FICTION
The Last Day
David was twelve when he watched the old man beaten to death and would recall years later that the day was a pretty one. The sky was one large brush stroke of blue. The sun sat high above the eyeline and burned something fierce upon the earth while the wind was soft and cooling. It was a Saturday, and he was with friends. They were older than he was, and that’s why he liked them. They smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol, stayed out late, and on this summer’s afternoon, committed murder, senseless and unprovoked.
It happened almost instantly, like cigarette burns in old movies. One moment they were all laughing, the next they were taking turns in kicking the old man to the ground. A witness would later testify in court that David had tried to stop the attack and, as a result, was also beaten. Curled and dazed, David watched as each boot fell upon the old man’s face and, between the shuffling of legs, caught glimpses of his absolute terror. His face painted red, he let out whimpers of desperation, and soon the terror would become a vacant expression of lifelessness. He would be dead over three minutes before the beating would cease.
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan whence cometh thou? Then Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” David began to wake, and so the Chaplain finished reading. He stood from his chair, made the sign of the cross, and left. As David’s vision cleared, he made out the figure at the foot of his hospital bed. It was a policeman.
“Can you talk?” Said the policeman, holding a small notebook and pen. He was short, round in the belly, and had a worn-down, haggard air to him. Unanswered, he asked the question again. “Can you talk?” David sat up and looked around the room. A sense of dread washed over him. The policeman, growing impatient, was now standing over him on his left. “Can you tell me why your friends attacked the old man?”
“Is he … o.k.?” David asked, now shaking.
“He’s dead. Can you tell me why your friends attacked him?”
“No.”
“Well, there must have been a reason. Did he antagonize them, confront them in any way?”
“He was just there.” At this point, David began to cry.
The policeman put his notebook in his shirt pocket and, with a solemn expression, left the room muttering to himself, “There must have been a reason.”
David, feeling more alone than he had ever felt before, stared out the hospital window to his right, where he saw two children his own age kicking a ball to each other, and wondered to himself how he would die.
Redd Butler is 32 years old from Kent in the United Kingdom — A writer of faith-based works who is currently working on his first novel. His testimony of faith can be found on the Heart of Flesh Literary Journal website and his poems at faithhopeandfiction.com.
Next (Cody Adams) >
< Previous (Susan Piper)
Image by rawpixel.com. AI-generated.
Heart of Flesh Literary Journal 