Marcel woke up from his drunken stupor, his muscles worn of fatigue, he stretched his every joint making such weird crackle. Pushing his blanket aside he struggled to his feet, stretched his hands and yawned releasing a nasty smell of yesterday’s rum. The sun was already up and the rays struck through his bedroom window creating an ambience he never really seemed to enjoy, rubbing his eyes he walked to the washrooms. He lowered his head into the sink letting water flow through his hair. He never cared to use the face towel maybe after pangs of hunger struck so painfully he couldn’t ignore them. He made his way to the kitchen, water still dripping from his hair making his back wet.
Even in his most weary state he knew his kitchen door is always locked, he held the knob and thrust the key into the keyhole but before he could initiate any motion with the key in the lock the door opened. Normally, this would be a big reason to worry but since yesterday was a day they had spent celebrating her son’s birthday his kitchen had got accessed by all who cared to step in there and so this was expected anyway. He lit the cooker and placed some water to boil, he opened a freezer from where he expected to pick a packet of milk but what greeted his eyes was quite fictitious if not frightening. In his freezer laid a frozen body of a boy they had spent the better part of the night searching for. Apparently Jose had opted to hide in the freezer knowing that none of the kids would find him and he will be the winner of hide and seek game they were playing after enjoying meals that were served at the party. However his winning plan proved torturous when his whole body became numb, maimed by freezing cold within his hiding hole. He might have tried to open the freezer but he couldn’t unlock it while inside and that only left him with a single option- to look death in its eye and maybe embrace it.
The police cells were cold and dirty, they reeked of urine and piss. At the corner of this cell where he was, a bucket filled with piss and urine was stored and who knows it maybe his turn to empty it. From the very day he got here he has got more reasons to dread it than he had anticipated. You can’t imagine how fellow offenders beat him up for killing a child. He had become a criminal of the highest cadre without even knowing it. His whole body ached from uncalled for beatings both from the police and the fellow criminals but that pain was nothing compared to what he was to go through.
He was still using every thread his mind could hold to knit his niche in this world he had been forced to live in when the officer came to the window and shouted his name.
‘Marcel Kwong’ he shouted. But when nobody answered all eyes roved on him, partially because he was the only freshman. He neither moved nor talked.
The officer flashed him a bilious look before shouting his name again, almost insanely. He awoke from his lost state of mind and answered ‘yes Afande’. That earned him some ‘knee therapy’ after which he was frog-matched to the visitors’ room. When he saw Jose’s father he went to his knee and swore, ‘I didn’t kill your son’. he looked at Marcel in the eye and for a moment Marcel thought he didn’t hear him but when he spoke he spat venom,
‘I wish you accept my solemn gift, I will make this earth a furnace for you even if it will cost the last drop of my blood’ he paused and then ‘I will kill you, just like I killed your wife’
and then he left, leaving him being ripped apart by the venom he had spat on him. What a lie he had lived, Matt was his best friend or so he thought but now this revelation opened his eyes, he wasn’t a friend anymore but a villain the world was delaying to deport.
Sliver of Darkness 