Innocence

It was a time of love, a time of hate, the era of justice and immorality, the season of both insanity and clarity of mind. Sound familiar, don't it? Me wife used to love Dickens. Read him to me all the time, she did. That Jane what's-her-face woman, too: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a criminal who committed a crime is in want of a good hanging. Ring a bell?

Yes, I like me literary allusions. I do, you know. Remind me of sweet Elaine. She was a messy death, but worth it. Oh boy, was she worth it. Crying and begging right up to the end. She had it coming to her, bet your arse she did, mate.

Why am I here anyway? I've already confessed. I'm a doomed son of a gun. Don't I get any last whatchamacallits? Can't I have a coldie, before I go up there and have me neck snapped back? Any beer will do – I drink 'em all, so long as it's not that light crap.

Answer me, goddammit! What the bloody hell am I doing here? Kill me already. Inject me with the needle or string me up like a ham hock.

It's this waiting that's the worst. The waiting for justice to be served. Maybe it's like revenge: best served cold. Justice like revenge, ha! What a joke…

Jokes. She used to love jokes. She had some real crackers, too. Made me laugh, a real belly laugh. They were dirty, most of 'em, but they're the best type: sex, sex, sex. Don't let me get started on the sex.

I knew something was wrong soon as I shot the dog. Ruddy dog, such a nuisance. Something inside of me just…clicked. I knew what I had to do, to put us both out of our misery. Killing her was the only option I could see, for crying out loud. Strewth, I'm telling you the truth. I swore that oath, didn't I?

Boy, wouldn't want to get killed again now.

I'm guilty as sin. Hang me already. I'm not sorry that I did it, you know. Not goddamn near sorry enough, if you ask me. I wish I was, but you wanted honesty, so here it is.

I loved her. That's why I did it. But she had the same thing as the dog, and I couldn't stand it. Could not bloody stand it.

I tried to ignore her. So I'd stand out on the verandah, wearing nothing but stubbies and thongs, guzzling nothing but beer for hours on end. Just stand there, staring out across me property, all that bush. It's so…what's the word Elaine would use? Secluded. It's so secluded there. Made it hard to get to. I'd lived there all me life, on that sheep station, middle of nowhere.

I feel like a right dickhead up here, telling you idiots all this. Shouldn't you know already? An eye for an eye, a life for a life? I don't care. It's what I deserve. I would've ended me own life, if I wasn't such a bloody coward.

So, do I get a beer or not?

You think you know where this is going? Perhaps you do. Perhaps: what a stupid word. But yeah, you might know where this is going, but just in case you still don't get it:

I killed Elaine Thompson. Without remorse or regret.

Was I happy? I'm not a psycho. I was relieved. It had to be done. I was glad I did it, but I wasn't happy about it. Fair dinkum, happy? What a stupid question.

The night in question, to be so wordy and smart-arse like her, was balmy. There was a slight nor'-westerly coming through, and you could see the trees bowing this way and that. By about ten, the wind was picking up, and if I wasn't, uh, preoccupied, I would've been worried. As it was, the trees' branches were breaking and snapping all over the place, and it was the perfect disguise.

I didn't want to do it inside – and I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted it either – so I carried her outside. She was asleep seeing as I drugged her with dinner and all.

It doesn't matter what I used…they were prescription drugs. Hers. From years ago, when she had a knee replacement. Now you're getting me off track. You want to know how I did it? Listen, then, arsehole.

I carried her outside, lay her beneath her favourite tree.

I shot her. Three times in the head. Once in the heart. Head over heart, get it?

She would've gotten it. That's me sense of humour. Elaine would have understood.

Anyway, you finished? You heard enough? Please, take me away if you won't kill me. Punish me. I'm guilty, guilty, guilty. Hang me, shock me, perform a lobotomy. I don't care. I know now that I deserve to die.

I deserve to die a long and excruciatingly painful death. Elaine would've loved me using that word. Her bloody vocabulary…she should've been a uni professor or something. She might've written a book if she could.

But, at the end, all she could do was moan and speak between gasps and sleep.

It was so hard to get to, where we lived. Help never came. I didn't even bother to ring an ambulance when she came down with the plague. The dog had it too, you know. It was better just to put them out of their miseries. Misery. Or is it miseries?

Grammar matters! It reminds me of Elaine, me sweet, sweet Elaine.

How come I don't have it? That plague? They did tests on me. Jabbed me, took my piss, and apparently I'm immune to it. Some people are. Most aren't.

Can you kill me now? Please?

Yes, you can. What do you mean you can't? Are you goddamn crazy? But it wasn't…was it really? The last known case of the plague?

So what I did was right? We could've brought it back into the population? A service to the country?

Well…that changes things. I'm a free man, theoretically. Proven innocent but still so guilty.