The act of dealing with murder is not as difficult as society makes it out to be. Physically, it takes a bit of effort, of course, depending on the means one chooses to employ. But of the great moral crises that plague human consciousness with guilty soul-wrangling and despair, of these I have experienced absolutely none.
Sometimes, things just need to be done.
Yes, a life may be taken. Something that cannot be given back. But the idea that this is a bad thing is only the romanticism of a too-compassionate generation. Calling life an inalienable right and all the rest – surely, that’s just emotionalism at its most absurdly poetic. Life is a gift, and if you make yourself unworthy of it, you deserve to have it taken away. Simple. If you go further, and make it into something sinister, then relieving you of what you’ve perverted is no evil at all.
I look down at this one’s mouth, his final breaths already departed, and I can all but hear those last wheezing moans, seeking compassion and forgiveness. But no guilt wracks me. There is no wobbly uncertainty of virtue or righteousness.
Only memories. Memories of how this life was used. How it’s brought me here. What it’s given and imposed.
What it’s taken away, and what it, now, will never take away again.