The man she buried is back and knocking. The sound carried through the air, the sort of reverb found in the pounding intrusion of an alarm. As if the knocking hadn’t been an announcement but words within themselves, a warning that sent volts throughout her head as she stared out the window. Even amidst her fear there was a moment in which, by some negation of her own self-preservation, she felt relieved to see his visage. For seeing him would seek to suggest a relief to her building anxiety. Perhaps, she reasoned or did not reason enough, perhaps all of that was a dream. Maybe I didn’t do it, afterall. How else could he be here? 

But if all that were simply a dream, what must that mean for her psyche? To create in her mind the death of another living being, done by her own hands. What might that suggest? She continued to stare at the figure, watching in terror as he raised his fist to pound on the door once more. Though she noticed now, still riding her earlier sense of calm, that he was not really pounding at all. No; the way he knocked against the door was not done in his typical demanding form. There was no violence in the fist he raised. Even that alarming sound only pounded alongside her own heart, carrying no strength of its own. Even his face, while she could not see it properly in the dead of the night, wasn’t scowled in his usual grimace. 

Both his expression and his body language were calm. However, calm was not the word for it; the way he behaved now was as anyone would. But he was not anyone. His form had no suggestion of who he was. The man tapping against her door was not him, couldn’t be. Because if it was him, he would have known she was watching. Would have banged against the windows if she stalled any longer. Yet, as if transfixed, the figure at her door simply knocked.


. . . . .


A lot of people tend to think it’s easier to kill someone than it seems. When television portrays the possibilities for a perfect murder or an easy fix to the issue of someone breathing when you wish they wouldn’t, we tend to grow quite arrogant in our control over another's death. “I could kill you at any moment,” he’d often say, lowering a hand from her cheek and pressing it against the base of her throat. She always wanted to tell him, No, no you couldn’t. Because even if I were to pass out, I would not be dead. Don’t you remember that Forensic File episode? His wife didn’t die until she suffocated in that freezer. We don’t own one because you found roaches in yours back at your parents house. 

She wanted to say that, but she knew it wasn’t always true. He really could kill her if he wanted to, not just because of the difference in their frames. It wasn’t just because he worked out, and she had to rest for months after he broke her ankle during a moving “accident.” It was because of that yard. The one out back, giving their home its suburban allure, with its perfectly kept grass and singular grand oak tree. Even if she lived through being choked, the loopholes of asphyxiation would not save her from being buried alive. He knew that, too. He’d told her many times where in the yard he’d put her, if the situation arose. “Right under the tree,” He’d said, pointing in its direction. She had gotten beside herself and built a hammock on it, miraculously put together against a pole and a girthy branch. It disturbed him to no end, “feminized” the male oak exceedingly, and embarrassed his yard work. “I’ll put you in a pit, straight down. Further than six-feet, so the dogs can’t even sniff you out.” 

The truth is, she was never really scared of his threats. Perhaps that’s why he made so many. To make her realize they weren’t threats at all, but the plan he had for her. It's because of this that she knew it wasn’t so easy to kill someone. Because rat poison doesn’t kill humans because they can vomit, and arsenic is in lethal doses of almonds but hard to properly extract, and stabbings can turn on the attacker, and a gun requires a license and secrecy. And because, she always reminded herself, holding a teacup over his face as he slept, and because even suffocation doesn’t fully kill someone. 

So it came as more than a surprise when she did do it. It was one of those days where everything feels as if it might go terribly wrong, so you feel a tingly excitement throughout. Like your subconscious has perceived a threat before the day has gotten the chance to awaken your body, and is preparing its boost of adrenaline for when the moment demands it. He was laying on the couch watching soccer. She had never bothered getting into the sport because he enjoyed it, and they had a secret promise not to enjoy the things he did at the same time, but she remembers so distinctly who played that morning. Germany v. Switzerland, the countries flags displayed at the bottom of the screen near their scores. She remembered glaring at it when he started choking her out, his grip tightening over her throat while her eyes began to swell. 


But she didn’t close them. Went limp staring at the television screen while Germany scored and the crowd erupted for a brief moment, but she never did close her eyes. When the stands began to cheer she felt as though it was for her. "Auf geht's Deutschland, schießt ein Tor," was replaying in her mind as she plunged the blade to his neck the second he released his grip. "Ole, Ole, Ole, Super Deutschland, Ole," she watched as his hand clasped the side where she had quickly pierced his skin, feet scrambling over themselves as he fell to the ground moving backwards. A deep breath and a sigh of relief. She understood why it felt so good to hit her now. Watching the blood paint their floor as the sound of foreign cheers filled the room elated her to no end.

When he finally stopped moving the adrenaline kicked in. She didn’t realize it hadn’t fully hit her before when she stabbed him, but the hammering of her heart against her breasts made her realize how terrified she was. I killed someone. She was washing off the knife, a simple box cutter she grabbed from his dresser with no design because he felt it was gay. I killed someone. It was easy to clean a blade when you knew what to use: bleach and a mix of dawn. The smell felt like it would infect her brain and cause some damage but she did not care. Couldn’t. Not when the metallic smell of his blood permeated the room and Switzerland caught up on the scoreboard. 

Before she was aware any further than “I killed someone,” his body was in a deep pit in the backyard. He dug it himself, literally and metaphorically. Started digging it the other night when he found out she got a job promotion. Dug it until three in the morning. Went to sleep on the couch and woke up when the game was set to start. It only took him about four hours to dig his own grave. The fence to their yard was high enough no one could see in. There weren’t even any crooks because of how deeply he demanded their utmost privacy. When she finished burying him, she moved onto the living room. The crime scene, she thought as she racked her brain for things that cleaned out blood, because I had just murdered someone.

It wasn’t until the police dismissed her missing persons report the week later, that she finally realized it. I killed him.


. . . . .


The rapping at the door persisted on, and her mind drifted off in a vague disinterest. I know I killed him, she reasoned, so it can’t be him at the door. There was something unfair about that conjecture, though. If he was gone, why was he at her door? Why now, months later, when she finally got over it? Why once the nightmares dissipated, and relatives gave up on questioning? She got up and headed for the yard, looking out the glass door to the tree. Her hammock rocked gently against the wind, and she could hardly make out the spot in the ground where his body rested. The door continued its drumming, and her terror and apathy transformed into a sense of irritation. At once, her feelings became tumultuous, and she wanted nothing more than to cry, and cry, and kill him again. 

She ran to the door and screamed. Nothing legible, really, and nothing with any force. Just a piercing screech that came from deep within her chest, going on for a few seconds before the beating of her heart hushed her. She could feel her head thumping as hot tears poured down her face and her legs gave. She crashed to the ground and wept. “Just go away…please, just go…” Her pathetic sobbing went on for minutes, and the knocking at the door played along with them as though the choir for her performance. When she gasped a final breath, her eyes became too tired to go on. At the same time, the rapping at the door ceased.

An anxiety built inside her. Was it over? Would it start again? She wanted to cry all over again, exhausted by her own unease. When she went to the door, she could no longer see the figure at the door. Her knees wobbled as she let out a deep sigh of relief, which came out more as a pathetic whine. She walked away from the door, heart heavy and brain tortured, as she gazed outside the glass doors once again. The wind had picked up, knocking the hammock to the ground from its securement on the pole. Just then, she heard a knocking at her door.