The Gift

Okay, so the title is like a middle school writing prompt, if you come up with a better one let me know.


It takes him four hours and thirty-two minutes to settle on a course of action. He is pleased with himself, usually it takes him much longer.
He whistles, while he feeds the cats, whiny mongrel things have always been drawn to him and he doesn't mind their presence. They get rid of his table scraps, which is nice of them, but sometimes they bring fleas, which isn't. He doesn't care for fleas, or things that bite, not as a rule, but he doesn't see as to how he can fault them for it, he eats meat after all, when he can find some and that is really not so different.
He scratches himself, absentmindedly, as the one-eyed Tom wrestles two smaller cats for a bit of gristle. It is a good plan, he thinks, charming and appropriate. It will draw attention, people might even talk about it, later in the day. He thinks that he will like being the topic of conversation.
The sun is setting, its rays hit a certain point on the faded are rug that is his living rooms only furnishing. He knows that this means it is time for him to go to work. He walks the several blocks to the bus stop, still whistling, totally unobserved.
He is the quintessential everyman, or so he was told, or thinks he remembers being told, though he isn't sure when last someone took the time to talk to him personally. He thinks he is not bad looking, when he remembers to take care of himself. His skin is clear and smooth, if a tad pale, and his eyes are a sharp blue-gray. His hair, he thinks, is his weakest attribute, its springy black curls trap dirt and crumbs and sometimes fleas. He's pretty sure though that the reason no one notices him is his clothes, nothing really seems to fit his frame, he's pretty sure he is angular in all the wrong places for conventional tailoring, but more than that it seems that everything he puts on instantly begins to fade, fray, and fall apart.
He always means to patch his clothes, but he doesn't know where to buy thread. He isn't sure he has the money for it.
He's wrong though, it's not the clothes, it's the vacant way that he floats through the world. It doesn't exist, he thinks, outside of his perceptions, or if it does he has no way of knowing it, and so he is constantly second guessing himself and his perceptions. Opening an umbrella becomes a herculean challenge when he wonders whether the things around him that he think are people also believe that it's raining, and if they would notice him opening the umbrella and think he was crazy if he's wrong and it's really sunny out. Then he thinks that maybe they like being wet, and the umbrella could offend them. Then he wonders if the umbrella likes being wet any more than he does.
And, as per usual, he misses his bus.
He works at a late night soup kitchen, he doesn't remember when or how he got the job, he thinks he might have just showed up one day. Sometimes he wonders if any of the other workers mind that he's there. Some nights he gets paid, most of the time he just serves soup with chunks of bread. He is pretty sure the bread is stale but thinks that the people in line don't mind. They remind him of his cats, only not so appreciative.
He thinks that he works with a beautiful woman and he is pretty sure that her name is Rachel, but maybe she got the shirt from someone else. He wonders if somewhere he has a shirt like it, and what is stitched across the breast pocket if he does. He also thinks he loves her, but he thinks about a lot of things while he's serving. He doesn't think it takes much effort to ladle soup into a bowl, and sometimes wonders why more people don't do it. Then he wonders if that was bad of him, maybe it is hard for other people, maybe he is gifted, or maybe he's really bad at it but that Rachel is too nice to tell him.
When he gets to the church in whose basement he serves soup to those who he thinks probably need it he sees Rachel and remembers his plan. He smiles as he gives a small wrinkled person a bowl of soup. He wonders if they are very old or very young. He thinks that sometimes babies are wrinkly and that maybe it doesn't go away as they grow up. He thinks about that for almost six hours.
While he's cleaning up he thinks about the dust, and wonders about the things that the skin cells have seen, and how much he would like to talk to them if he could.
After the basement is clean again he follows Rachel home. He has a knife in his pocket, and a pen, and a long piece of paper that he thinks is probably a receipt for something. When she goes into her house he walks past it and stops half a block away.
He pulls the receipt from his pocket and lays in flat on the hood a red jeep, he doesn't even wonder why someone in the city would need such a vehicle, or keep it so clean, let alone think that maybe to them this is a rugged country side, and maybe he's wrong to think that there is a streetlight by which he can write. Somewhere in the back of his mind he is pleased by this singularity of purpose.
The pen seems to hover over the paper, reluctant to put down anything indelibly. He wants to be Martin Luther with his ninety five theses, he wants to pour out his thoughts and feelings. But then he thinks that he might not have enough room on the paper and so he contents himself with just five words.
He refuses to be distracted, while he waits for Rachel to fall asleep, to turn out her lights, by the cat he hears a block away or by the rock music playing in the house across the street. He holds himself still through force of will, rocking back and forth barely perceptibly. He feels himself getting excited and imagines how thrilled she will be. He almost doesn't notice the light turning out, so keyed up is he.
Rachel's house has a three season porch on the front and as he approaches the screen door he experiences a moments hesitation. He wonders if she might be mad at him if he goes onto the porch, but he's afraid that this door won't hold what he wants to stick to it so he goes inside.
He draws the knife from his pocket and wonders if he's making a mistake, he ponders this for fifty one seconds before dismissing the notion. He stabs himself bellow the sternum and draws the blade sharply upwards. He wonders why it hurts so much, surely people do it all the time. He inserts two fingers into the hole, curls them around the inside of his rib cage and pulls it forwards.
He worries he might not be able to find his heart, but the thing that he pulls out is beating in time to the pounding in his temples. He holds it, thinking how little it looks like the Hallmark paper hearts all but littering the streets before resolutely setting it against the door, placing the paper against it, and driving the knife through all three.
His body collapses gracelessly but he is smiling. On the paper is written, in a neat, elegant hand “I will be with you always.”