The Flowing Pen - An Anthology

Blame the bad guy ...part 1

It was not my fault. Even if I hadn't been half-dead with fatigue, I would still have done the same thing. I mean, who knew a prank call would lead to a gruesome murder of an innocent man? So no one can, with any justification, blame me. The fault rests solely with the bad guy.

It was a Friday, a hot and stuffy night without a whiff of a breeze - or if there was, it simply passed over our valley town of Riverton.

The time was a few minutes after nine p.m and I had just clocked off work: a thankless fifteen hour shift of supermarket security. No breaks and no sitting down. From six in the morning to nine at night on my feet, eyes peeled to prevent the swift fingered shoplifters from making away with a small fortune of DB Supermarket's groceries. Checking receipts against the goods in the trolleys, all the while smiling to the customers' impatient insults. At the end of it, I had to dunk my hands into the disgusting innards of the female staff's purses in the name of security frisking. I mean, eew, you would not believe the things us guards touch in those expensive handbags... I was going to list a few but I realise some of you are reading this while eating so I will leave it there.

Anyway, when the call came I was out of the supermarket. I was threading my way through the TGIF party animals and heading to my bus terminus a few blocks west. Normally I do not answer calls with restricted numbers but this time I did.

"Did you do what I told you?" Darth Vader said from the earpiece. Or his identically voiced descendant. Or someone using a voice altering app.

"Who is this?" I asked, more out of habit than any curiosity.

"I told you to bring me the files, Tendai. Do you have them?"

Now, my name is Tendai, and this guy had been calling me for days, demanding that I bring him some files from the company's vault. The problem was, I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Listen, motherf--", I yelled into the phone. "I don't know who the hell are you and I don't care! Stop calling ..."

"You think I'm joking, don't you. I told you there would be consequences. I am in your house." There was threat in the last statement.

"What! What are you doing in my house?"

"Consequences, I told you. It's time you realise I'm serious. I'm looking at your boy and your husband right now. Who should I kill first?"

I burst out laughing. "You stupid motherf--, stop bothering me!"

"You think I'm bluffing, huh?"

"Yes, you're bluffing!"

"You know, I was going to shoot them, but I changed my mind. I found something that will do much better. An axe. I'm gonna cut open your husband's skull. And next time, you will learn to take me seriously."

I laughed again and said, "Go  ahead and kill him. I was tired of him anyway." Then I hung up.

He called again but I switched my phone off and caught the kombi home.

When I arrived home, everything was as I had left it that morning. There was no axe-weilding Darth Vader in the one room apartment. Nor was there a son or husband. Nor surprises there, I am not married, never been. I am thirty three years old, plain and flat as door, with no bust or backside to speak of. I live alone and always have.

So I took a bath and went to bed. Outside, a police car with a wailing sirens drove by, its flashing lights briefly illuminating my shabby apartment. I switched on the radio to the local station.

"...interrupt this program to bring you Breaking news. There was a murder this evening at 24 Rwizi road, Odzi. Witness who spoke to Riverton Radio said the murder was discovered by the victim's wife who arrived from work to find her son unconscious. We can't confirm this at this time but it is believed the victim was hacked to death by an axe. The wife, whom we shall call by her first name only, Tendai, is currently giving her statement to the police..."

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