Can we feel empathy for a murderer? Can we make someone else feel empathy for a murderer? These are the questions posed by @son-of-satire today, in this post. He gave us the end of the story and invited us to fill in the rest of it. Here’s what I came up with.
Nigel woke to another sunny day. He stretched and yawned, and for a moment, one blessed moment, he was happy. But then he remembered and the pain came crashing down again.
It was six months since his wife and daughter had been killed by the drunk driver and the pain hadn’t lessened at all.
Some days he was numb. Some days he felt the depths of despair. Some days the anger was overwhelming. But most days it was searing pain and crippling grief.
He was still unable to comprehend why the driver only got community service and six months loss of licence, while Nigel had lost his whole reason for living.
He’d stopped going into work, and didn’t care when he was sacked. His savings would run out soon, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that either.
He wasn’t sure when he had started stalking Chester. It must be a few weeks ago, as he knew Chester’s routine by heart.
He now frequently dropped into Chester’s favourite bar. Often enough that they now acknowledged each other with the kind of nod you give someone you see around but don’t actually know.
Nigel didn’t know why he did this, but remembered the old adage – keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
That night, as Nigel approached the bar – on foot, he didn’t drive any more – he saw a car he recognised, Chester’s. He must have his licence back.
Nigel’s already fragile state of mind shattered. He looked wildly around, and saw an empty bottle in the gutter. He grabbed it and smashed it against Chester’s windscreen in a fury. When the bottle broke in his hand, he looked down at the shard of glass he was now holding, and the blood on his hand, and finally knew what he had to do. He must stop Chester from killing again.
Ignoring the pain in his hand, he resolutely turned towards the bar.
Nigel walked into the bar. In his right hand was the shard of glass, dripping with blood.
With no decipherable expression on his face, he walked over to a table in the corner, where Chester was drinking alone.
Chester turned towards the man with the glass shard in his hand and asked, "Is everything alright, mate?"
Without so much as a moment's hesitation, Nigel lifted his hand and buried the piece of glass into Chester’s carotid artery. He then sat down at the table where his victim once sat, and finished his drink while he waited for the police to arrive and take him away.
Everyone in the room whispered among themselves as they stared at the bloody corpse on the floor, and the seemingly psychotic man responsible for it, sitting there sipping a beer.
Thanks for reading
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