Turn on the light

I didn't think I was going to die until I had a knife to my throat.

And the first thing I thought of was how 'movie' it must look to have me standing there, pinned to a stranger with a terrified look on my face. At least I assumed that's what it looked like. Some part inside of me laughed at how I was imagining a third point of view while I had a blade's edge pressing on my windpipe. I should have thought of something for my last words or maybe even begged for my life, but I didn't.

The man behind me breathed with rapid succession. Each hot, hitched breath scratched against the side of my neck and left me twitching to relieve the irritation. The blade at my throat vibrated with his heightened anxiety that left me uneasy. He was scared, and I could tell that he thought he needed to kill me. I guess it was fair for him to shake with fear and take me down with him, but I was stumped as to how I let it get to this.

One moment, I was having a conversation with him about doing business, the next he yanked me to his chest and pressed his lukewarm knife to my neck. No one on my team thought it'd come to this either. We had been running recon on his dealings for a week, so I barely knew anything about him. There hadn't been so much as knock on his door until now, and it made me wonder how he'd sold any of his shit if he was this easy to startle.

I was expecting some instinct to kick in where I'd spin and slap the knife from his hand or do something to get myself out of this. I tried to imagine what I would do if this was a movie, but I seemed to forget everything I had ever seen. All I could fixate on was how this man smelled like stale air mixed with sandwich meat. It was a little past noon, and I had half a mind to ask what he had for lunch as my stomach grumbled.

I realized then that this wasn't anything like a movie. I was hungry and had to pee. My back was starting to cramp from being held flush to him while I tried to arch away from the blade. I must've been contorted into some awkward squiggle that gasped for a breath every few seconds. It was the furthest thing from a crime drama with a cold dagger pressed to the throat of 'the wrong person.' The knife pressed to my neck felt neutral against my skin, if not a bit warm, like a stick of gum you left in your pocket.

Wasn't this supposed to be more dramatic? Was I supposed to call his bluff or try to get out of his grip? I was overcome with helplessness and indecision, but I wasn't thinking about the knife or getting shot by the guns now pointed in front of me. I had a drifting thought of how embarrassing my obituary would be when they'd explain how I died.

Women held at knifepoint got her throat slit due to inaction. May she rest in failure.

I was pre-disgusted with myself and found that to be the last real thought I had as the shouting ensued.

My team was there, but I couldn't look at any of them. I didn't want to have them give me some look of pity or a secret code I would undoubtedly misunderstand. They shouted idol threats and then ditched those for loose promises. I was wondering if we'd make it far enough where they'd be trading spots with me or getting on their knees to beg for this stale deli man to let me go.

Instead, my eyes traced the ceiling lights that ran from one end of his office to the other. They were long strips of faded fluorescent bulbs that probably needed to be replaced. I let my gaze wander to the plain white and chipped paint that was lacquered to the walls of this box. I started to realize with a deflated feeling that it was quite a shitty place to die.

There was one poorly built desk where our conversation had started with two worn down chairs on either side. There was one window with a pointless tule curtain that concealed nothing from the outside. And there was one off-centered, crooked frame on the wall with a stock photo of the ocean that it came with, price tag still on.

4.99 for a frame was a steal.

My team kept shouting heroic, half-hearted truths at the stale deli man while I glanced at the door where they came in from. The thickness of the door was funny for some reason and stuck out from the rest of the piss poor items the office held. It shouldn't belong here, but it did. My team had to kick it twice to get it open.

I realized then that maybe this wasn't my fault. The conversation we were having got heated when I asked him what his margins were on importing a certain after-school treat. He pushed himself up from the shitty desk which led me to take a step back. In doing so, he must have thought I was making a run for it and grabbed my arm. The only thing was that he pulled the knife after the knocking on the door sounded, not before.

I felt an odd sympathy for him like when you accidentally scare a dog and it barks. He was nothing more than a frightened puppy, and a part of me wished to go back and redo the whole thing. The other part found some masochistic enjoyment in this. If my throat wasn't slit from end to end, I'd have an interesting story to tell. That would be cool at least.

His hand shook again as someone shouted one thing or another, and his left hand tightened on my waist. I hadn't been this close to a man in god knows how long. I thought about my last ex and how he gripped my waist in a similar way while we cooked in the kitchen. Then, it was endearing and playful. Now, it was desperate and terrified.

I listened as he shuffled us back towards the wall. He grunted in my ear as I stumbled back with him. We smacked to the wall, and there was suddenly no more room to bend away. He squeezed me tighter as he shouted liar. I couldn't be sure if someone had said something to him or if he was talking about me. Either way, he was probably right.

I could hear his inhales and listened to the faint sound of one nostril being slightly clogged. There was the silent wheezing of air through the snot in his nose as he sniffed and pulled me tighter to him again. My legs were exhausted from balancing on the balls of my feet, and I wanted nothing more than to sit down. I glanced at the chair I sat in before and almost asked them to slide it to me. I'd still let him hold the knife to me, but fuck my legs were sore.

The knife pressed harder, and the urge to cough was burning my throat. I knew my neck would jut forward if I did, so I swallowed hard over and over to try and relieve the need. My eyes were watering and my stomach tightened from the discomfort. I couldn't take it anymore as I let out a cough and cleared my throat. A guttural and panicked shut up echoed in my ear. The proximity of his words left me gritting my teeth, but I kept my mouth shut.

I was close to just telling him to slit my throat or let me go. If we left now, I'd have time to get lunch with my friend who was visiting this week. As if he heard my thought, the knife pushed even closer, definitively pressing in my skin as I felt a small pop like the bite into a blueberry.

My heart rate suddenly increased then as I felt a smooth, almost cozy drop of blood trace the column of my throat. I squirmed, trying to get it to follow a different path that didn't include staining my shirt. The pain was secondary, and I found some silver lining that this was technically only a threat motivated by his own fear. He didn't want to go to jail. He didn't want my team to gun him down in his office.

I wondered if he knew it was a shitty place to die too.

Time seemed to escape from me and took sensibility with it. I couldn't pinpoint if it had been thirty seconds or thirty minutes since the door smashed open. I decided it didn't really matter considering all of it could end with a flex of his fingers. My eyes were glossed over and looked at nothing in particular. I was imagining his aged face with beads of sweat on his brow. I saw his overgrown nose hair and the out of place pimple on his right cheek. I wanted to face him and give him a look that said really?

But I didn't.

I hadn't uttered a word. You'd expect someone to fight a little harder for their own life, and for a moment, I felt fear from that thought. Did I have a reason to care so little about myself? Did I actually want him to cut my head from my body? That couldn't have been true, but it began the forming of tears that flooded my eyes. Everyone seemed to become more panicked as the shouting became rapid, nearing the crescendo of this piece.

My tears weren't for the knife to my neck or the shouting or the smell of deli meat. They were for my own sanity and self-preservation. How could I stand idly by and practically watch my death? What kind of sick fuck just stands there?

The tears flowed only harder and faster as the choir sang stronger and belted a final note. A decided inhale, a tensing around my body, an interrupted motion. The conductor queued the final gong that rang out with a piercing blow as I sank to the floor.

As if the trance had ended with the song, I snapped into the moment. I flashed my hands to my neck, sealing them around the now larger stream of blood mixing with my tears. I held my breath and stared at the ceiling lights, confirming how shitty it was going to be to die here. A bulb flickered and I looked away, rolling my head to the side.

I thought of my old dog as I stared at him. His deli breath, his wrinkled eyes, the blood seeping down his face. It reminded me of my dog lunging for my sister on our stairway. It was late at night, and he thought she was a stranger in the dark. I knew I should've turned the light on. I should've given him the chance to recognize her, but I didn't. We put him down the next day, punishing his fear.

I regretted that day just as I would this one.

I thought about getting lunch. I thought about how the cut would scar across half of my throat. I wondered if the stranger blamed me for all of this. I wondered if he knew I should've fought harder for my life. I wondered what they would write for his obituary.

Man gunned down by police in another attempted drug bust. May they all find the same fate.

The crooked stock photo, the dingy white walls, the useless tule curtain. I stared at his open mouth and gaping eyes with a new sense of resolve. The flowing blood, the lifeless expression, the stale scent of deli meat and copper. It was the seemingly misplacedness of the thick door and terrible room. His dead body, an odd addition to the shittiest place to die that only made sense when you saw it.

I wish I would've turned on the light.