The Contrition
You’ll find, as you read these words hastily penned, that the events herein depicted may be found highly dubious, and as such you may be tempted to question my judgment. Let me first remonstrate that I am of a most sane mind and all written upon this paper is absolutely true.
Some twelve years ago, while studying medicine at Cambridge, I was introduced to a rather singular fellow. His tall stature and peculiarities made him an alien amongst the rest of us students. My peers and I knew this enigma as only Stephenson. Never would he stray from the university grounds and never would he be visited in his chambers.
I killed Stephenson. I was never reprimanded for my ghastly actions and I apologize for omitting the details of his death from this narrative but I simply do not have the time to entertain my abhorrent memory (and I never will). His shadow still stalks mine; his last whispers still pierce my ears. Regardless, I have found it in myself to marry and now live (more or less) happily with my wife.
On the Monday evening passed, when my wife was out with her friends, I was in my library when confronted with the unmistakeable reverberation of footsteps upon the tufted floor outside my archives. Expecting it to be my wife home early, I quit the library and journeyed into the sitting room that led from my books to the hall. I was greeted by half of a lanky figure before it darted out of view.
Fearing a thief in my household, I crossed the hall and grasped my coach gun hanging behind the kitchen door. No sooner had I hurried down the hall than when I once again caught a short glimpse of a tall build. It fled into the library from whence I came, my prey now trapped and hunted.
I strangled my grip on the trigger of the gun, creeping towards the library. I fancy I could hear the body’s beating heart amongst the silence. Springing into the doorway of my book-room, I harboured the butt of the gun close to my shoulder. The pulses of my own heart stopped here.
“Stephenson!?”
Yes, the man that stood before me was that late towering figure of the days of yore.
“Wretch!” I cried.
I did not think a moment about the implausibility of a dead man before me, but in a fit of rage and confusion I shot dead Stephenson once more. His body writhed with the impact of lead as he fell to the rich crimson carpet of library’s floor.
And now come the most singular details of my tale.
I am presently in prison, anticipating the execution of my death penalty. I am charged, not for the murder of Stephenson, but for that of my wife. I was assured by those first on the scene that the corpse rotting on my library floor was my love. I await the gallows and they cannot come soon enough.
Short Story by Matthew Newell, Alstonville High School - Australia