The Choice

'He was standing across the street, looking at me. Smiling that easy smile of his. I knew it well. He used to save that smile for me - he knew it made me happy.

'And it made me happy to see it then.

'But how was that possible? How could he be standing there?

'I decided then and there that my mind was playing tricks on me. That I'd finally gone over the edge over the edge.

'You see, he could not be standing there. For he had died two months before. I should know, I'd seen it happen. I can still feel his blood on my hands; still hear his breathing seize; still see the life leaving his eyes. Those warm eyes, forever empty.'

I stop to catch my breath and wipe my sweaty palms on the ratty old couch in my doctor's office.

'But I should start from the beginning, shouldn't I? Of course I should. How else could you understand what happened?

'I work as a homicide detective for the LAPD. Or I used to, anyway. It's all so very confusing... Will I still have a job after all of this? I mean, no one wants a detective that's slowly going crazy investigating their case. Right?

'Forgive me. I digress.

'For many years I had worked alone, which is the way I preferred it. My boss had never been pleased with this. He wanted me to have a partner; someone to keep an eye on me. And that's how I met Mark.

'It's very hard to describe him. You see, he was not an easy man to understand.

'His was a sad story. He came to us from New York, Narcotics Division, following a four-year undercover op. Which I had never previously heard of. Staying undercover that long is...dangerous, to say the least. It was only later that I learned it had been intended as punishment. You see, before that, Mark had been working a human trafficking case. A big Snakehead by the name of "The Ghost". Mark was getting close to shutting down the entire operation. Too close. As a warning, the Ghost killed Mark's wife and three-year old son. But Mark didn't back down, he hunted down and killed the Ghost himself. He should have ended up in jail, but someone high up seemed to think he was too good an investigator to lose. So, instead, they sent him undercover. I don't think he had ever been intended to succeed. Only he did and thus ended up with us.'

The doctor never interrupts me as I quickly ramble on through the story. My hands are getting sweaty again. How did that happen? I wipe them again, more vigorously this time, before continuing.

'You would think all of his past experiences had made him unbalanced. But that would be wrong. He was the life of the party; an eternal optimist. He saw the good in everything. In everyone, even. It wasn't indifference; he hadn't gone mad either; it was a conscious decision he had taken to live life to the fullest. He hadn't forgotten. I don't believe he could. But he worked hard at not allowing his past dictate his future. I couldn't understand it then, and I don't think I will ever understand the kind of inner strength he possessed.

'Anyway. Did I go off on another tangent? Yes, I seem to be doing that quite a lot lately. It's sometimes hard to get all my thoughts in order. But it is important to understand him in order to understand how he changed me. How his death changed me, too.

'Before he came along, I used to do everything by the book. Never put a toe out of line. I was a little stiff, you might say. And you'd be correct, of course. For me, it was all work and no fun. And he became hell bent on changing that from day one.

'True, at first it annoyed me. Annoyed the hell out of me. In fact, I tried to get him fired. Unsuccessfully, of course. You can probably guess what happened next. Somehow, he wormed his way into my heart. "Cracked the layer of permafrost around it," as he so eloquently put it.' I smile as this one happy memory invades my thoughts. The first real smile in months. My facial muscles seem to have forgotten how to do that.