These Still Black Waters by Christina McDonald EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Christina McDonald
- Language: English
- Genre: Police Procedurals
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
The body cooled quickly on the ground beside me.
The night was deep, the woods thick enough that the moon did not
interrupt my work. I’d always equated darkness with unknowing. The
unconscious, I believed, was unknown until something crossed into the light
of awareness. A wood at night, as an example. What was ahead was
obscured until you moved close enough for it to be illuminated. But tonight,
although I worked in darkness, I knew exactly why I was here.
I’d made my choices.
That’s all life was: a series of choices. That was what it all came down
to in the end. It didn’t just happen. We made our choices. The good. The
bad. The mundane. Free will.
We made choices every day, both knowingly and unknowingly. From
simple ones like what to eat for dinner to bigger ones like whether to take
that promotion we knew would move us across the country. Some choices
we regret. Some we are proud of. Losses. Gains. Successes. Failures.
Friends. Enemies. We have the power of choice. The only inescapable thing
is the inevitability of choice.
In other words, the past may be dead, but it is our choice if we bury it.
I sat on the cold dirt floor next to the body and extracted an item from
my pocket. I turned it over in my hand. The colors were dull, the edges
covered with dirt. It was small. Too small to carry such destruction. Wasn’t
it funny how the smallest things could carry the greatest weight?
I closed my eyes and let the past play over the screen of my eyelids.
Somewhere far away, I heard the sharp whoop of a police siren. Whoop,
whoop. And the wind rustling in the trees, like the hissing of a snake.
I needed to leave, but I didn’t. Not yet. I listened, the sounds a melody,
a rhythm, a poem, and I let myself be carried away until they swelled too
big, like the surf, louder and louder, a cacophony of noise. I clapped my
hands over my ears, trying to focus on the image of her face. It was the only
thing that gave me peace.
If—when—people find out what I’ve done, I hope they understand
that, at least. Why I made these choices. Why I had to do it.
It was all for her.
Later, people might say that I snapped. I lost my mind. Blew up, broke
down, went crazy. All the mundane adjectives people use when they don’t
know the inside of a person.
But that wasn’t true. I’d made my choices with a clear mind in the cold
light of day. I knew exactly what I did and why I did it.
I often thought of life as an echo. Stand on the edge of any abyss and
shout into the dark, your echo will return. What you send out comes back.
You could choose to do what was right or you could choose to do what was
wrong, but when you chose wrong, rest assured, those ghosts would come
back to haunt you.
Choices have consequences.
They chose wrong.
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