With my hands

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The man remained seated, almost motionless like the rest of the objects in the room. Elbows resting on the arms of the sofa, he held the mug up to his face, watching the steam from the hot coffee disappear into thin air. To one side, placed carefully on a low table, accompanied by a damaged lamp, rested his latest work; ready to be sent to the publisher. He had spent months typing loudly on the antique silver Remington he worked with, and he was proud to be done.


Knock, Knock -someone knocked on the door.


Mister V got up from the sofa calmly, bringing the cup of coffee with him and without looking through the peephole, he opened the door. A middle-aged man, dressed in a very old-fashioned suit, was standing in the doorway, shaking his head from side to side.


- There you are! said the man. -You will have to come with me. There is no time for questions or explanations. Take the manuscript and come. Fast! 

The man entered the house, pushing Mister V; and snatching the cup from her hands, she dropped it carelessly on the table where the manuscript lay. Some coffee was spilled. The man took the manuscript carefully. He studied it carefully, glancing up from time to time to Mister V, who was standing near the door. -Let's go," the man said dryly.

-This time I'm not going to give in, Carlos -answered Mister V. -I've put too much of myself into that book to have to change it. Besides, the man should already be dead.

-But you know the rules V! -the man exclaimed. -They will not have mercy on you. It's the third time you've done it and you always end up killing the main character. You would have killed the doorman, the maid. But he is the president!


-If it was a story about doormen or maids, I would surely have done it that way. And they would charge me with a misdemeanor; they would not leave me alone. So let the one who has to die die.


-Oh, but you haven't seen the punishments that can apply to you. You could fall into a class V. IN A CLASS!! Newbies would experiment with you as if you were... you will be his puppet!


-It's time, Carlos. I've killed enough. I have nothing more to say.


Good class! -said the teacher out loud, drawing the attention of his students. -What we are going to do for this exercise is very simple; we will take any character and we will try various ways of bringing him to death. I will evaluate both technique and writing. I want them to be very descriptive. They can add some humiliation and torture, and as many characters as they need. The important thing is that the character that dies is always the same.Today we will use this, a small-time writer, with no family, who lives isolated in a small house on the outskirts of the city. He is at his house, sitting on the couch, holding a cup of coffee...

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