Confessions of an Erstwhile Assassin

A year ago, my hands were covered in some poor bastard’s blood.

Now my hands are covered in dirt. I used to wear gardening gloves for all of two weeks before I couldn’t stand the sensation — or the lack thereof. I can’t bear to distance myself from it: the soft loam breaking beneath my fingertips, the brush against something that scurries away…

I wash my hands in it, the way I used to wash my hands in blood and death.

This place — this home — is quiet. Just the wind through the leaves, the chatter of birdsong, and sometimes the distant roar of an engine. To those, I have to listen more closely. Is the vehicle approaching or going by? My cottage is deep in the woods off an unmarked driveway. The only person who drives it is the pizza delivery boy, and I tip him well to never talk about the woman with the strangest order: nearly every topping on the menu all at once.

It’s not the best in terms of flavor. But I spent so long having choices made for me, down to what I ate and drank and how often, that I went a bit overboard the first time I heard “What do you want on that?”. Now it’s a ritual, proof that I no longer need to kill people because the group who raised me said so. It’s worth the pineapple-mushroom-pepperoni flavor combination.

The memories of that time trickle back in less and less, more of a torrential downpour than a hurricane these days. But I close my eyes, breathe deep, and listen to those damn birds that wake me up every morning. I’m out, I tell myself. I’m free. And when the scent of blood finally disappears from my nostrils — an illusion — I get up.

My garden is several meters long by now; I make my way to the end of it, where I’ve planted the trees. Some for aesthetics, some for food. The ground at the base of the pear tree is looking less disturbed now. Grass is beginning to sprout where I dug up and filled in a big hole just a month ago. A ghost from my past had been haunting me, a revenant determined to bring me back or put me down.

It was the first time I’d made the choice to take a life myself, and the decision sang sweetly in my blood as I picked ripe pears from the low-hanging branches. I filled my apron, humming a song I’d heard in the grocery store the other day.

With one more glance at the earth at the base of the tree, I retreated to my cottage. The interior was a delightful mess, absolutely nothing left clean and tidy like I’d been trained. I gathered the few ingredients I’d purchased as the pears soaked, blew the dust off the decaying recipe book that had been left in this place by the previous occupant, and set to work. Each week I made one recipe from it. My cooking knowledge had expanded in the past year, from ‘burns water’ to ‘can put things together in a pan and get something edible 50% of the time’.

The dagger I kept in my boot only sliced produce these days. It made quick work of the pears, the wedges precise and clean. It was one bit of training I couldn’t shake, that precision. The pears and the glaze went into a pie crust, and I only had to shake the oven a few times before it decided to start working. I set the kitchen timer — I didn’t technically need it, but the timer, like the pizza toppings, was a ritual I’d created for myself.

Hours later, the baked pear pie was probably one of the worst things I’d tasted in years. But it was mine, made in my home with pears I’d grown myself.

I devoured every single piece.