Moaning

The world won't stop talking to me.

I came to realize that when I stepped from the apartment that I lovingly refer to as "The Hole." It makes do when I'm in the City, especially when I need to keep a low profile. The place is a roach-infested hell, but for some reason even the roaches tend to stay away from me. They probably heard about my penchant for killing things. The rats, on the other hand, enjoy the company of a comrade. I call the one with half a tail Stumpy.

The Hole must have been built in the years of the New York tenement slums, because the entire building talks to me. No, I haven't started talking to the walls yet, but the sounds this place makes can drive a man like me insane. I've started talking to Stumpy. How far away can conversing with the walls be?

It's the moaning. My life has been awash with pain and misery for so long that I really should be used to it. Cold, calculating Alex. The man who has been responsible for the deaths of... oh, who keeps track anymore?

The scary thing --and I wouldn't admit this to too many people--is that I'm afraid. I'm afraid of the sounds that surround me. The world won't stop talking to me, and I heard it again this morning through the ancient wooden door facing the street. I stood there, and I could hear Them.

Do I sound like a nut now? Well, not yet. Stumpy doesn't think so.

The wind was moving through the piss-soaked corridor of The Hole, coming into the space between the door and the wall. I stood frozen in fear, cautiously listening to the wind recount my life's horrors.

The sound it made brought my mind back to the moaning coming from the man I had shot in the alley behind the Starlight Bar after he thought he could skim from the top. It reminded me of a woman pleading for her life, telling me she hadn't told the police anything. I heard the computer executive swearing he had the money. I could see the face of the teenaged drug dealer on his knees in front of me, right before the slug in my .22 bounced around his skull.

Huh, a .22. I was so young then.

Every creak, every sigh, every settled beam this wretched building makes reminds me of Them. All the people I have killed or had a hand in killing speak to me through this place.

Sometimes I can hear crying. Now, in my mind I know this can't be true, coming from a building. But I swear in the middle of the night there's a squeaking floorboard somewhere that makes a high-pitched keening noise. It reminds me of the sound that little kid made when I killed his father. The idiot refused to give me what I had asked for when I confronted him in his driveway. Jesus, who can remember what it was? Papers, plans, weapon designs, chemical agents, files... it all blurs together after a while. Or maybe I just stopped caring. I do remember it was quick and neat. I haven't been able to get that kid's crying face out of my head though. It's been years.

There have been times when I've tried desperately to rid myself of the memories by drinking them away. All I get from that are agonizing moments over the toilet bowl in the morning, and my memories glowing brighter. That's due to the time I spend lying on the bathroom floor, thinking. I've found that if I drink I get introspective, fairly self-destructive, and a bit tipsy. That's rather ironic for a Russian.

If you were to really think about it, it's more ironic that a supposed cold-blooded killer lies awake at night and wonders where that little crying kid is today. The mark of a good assassin or hitman is the lack of empathy he has for his, well, marks. I would say victims but none of the people I killed weren't deserving. My methods may seem harsh. After some practice you start becoming used to the blood, but at night I can feel every drop that has splattered across my skin.

This godforsaken building doesn't help my peace of mind either. I've even tried sleeping during the day. If you've ever been to New York City I'm sure you laughed at that last sentence. It's not humanly possible. Perhaps my getting any sleep at all is no longer humanly possible. Perhaps that's because I've become less than human.

I've thought about that. Could I have become so cold to those around me that I would choose the company of vermin to actual people? That depends if you consider rats vermin. I've known some people that are lower on the food chain.

Hell, I'm sure you've also noticed I just used the word "known". Well, it's true. There aren't many humans that have been in my life that try to stay. It's either the sign of a really good killer or a truly horrible person. I'm not sure which I am. The rats don't seem to mind. I don't have to listen to them talk back and choose which I am, either.

You would wonder why I continue to stay in The Hole if it bothers me so. To be honest, it's the same whether I'm in a place like this or if I stay at a high-priced hotel a client has paid for. The sounds follow me wherever I go. It's not something I can easily rid myself of. It's this cloud that surrounds me and envelops my hearing. I'm as helpless to it as my marks were to me when I first held my gun to their heads.

And it continues. The more hits, the more I can hear them in my head. I really doubt it would end the cacophony, even if I did stop killing. One of these days I should try and find out. I'd like to know if I can ever sleep through the night again without waking up shaking in fear. I want to find a way to quiet the moans. I want it to stop.

If only the world would stop talking to me.