Reflecting in a Chair

​He had murdered close to twenty people. He knew it, his lawyer knew it and the public knew it but because of a technicality he got off. If it wasn't for this technicality he would have been sitting in a death sentence cell counting out his final days. But as he sat at home in his custom made chair he reflected on the past and all of the evil that he had committed. Now he was in hiding, he had moved to a different province where nobody knew him. The government had put him in a protection program and even helped him change his name and pay for reconstructive face surgery. 

​He looked at himself in the mirror and looked at an old picture before his reconstructive surgery and it was impossible to draw a connection between the two. He had the surgery done almost six months ago in South America. He now had almost forgotten what he had looked like; he had accepted his new self and liked it.

But there was still that itching thought that scratched away at his brain as he sat in his special chair. Would somebody find him and kill him? Several of the families who he had killed one of their loved ones were very wealthy and it was possible that they might bribe someone in the government for a million dollars to find out where he lived and what he now looked like and then have him killed. It was remote but possible. The thought began to consume him and drive him crazy. He no longer could sleep or feel comfortable at his home. So he moved away making sure that he took along his special chair. 

He felt much better in a new city, in a new house, sitting in his favorite special chair that he had specially built for himself in case he needed an emergency escape. He sat back and read the newspaper where there was a front page article about him in the local. He shuddered and wondered why it was written in this paper. It was almost as if they knew he was here. He read the article and it was about how his murders had impacted a family, three people from one family had committed suicide over the loss of their loved one. For the first time he felt a touch of guilt and a smear of dread.

The next day there was another article about another family that he had victimized and he felt even worse. For the first time in his life he felt a wave of depression. Day after day an article appeared in the paper discussing the impact the killer had made on a particular family. There were twenty articles in all, one for each family. He was overcome with guilt and fear and what awaited him in the future. He wondered what thoughts and emotions would torment him until his last breath and what would be lurking for him in the afterlife. 

He sat in his special chair that he had built himself just in case. He heard a knock at the door, then a tapping on the window, a voice was then heard in his bedroom. They were coming for him. Now was the time to make his escape in the chair. He strapped himself in, put on his metal cap and flicked the switch. He jolted and flopped around a few times as a million volts surged through his body.