Pirate Assassin

Page 6

The moon was shining brightly through the open left pane of Zack's casement window and the cool night breeze gently stirring the curtains and in a totally unrelated moment, Zack wondered why he didn't draw them before he slept. "I know how you feel," the beggar man rasped, "when you know what you can and cannot do, but everyone expects you to do things out of your scope," Instantly, Zack felt an intense dislike of the man. "What do you know, old man? You don't know anything about me, you just met me yesterday and suddenly you come here, into my house, into my ROOM, and dare to tell me you know me?" Zack said vehemently, not caring whether or not anybody heard him, "I've had enough of people telling me that they know me when they obviously do NOT! Get out. Now," and as he said that, he pointed at the open window. The beggar man smiled. It was not a pleasant one, and it sent shivers down his spine, though he hid it well. "I know, Zack Ying, I know, more than even you know about yourself," he did that sinister grin again, "I am not like one of those fools who believe they know you but obviously do not!" he chuckled harshly. Even though Zack did think of all those people badly, the man's casual labelling of them as fools made Zack flinch. Zack was about to retort angrily but the man wasn't finished. "You know what is your problem Zack Ying? I think you already do, but you hide it behind excuses, behind the lie that you know yourself, behind the delusion that you are no good when you try so hard. You want me to tell you what you lack?" the man asked in a mocking tone. Zack couldn't take it anymore, "SHUT UP!!" he screamed. Where the hell were his parents? The one time he needed them and it seemed that they couldn't hear this heated conversation. The man laughed at Zack's furious denial. "You lack motivation, young master. You dwell in the pit of self-despair and self-pity, hoping that someone will take notice of you. You isolate yourself deliberately, hoping that that will draw people to you," "I do NOT do that! I do not!" Zack shouted in the man's face. "Such a child, master Ying, such a child," the man said in a tone used to reprimand little children which only infuriated Zack even further; he was so angry he couldn't even speak, breathing hard like an enraged bull. "There are many things, young master Ying, that you are not aware you do, yes? Like those feelings of jealousy towards your poor friend Theo?" At that, Zack grabbed the baseball bat and swung it at the man's head. It stopped a few centimetres from the man's left temple. The man's smile dropped instantly, and his eyes became hard and cold, and Zack was scared at the abrupt change in the man's demeanour. The man calmly stood up and pushed the bat, still frozen in midair, away from his head. "So that's how you deal with your problems, either run away from them or try to eliminate it. You will fail Zack Ying; you can't break through a wall in your path by ramming it. You should realise your flaws and work to better them.instead of just lazily, yes lazily, letting them ruin your life because sometimes," he said while rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "you have to step out to experience new things. You might find that you may be good at the things you never expected to be good at instead of just moaning about the sadness of life, which I might add, you stopped living a while back," he gave Zack a scornful glance as he paced towards the window. "I will not say goodbye, young master, because we will meet again," and ending on that, the man jumped out the window and vanished. Zack was still frozen for a few seconds then he was released from whatever force it was. However, since he was stopped while swinging the bat, his action was also resumed resulting in the momentum of the swing crashing him into the wall. Zack was breathing hard in a mixture of anger, confusion and fear. He sat on the carpeted floor for a few minutes sorting out his emotions when he jumped out of his skin as the clock downstairs rang, signalling that it was midnight. The last he checked, it was 3 minutes before 12. A cold knot wound tightly in his stomach as he lay down on his bed. It could have been the sheer exhaution about how that entire episode lasted only 3 minutes, or maybe his fierce denials of the man's comments; somehow or other, Zack drifted to sleep, the image of the beggar man smiling creepily haunting every dream he dreamt.