The Gift

He was more nervous than he thought he would be, standing in the bushes outside her home. He’d done it many times before, but tonight was different.

He felt sorry for her, living on her own, scarcely scraping by since that trash of a man left her last year. Barely keeping up with her car payments. A month behind on her electric. Past due on her credit cards. Eating peanut butter and jelly tonight because her measly $77 a month in food stamps was still four days away from renewing.

He knew all of this for a fact. He’d seen her bills last week and the week before that when he was walking around in her home while she was at one of the two jobs she had been forced to take after her man left and took his high paying job and money with him.

Scooting a little to the side when she stood up after finishing her sandwich, he made sure his reflection didn’t shine up from the dim lamp in the corner. He was at the right angle to watch her walk to the kitchen, smiling at the way the short nightgown swayed back and forth, barely long enough to reach the back of her thighs.

Clockwork. Same time every Tuesday night. Same routine. She came home at eight from job number two, took a shower and got dressed for bed. She would then sit on the couch and watch television until ten. When whatever show she was watching went off (he couldn’t see her television from this angle) she would go to the kitchen, make something to eat, and come back to sit and eat while watching the news until 10:20.

He glanced at his watch, pressing the little button to make sure he was correct on the time, although he already knew. She didn’t like sports, so she always quit watching after the weather. Then she would spend ten minutes in there washing the few dishes in the sink and making coffee for in the morning.

Her footsteps vibrated on the kitchen floor, and he ducked down, listening to the trailer house squeak as she passed by the window on the way to her bedroom. Listening carefully, he held his breath, hoping she didn’t notice he’d unlocked her backdoor yesterday.

There was no pause in the pantry, and no click. He listened until he heard the sound of the door shut to her bedroom before letting out a sigh of relief. 10:30 on the dot, and everything was going perfectly as planned.

He smiled, admiring his own keep perception of time. It was a gift, really. A gift that was going to help him become the best the world had ever seen. Patience and a perfect sense of time. He’d always been good at times and remembering others routines. He knew the response times of police and ambulances. He knew when the tornado sirens were going to go off one minute before they did every Friday a noon. He knew the timeframe for the mail to come by each day, although they never came by at the exact same time, and that drove him nuts.

A gift.

A gift he’d known he had all his life, but simply never understood the purpose of it until just a few weeks ago. A gift he could finally use.

Now, all he had to do was wait until 11:45, and he could put his gift to the test. She was always asleep by 11:30, (It was sometimes hard to go to sleep with a broken heart and a miserable life) but he wanted to give her 15 extra minutes to make sure. And then tonight, at midnight on the dot, she would become his first.

With a smile, he pulled his knife out of its sheath and twirled it around between his fingers. All he had to do was wait, and he had the patience to do so. It was a gift.

James Mayes

7/12/16