Enjoy!
On
The Run
Jonathon
Marek
He
only knew one life—the life of a man who did not exist. He was unassuming,
average in both height and weight. In the past, he was handsome. He was the
type of man that everyone saw but no one remembered. The only remarkable feature
about him was the scar; the result of the day that changed his life forever. To
him that day was his first birthday, even though he was already an adult. It
was the irreversible end of his old life, and the beginning of a new life. On
that day, he killed a man for the first time in his life.
Perhaps he was justified. He
certainly thought so. Perhaps he could have been acquitted in a court of law. Perhaps
the state wouldn’t have wanted to charge him on such weak evidence. They might
even have been dissuaded by their inability to find the weapon. He, as a future
lawyer, knew that. Perhaps he could have lived a peaceful life. Perhaps he
could have had friends and a family. But this man did not deal in perhaps. He
dealt in certainty. Admitting to his crime and attempting to justify it would
create uncertainty. So he avoided it. And so he ran. He ran and he hid. Early
on, thousands of people thought they saw him. The few that actually saw them
were lost in the sea of those who didn’t. And so he left the only country he
had ever called home under cover of darkness. A while later, a different man
turned up in a port half a world away and bought a house in the old city. It
was a nice house, nice enough to show that the man was certainly wealthy, but
not nice enough to be conspicuous. He could have afforded a conspicuous house.
But that was the last thing he wanted.
The day he left was forty years ago.
The day he killed was forty years and one day ago. He remembered every
moment—the fight, the knife, the gun, the chase, even the other man’s last
words, fighting even with his final breath. He didn’t remember anyone else from
before then. Not his mother, or his father, or any of his friends. He couldn’t.
If he did, he would want to return. If he were to return he would be caught.
His flight from the law would be proof of his guilt. He would face a jury, a
judge, and finally a needle.
And
so as he flew miles above the ground, he felt cut off from everyone below. He
flew over a port that he had docked in forty years ago. He flew over an ocean
he had sailed across forty years ago. It was just him and a metal beast and the
past that he could never outrun. He was returning home.
Since that day forty years ago he
had been officially dead. A murderer on the run brought down by either a storm
or the wrath of God, depending on which death one preferred. He preferred the
wrath of a God he didn’t believe in to an unlucky accident. He had seen the
certificates. He had seen his own grave. And he knew that his life had changed
forever, as if a part of him had been buried below the earth for eternity.
The man he became was certainly
still alive. The port where he landed was not where people expected dead men’s
bodies to wash up alive. That port was in a country where a man with money
could easily double or triple his fortune through legitimate business. The
man’s goal was not his own wealth. And so within a decade he became known as
the philanthropist of the port. In spite of his best efforts, he gained
publicity. Not fame, but publicity. Enough publicity that one man recognized
him. And so he took his money and his boat and moved on to another port. He
became a new man again. He built another career but was more careful this
time—more careful to remain hidden. And so he remained in the background of the
port, helping it discreetly as opposed to publicly. Operating in the shadows as
he was used to.
And so he lived for thirty years in
that port. He became wealthy in that port, but he did not want wealth. So he
gave it back to the poor. To his employees. To the city. To whoever he thought
needed it most. He grew old in that port, or at least he considered himself old.
He wasn’t happy, but he was content. He told himself a dead man could ask for
nothing more.
But that was not enough for his life.
Contentedness does not cure cancer. Nothing does. And so the doctor told him he
had six months. One hundred and eighty days. Perhaps a month less, perhaps a
month more. There was no doubt that his fate was sealed. There was no treatment
that could prolong his life. Everyone has a certain amount of time left, but
most don’t know what it is. He did know, and it was the worst thing he could
know.
He had never been a religious man.
After the diagnosis, he went to church for the first time in forty years. It
was Ash Wednesday.
“Remember, man, that you are dust,
and unto dust you shall return.” Soon he would become dust. No one remembers
dust. Dust cannot be content. Dust cannot confess to a crime from long ago.
Dust cannot apologize for what it has done, for what it has failed to do,
through its most grievous fault.
He prayed constantly for some time.
Hours blurred into days, days into weeks. And weeks into month. The clock
ticked on.
And
so he returned home for the first time in forty years. For the last time. He
landed the plane at the airport. His own plane. The plane he had bought with
the money he made for himself. The plane that he never really used, but wanted
to own because successful people owned planes. He got off the plane. He walked
across the tarmac. The cold, black asphalt on a rainy winter evening just as it
was on that day so long ago. The rain pelted his face. He walked. The car was
there, just as it should have been. He opened the door. It was his car. He had
bought it for just this one use. He would drive a hundred thousand dollar car
less than ten miles. He drove from the airport to the port. He got out of the
car. He walked down to the dock. Someone’s boat was there now. It was a
sailboat, just like his was. He walked back up to his car. He got back in. He
drove the reverse of the path he took on that fateful day so long ago. He
couldn’t make the left turn now; he would get pulled over, and then he wouldn’t
be able to complete what he set out to complete. He approached a nondescript
alley. He could still see the blood and feel the searing pain on his face. He
could still see the body lying slumped over and the slowly growing pool of
blood. He felt sick. For the first time in his life he appreciated what he had
done. He had sinned; he had ended a life. He could not atone for his actions.
But yet he tried.
He
walked into the alley. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight bricks
up. Twenty bricks left. There it was. The slight discoloration gave away that
this was in fact the brick he was looking for. He pulled it out of the wall.
The weapon was still there as he left it so long ago. Facing the same way. The
barrel pointing towards where the body lay. Still a bullet in the chamber. He
opened the box that went along with the weapon. He put on his gloves. He put
the gun in the box. He took off his gloves. Those, too, went in the box. He put
the box in the trunk. And he drove off. A different route, now. To the West
District. To the former detective. To the current captain. To the only one
besides him and the family who remembered. He parked his car. He took the keys
out. And the box. And the folder containing the police report.
The
door of the police station opened before him. This station did not exist forty
years ago. He walked up to the front desk and announced that he was a fugitive
and he was turning himself in. He asked for the captain to be present as he
surrendered. He pushed the box across the counter along with the folder. The
captain walked out and saw him. He saw the captain. The captain thought he was
seeing a ghost. The man before him had gone down with his boat in a storm forty
years ago. He was certain of it. It had bothered him from time to time that the
boat was recovered but not the body. It had bothered him when someone had
reported seeing him in a sleepy port in the middle of nowhere. But he had put
it aside. He had become successful. He had become captain. He had a family,
friends, a nice house, and a rewarding career. He was content.
The
man was seeing the detective that had changed so much in appearance, but yet
was still the same man as forty years ago. The same man that failed to find the
man that now stood before him. The same man that assumed he was dead. And so he
stood before the law. Stood before him surrendering to the uncertainty of his
fate but the certainty of his impending death.
The
cold metal handcuffs around his wrists. The mug shot. The cell. The
interrogation. The interrogation was the last thing he could control, and the
last thing he wanted to control. It would be his legacy that the world would
never know. Could never know. Could never comprehend.
He
told the story of that day, filling in the few parts that the police didn’t
know. There weren’t many. He told the story of how he disappeared. How he faked
his death. How he built a new life. How he disappeared again. How he built a
third life. And why he returned home to face the justice he was now facing.
But
the captain said he was justified in the killing. That it was self-defense.
That he wouldn’t charge him with murder. The man asked if he would be charged
for fleeing, for hiding. The captain said he didn’t want to charge him. The
captain wanted to let him go.
And
so he was freed. He walked out of the police station a few days later. The
captain had told the man’s story to the victim’s family. The family agreed. He
was justified. He should go free.
And
now he had numerous weeks to live, and nothing left to live for. Nothing to do.
He figured he would return to his home on the run and put his affairs in order.
He didn’t have much to do. All his money would be returned to the city that had
hid him. There was no living family. There were no friends.
Perhaps
he could find peace there as well. He had gone from being hidden to being
famous. There was constant attention. Reporters followed him around all day,
and staked out his house all night. There was no quiet, no relief, no freedom.
He couldn’t handle the attention. He preferred anonymity.
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