David's Death: A Short Story

For some considerable time, David had known he would kill his wife. David was a creature of habit, and yet he had learned to accept his anonymity and predictability as a blessing, not a curse. He rose at the same time, dressed in clothes indistinguishable from those he wore on any other day, ate the same breakfast, took the same route to work. He filed insurance claims until lunchtime, and then he walked to the park. Here he sat for forty-eight minutes to read the newspaper, to eat his sandwich, and then he walked back to the office. To him, this routine had become a comfort. David had made no definite plans as to the means of disposal for her body, nor how he would explain her sudden disappearance to family, friends and neighbors. Perhaps he believed that once the deed was done he would be struck by a brilliant solution, a streak of lightning, a bolt from the blue.

He would stab her in the eye. The chosen instrument of death was not a knife, but a knitting needle. He had bound half its length in duct tape so as to provide a firm grip, yet with six inches exposed he believed that the needle – if driven suddenly, and with sufficient force – would pass directly through her eye and into the brain. There would be little, if any, blood, and death would be instant. She had given him fifteen years of comfortable, predictable marriage, and he did not wish to cause her any undue pain or distress. In fact, David did not think of it so much as a murder, but more of an execution for some unknown