Empathy
The autobiography of a caring, empathetic serial killer...
By R.C. Hörsch
(Novella, Paperback & eBook versions, ISBN-13: 978-1492890553, 5 x 8 inches, ~20,000 words, 130 pages)
Prologue:
While my grandmother lay in horrible pain dying of stomach cancer, my grandfather would curse and scream at her and demand that she get off her deathbed to get his slippers or make him breakfast or iron his shirt.
In the entire family, I was the only one who didn't hate and despise him; the only one who saw his horror and pain; the only one who realized that his behavior was an act of desperate need and deep love for her. They had been together since they were teenagers, almost sixty years, and, after she was gone, he sat in his chair at the foot of the stairs, chain smoking his hand-rolled cigarettes as though waiting for her to get up out of her grave and take care of him.
Less than a month later, he, too, was dead.
I thought about all this for a long time. The family was wrong to ostracize him and not understand what was obviously going on. They should have thought about him a little bit and not just about her.
For a long time after they were gone, I thought about how they should have died together, the two of them, entwined in each other's arms even though they never really touched very much in life.
The family should have eased their pain and my father should have made it happen. He was in charge. He should have helped. He should have kept them from suffering. He should have eased them into the beyond and even though he couldn't keep them from dying, he should have kept them from all the pain. It was his responsibility.
I would have done it myself but I was only seven years old and I didn't know how.
But I learned...
