My Short Stories

The Many Deaths of a Good Man

Dragged through the eternal depths of the hell, a Good Man was cursed to suffer through an eternity of deaths.

Quick.

Slow.

Painless.

Painful.

The Good Man blinked, and found himself facing his first death.

Bound to a wall, on his knees, with chains of iron that cut deep into his wrists. A swollen left eye, barely able to see through it. Cuts, infected, festering, and old wounds open. Right hand missing three fingers, left hand missing two. The Good Man could feel it all. Yet he could not scream, for his lips had been sewn shut just moments before, and they still bled, and they still ached, and felt like a fire that refused to die out.

Unable to mutter a single gasp of air, the looming masked figure grabbed him by the face, forced his eyes open, and made him watch as the figure, with its large arms covered in festering sores, and hands dirty, unwashed in years, began to slowly sew the Good Man's nostrils shut.

Fear. Pain. Tears streamed as he screamed within his locked lips. Now he couldn't breath and-

Snip.

Snip.

The excess wire was cut away.

The masked man waked away.

And the Good Man was left, chained, rotting, to die of asphyxiation.

What did he do wrong? He simply was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Good Man died, felt every pain, and by drawing his final breath he brought in new life to himself.

A meaningless name.

Yet still a Good Man.

And this time the Good Man felt a depression. A sadness so great it forced the Good Man's shoulders down. His gaze was to the floor. His home was dark and damp. His feet shuffled rather than stepped. His breathing was shallow. Windows boarded up. Creaking floor boards. The rooms stank of excrement and death.

The Good Man had a computer.

The Good Man sat down by his computer.

The Good Man turned on his computer.

And the Good Man searched. Endlessly. For three hours. Until finally he found a small forum. A place where people gathered. And the Good Man wrote down four words which formed the most complex sentence of his life.

"I cannot go on."

The Good Man stood up. The Good Man walked to a closet he had. There was a chair, and a rope, tied to make a noose which hung from the ceiling. There, the Good Man stood on the chair. And there, the Good Man pulled the noose over his neck.

Snug.

Like the embrace of a mother to her dying child.

And look. The Good Man kicked off the chair from under his feet. And how, the Good Man's legs thrashed violently. And behold, the Good Man foamed from the mouth. And ho, the Good Man's eyes rolled over to the back of his head.

And marvel. The Good Man thrashed hard one last time. And the Good Man's neck snapped. And the Good Man died. And the Good Man was never heard from again. His mistake?

Loneliness.

A Good Man walked down the side walk of a street.

A busy intersection came upon view.

A blind man crossing. A car wouldn't stop.

The Good Man rushed.

The Good Man Pushed.

The Good Man was ran over.

There. His guts spilled out from his stomach.

Behold. How the Good Man's body was nearly torn in half.

How beautiful. How the Good Man's blood pooled... slowly... encircled... caressed... drowned...

What was the Good Man's mistake? The Good Man tried to help others, and didn't think about himself.

And now he lay with his wife.

How beautiful.

The scent of her hair intoxicated.

Long. Flowing. Black hair.

Beautiful eyes.

A fair skin.

Silken. Soft to the touch.

Sleep, baby, she'd whisper. Sleep. Sleep. Baby. I'm here.

The Good Man smiled, and closed his eyes. He was safe.

And then pain.

The Good Man, shocked, flung his eyes open. Looked down. A knife embedded deep into his chest. The hands clasping it, fair skin, like silk, soft to the touch, the beautiful wedding ring, with a diamond at the top, which shone an almost deep purple. A beautiful diamond.

Sleep, she whispered. Flowing hair, soft. Eyes, so beautiful. Sleep. And she twisted the blade within the Good Man's chest, and all he could gasp out was... why? As mounds of blood began to pool from his mouth.

His mistake? The Good Man let his guard down.

The Good Man put a gun to his mouth and the Good Man painted the wall with his brain.

The Good Man poured acid all over his eyes, and died a while later.

The Good Man was thrown into a meat grinder.

The Good Man was mocked and shamed until the Good Man drowned himself.

What was the Good Man's mistake?

He was a Good Man.