The Other Side of Beauty

a short story about a guy that sees the beauty in death

Nowadays it’s too much work to try and be mysterious and poetic, so I’ll cut clear to the point. 

I kill people. I like it, too. 

There are so many beautiful moments in life, and death is one of those beautiful, almost euphoric moments. There’s something so fascinating about death, about the process. It’s a series of beautiful moments. Moments that no one will experience except people like me. No one else will feel the warmth of someone’s last breath. No one else will know how slow a heartbeat can get, only I will feel that softness. The panic in their rolling eyes and the moment when I know they are looking at something that I can’t see, that I won’t see until my own death. Only I will feel that curiosity and wonder. But the most precious moment is when it all stops. When their lungs hold emptiness and the heart falls asleep. When the warmth leaves their body and feeling their skin turn cold. The absolute stillness, the quiet. 

The moments before death are unfathomably beautiful, but the finality is deeply and indefinably poetic. When everything stops. It is utterly peaceful. The movement, the breathing, the rolling eyes, the beating, when everything is in slow motion, the wonderful chaos, slowing to a stop. The thought is so comforting and seems to wrap me up and hold me together. I try to explain it to the people I kill but they don’t seem to understand. Nobody understands. I don’t feel like a serial killer or insane or like a creep. I’m just an ordinary guy who appreciates death. 
I came to this realization during my long term relationship with this incredible woman named Penelope. She had an explosive personality, a smile that could light a night sky, and a sad heart. When we would spend the night together I would listen to her heartbeat all night. I remember how fast it would beat after we had sex, how it would pound ferociously in my ear. I remember how I liked listening to it slow down. It would become slower, slower, slower… but it wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t rest. I could feel it’s sadness as it would beat all night long. It was so tired. 

So one night I cut her chest open and held her sad heart. I didn’t mind the blood staining my bed and my clothes and the carpet and the walls, and I didn’t feel anything when the person I loved was screaming in pain. I felt the heart thank me in its final beat and I knew what I had to do. She was my first kill, and I was the second. The person I was before this night was gone completely. I wonder if anyone else thought of how lovely blood looks in the moonlight.

Author's Note

Should I add more to this story?