Black Ink

BLACK INK

How much is one life worth? I used to question this until the day I discovered that no two lives are worth the same. The day the little black book appeared on my front step and I opened to the first page to read the instructions, the very instructions that would cost me my humility, I found just how valuable some lives could be. The book promised me that for every life I took that appeared on it’s pages I would be rewarded generously. To this day that promise has been kept.

The price I have paid for serving the book used to outweigh the reward. But now I have gone numb to the actions I have taken to find compensation. I have been held by the book for many months now, but I hardly focus on how many have passed exactly since the book appeared in my life. To this day I do not know where the book came from and I do not know who or what puts the stacks of money in my home after I have marked a name out of the book, but I no longer question this. If the pile of cash grows, I have nothing to worry about.

It is morning and I am waking up with no alarm, my mind has created it’s own schedule. I open my eyes and roll over to reach beneath my bed to feel the case on the floor where I keep my earnings. I then roll out of bed and find footing on the cold floor and then read the clock on my nightstand, red glowing number tell me it is five in the morning. I hear no sound as the world is still sleeping. This is what I wake up to every morning and sometimes I believe I am in an unending cycle of time. There is a presence in the room with me, the little black book.

I am staring at the book and I can feel it staring back at me. Laying on top of it is the metallic pen with black ink that I cross every name off with. If I cross each name off with an ink dark enough that prevents me from seeing the names ever again, I find it easier to feel no remorse.

I slip on a hoodie and put on wrinkled pants that were laying on the floor from the night before. Neither the hoodie nor the pants have been cleaned in a long time. I do not worry about hygiene like I once did. I should not be concerned if I present myself well to a world of strangers, any one of them may be a name in the book eventually so their opinion is irrelevant to me. Because of the book I no longer see people, simply faces.

The cold floor beneath my feet is what wakes me up the most. I rub my eyes and stretch to get blood flowing. The sun is beginning to rise, and night begins to hide away from the light. I see this every morning and wonder where that the pitch black of night really goes when the day pushes it away. I wonder, does it exist at all.

Once I feel more awake, I open the curtains to see a motionless world. I then walk over to my nightstand and grab the book. I trace the smooth cover to it’s corner and open to the first page. I flip the first few pages to find the page that has not yet been filled entirely. I use the metallic pen to guide me from the top of the list to the bottom to see what my task for the day will be. The tip of the pen glides down past the row of black lines. When it reaches the bottom, I suddenly feel how cold the floor really is, the motionless world outside my window looks alive, I realize a stench from the hoodie that I have neglected to wash, and I now understand that a life is more valuable than my earnings in the case under the bed. I see everything I forgot how to see because the name at the bottom of the list

Is my own.