Playing With Fire

18th JANUARY

He’ll be coming for me soon. Today, tomorrow, or the next day. I can feel his dark mind reaching out to me. It doesn’t matter. I’m tired now. I’m the cancer patient who lives longer than the doctors have given him, the sad father who outlives all his children, the condemned man who receives a stay of execution. But now it’s time. Soon he will come.

In my weak and foolish moments, I dream we go away together, start anew, embark on another escapade, but in the cold, dark reality of my caravan, I know he likes to travel light, and I know he doesn’t like loose ends. I don’t think he enjoys killing. Yes, there is a coldness at the core of his being, and I doubt that he’s overly troubled by conscience. But I don’t think he actually enjoys it. My murder will be dispassionate, calculated, a necessary end.

The irony is, of course, that I would never betray him. I’m not like Tommy, the fool, who let his greed and his pride ruin everything. Why did he have to spoil it all? These past few months have been a great adventure, full of camaraderie, romance and the thrill of the game, but Tommy had to let his ego ruin it for everyone. So we weren’t getting enough money. I could have lived with that easily, so long as he still came to visit me in the caravan and we had our long talks into the night with the rain tapping against my flimsy roof.

I can hear him coming up the rickety steps. Now he’s knocking at my door. When I open it, he will be standing there with a smile on his face and a bottle in his hand. Quick. I must stop now. Another drink, another pill, Beethoven’s Pastorale. We have come full circle.