The Razors Edge:
Story by Funwriter
The razor seemed sharp enough and the task was easy enough, but the temperature of the bath water was just too damn cold. The overweight little man mumbled, I just can’t do anything right.
Martin was tired and his soul was tired too. He had ridden the ride and had his fill.
He set down his watch and a few other personal items next to the bath tub and walked over to the mirror. The rings under his eyes were there and so was the stubble of a tiresome day. Exertion was the least of his worries as he added hot water to the tub. This day just keeps getting worse, he thought.
His wife had left him for another man a few years back and his promotion had fallen through, leaving him in the same no-where position he'd been in for over a decade. The apartment was dingy. She hadn’t really left him, but more like thrown him out, keeping the comfortable home he purchased for her on their wedding day fifteen years ago.
He felt the water, noting it was just about right and began to undress. He had been fit once, lean, with a full head of thick black hair. Now, all he saw was a middle aged bureaucrat, pale with a paunch and going bald in all the wrong places.
He’d heard this was the most painless method and hoped it was true. While placing the new razor blade next to his personal things, he took off his white underwear noticing the small holes with a grin. No more laundry, he thought with a smile. He climbed into the tub and laid back, letting the warm water take away his anguish and prepare him for what he had to do. After a few minutes he reached over and grabbed the new blade, pulling the thick cardboard safety cover off. Strange, the silver blade felt so light and insignificant.
Leaving his arm underwater he moved the blade across his wrist. He thought, almost painless and smiled. Moving the blade to his other hand he did the same, seeing for the first time the water clouding crimson, he could taste a bit of copper in his mouth, nostrils flaring.
Letting the blade fall to the bottom of the bath, Martin laid back again and closed his eyes, feeling worry drift away with responsibility not far behind.
Martin thought to himself, thank god he'd had no children. He felt warmth envelop him and bliss settle deep into his soul.
He saw it: a warm white light, so bright and yet painless. Martin had heard of this but was surprised at his own consciousness. He no longer needed to open his eyes to see, he saw all now through his soul.
He felt himself moving away from his body and was looking down, seeing the husk of his former self in a dark red pool, surprised that he had once resided in there.
Being pulled away faster now, he began to notice something new creeping into his thoughts, surprise.
The world below was getting smaller. He could do nothing to stop its progress, he had a fish eye view as he had seen on TV, when watching footage from the space shuttle. He could make out the continents. Feeling very warm all over, as if being pushed into a furnace. Ethereal though he was, it was becoming uncomfortable.
It all stopped for a moment and he was in the vacuum. Stars brighter than ever before, surrounding him, then with a rush he was whisked away, blinding traces and colors all around him and something new creeped into his consciousness, fear.
Flung through space, light and dark colors, his soul changing form painfully, recklessly squeezed through holes in space.
The feel of being touched, memories of his wife, friends, mother and father. All things most valuable at once being torn from him, agonizing his soul, ripping away all that he was. He began to fight, knowing that he could not win. His soul screaming as it was shattered into micro shards, sentient no longer.
*
The being pulled its long thin appendage from the softly lit key that was decorated with a human form. It telepathically sent a message to the command center that the reprogramming could begin. Another one lost and so early in the experiment, these humans were simply too frail.
Floating away from the control panel, one could but marvel at the endless rows of softly lit keys and the endless life forms they represented.
