential though and you don’t realise you better than this. You’re better than me.
By now however you’d met her. A girl that goes by the name of April…” He looked at me, when he’d said her name, he seemed more genuine. More human.
“Yeah… I know her sort of.” She was a girl that worked in the office. An assistant or some s**t like that, She was above me but she wasn’t a CEO or anything.
“Yeah well you’ll know her quite f*****g well soon enough kid. She’s the centre of all this” He again gestures to himself. “I mean no disrespect to her. She was the best thing that’d ever happened to me. I don’t regret her, but in the end, you’re better off without her.”
“So what? She’s “The girl?” “The one?” So why don’t I just not go after her?”
“Because I still did.”
“Tell me more.” I needed more.
“I began to date her kid, and my life changed. Everything seemed brighter then. This girl made everything matter. Soon enough we were married. We worked together, and lived together. We were heading to our 30s when things turned around. One night I received a text from her. “Big news.” That’s all it said with a few smiley face emoticons and some other silly animations.
 I rushed home from work soon after, she’d taken the day off and so was already home. When I walked in she had the widest smile on her face I’d ever seen. Her hair was a mess, She was still in pyjamas and she didn’t look to well. But she was beautiful. Maybe more so than ever.
 Kid, She was pregnant. Because of course she f*****g was.
After celebrating together for a while and a few phone calls to those deemed important enough, we’d decided to go out. It was Friday so there was no work to be done tomorrow, we had a full day to be together, so that night We were going to have a date night, with a fancy dinner, maybe a movie, who knows what else. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to us because we were happy. And it didn’t matter anyway because tomorrow never came.
The other car came so fast. The metal that collided was annihilating, enough to shatter parts of April completely. She was gone before I even got the chance to check on her. I woke up in hospital a few days later. I screamed for hours. F**k, days even kid.
The guy who hit us was some a*****e driving some fancy convertible. He wasn’t any older than me. He wore a popped up collar shirt and he looked like he was planning on going to some clubs that night. He was the type. Born into wealth and not a physical flaw on him. He’d run a red and that’s what turned the best night of my life into a dark, distant nightmare.

I was broken. I lost contact with everyone I’d ever known. I moved out of our apartment because I couldn’t afford it alone. There I was staying in some s****y motel room for $20 a night. It didn’t have any facilities but it’s not like that mattered to me. My hair grew out, I lost weight and my sanity withered. A year past. Hell kid, It could have been two. But one night I decided that this part of my life was over. And that maybe the only way that the world could be set right again was to bring more pain into the world. It was a stupid decision but it made sense for me at the time. I would kill him. The man who took my world away. The man who threw me into darkness.

After some research I found him. He’s name was Richard Norton and he was now working at some high end company. Some f*****g wall street job because again, of course he was.
Gun in hand I stood outside his house. Keeping to the shadows I stood breathing heavily. This is the moment I went from bad to worse. The fence was an easy one to climb, the security system was minimum at best and the property was soulless and lacked any personality. This man was a shell.
But he deserved to die. April didn’t. The world was backwards and I wanted to set things straight.

And just like that, a knock on the door would change it all.

She opened the door with a big smile. She put her arms open wide and braced herself to hug the arriving guest. She then hesitated. “You’re not my mummy?”
Gun in hand I stood frozen. The little girl saw it and screamed. Her father came to the door looking just a little older than he did the night of the crash.
“PLEASE!” He pleaded but it was too late. I shot them both. One to the little girls’ chest and two to the man.

The family dog barking into the night as I left the scene.

A pattern began to occur after that. It seemed my life was going down and not stopping. It never stopped. A few years of prison here, a few f*****g beatings there and there I was; Public enemy number one. Torn and broken. Everything taken from me and more and who was to blame? The man who crashed into us who as it turned out was speeding to get to his pregnant wife giving birth to his child? No, it was an accident. April for suggesting we’d go out that night? No, it was natural to want to do that. I was the only one to blame kid. And I’m praying that you won’t be the blame. I’m praying none of this happens to you. And I’m even willing to take your life tonight to save you a life of torture and to save the ones you effect. April, Richard and his child are not the only deaths you will encounter…”

“I’m done hearing all of this. I just won’t get together with that girl. I barely know her anyway.”
“You will.” He told me. Straight faced and serious, as if he knew.
“Even if I do, I won’t go out that night.” I reasoned.
“You will.”
“I’ll handle her death better.”
“You won’t.”
“F**k you, old man! I’m not you!”
“YOU F*****G WILL BE! IT IS YOUR FATE!” Furious was the only word to describe his manner.

He pressed the gun to the front of my head but I grabbed his arm. Knocking it out of his hands to the floor. It fired wildly into one of the walls.

I dive to the cheap carpet floor and fumble for the gun. With my back to the wall I aim the gun up. Me; Lying down now and him standing over me. He kicked the gun out of my hands again and punched me in the face. Funny; my first fight was against myself.

Wrestling on the ground, with the gun a few metres away we struggled. Determined to kill me he fought. With my unwavering will to live I fought back. Soon enough I got a hard hit to the man’s jaw. Knocking him back he had fallen. Now he had been laying down, and I stood. The gun once again in my hand. I hadn’t wanted to kill him but there was no reasoning with this man. This man that had been pushed too far. I liked to think that in a way, the man wasn’t me at all. That we are all a result of our experiences. Our memories create us and fate and destiny is some bullshit term made up to kill the box office every time a love story film came out for valentine’s day.

But maybe I was destined to become him. Maybe it is fate. Because all things considered from that night. It ended with me firing. The bullet had pierced his skull faster than I’d ever thought possible. A sense of victory had hit me. Like a hit of some drug I’d felt it. Full of adrenaline. I was the king. I had survived. I had beaten myself.
I was a f*****g fool.

Much like the man’s life story, my own had headed in the same direction.  Like matchsticks we'd been manufactured identically at first, yet eventually burned in our own fucked up ways. The one remaining common denominator being that either way, no matter the direction; we were destined to burn.

So now here I am staring into the mirror. There he is. The old man that visited me all of those years ago staring back at me. Anger in his heart. Only this time, it’s different. This man never got the girl. This man never killed Richard Norton. This man never killed an innocent child. Perhaps this man... at least in some way, is a better man. It doesn’t matter either way because it’s not enough. This man… I… Am a bad person.

And I have to set things right. I have to stop him from burning like I had.

A knock on the door would be enough to change his life. Alter everything his life was headed for.

I could help him; I could change him. Couldn’t I?