To Be a Shepherd

I knew my day would go a little differently than normal when I woke to Hildy shouting and hollering about to the sunrise. Her wailing made me throw back the comforter and look out onto the pasture before I let out my first woken exhale. I clicked my teeth together, counting the sheep. One, two, three, four, five…six… Hildy made six. Hildy knew just as much as I did that one was missing, because the one missing was none other than her very son, Oliver. Unlike Geoffrey, the old fart who will wander off just to prove he can’t see for shit anymore, Oliver stayed near his mum. Wherever Hildy was, Oliver can be found no more than thirty meters from her; they were always in each others’ eyesights.

I picked up my trousers from the bedside chair and made my way down. First thing was first, I had to take care of what I already had. Father always said, “Much like an airplane crash: always put your bag on before you help others put on theirs.” I had to feed the six before going out to find the seventh. I also had to feed myself — it was best to not add stress to losing a sheep. So I cracked two eggs over the stove and ate them quickly while downing a glass of orange juice. I took a bag of some long grass I’d cut from the back yesterday and, with my shepherding boots and my father’s old crook, I brought the bag to the sheep present.

Norma, being the alpha sheep, approached first as if nothing was wrong. “Good morning, Norma,” I pet the bridge of her nose, “beautiful sunrise, innit?” Chester and Betty, our one black sheep, came up next. Symbolic to their opposing colors, Chester was the yin to Betty’s yang. Twins from Mildred and Geoffrey; Chester was quiet and more perceptive where Betty was not, though Betty kept Chester company and often protected him from foxes.

I had to walk to Geoffrey and Mildred because they were the oldest in the herd, neither knew quite what was what anymore, yet they still handled their own.

I never once mentioned Oliver to any of them, but Hildy I saved for last since she was still making a fuss, grunting this way and that. She was smart: she wouldn’t leave the herd, but I could tell she truly missed Oliver. He was all she got. Norma and the lot of them, they were all family. But Hildy and Oliver were of an adopted kind on the pasture. Father took them in from our closest neighbors (who lived about the equivalent of five football fields away, over a few hills to the west) when Uncle Bill (not blood, just close Kiwi farmers) passed and his family moved to London to be closer to extended and start anew. A sad transaction, but Bill always knew he’d anchored his family there and saw his passing as granting a clean slate. I was about fifteen when this happened, and quickly Oliver and I became very close.

Oliver was always my favorite.

“Trust me, Hildy, no one wants to find Oliver more than me, okay?” I pet her head and looked in her eyes. After she ate from my hand, I brought the bag back to the house; as soon as I started walking back to the house, Hildy started up again. But I had to get up high.

In the attic, there was a ladder to the roof door. Of course, this wasn’t the first time I’ve lost a sheep — it happens maybe twice a year and I’ve always found them. Usually, especially recently, it’s been Geoffrey losing his way in the dark. I’ve seen Mildred get lost, hell, even Chester — never Hildy or Oliver.

Going up to the roof, I looked out from all directions: there were hills over the west and north and it was flat enough towards the east and south to see about 15 or 25 kilometers. I highly doubt a sheep would travel further than that in one night. And since I couldn’t see a single thing except for vast grasslands with the lights of the nearest town in the far distance, I knew I’d have to take the herd over the hills. I figured I’d get up north, since it was the highest hill out of all from the pasture, and see from there.

I started to go back down when something in the distance out of the corner of my eye was moving quickly. I looked back up and, to my utter surprise, saw a car approaching. Since I haven’t seen a car drive up in almost fourteen years, I stayed still on the roof, mostly from shock. As the car slowed, Hildy began to quiet down.

Suicide doors made the car more ominous with its matte, black coat under the low, grey sky. Out stepped a young man — most likely in his late twenties, early thirties — from the back seat. He was dressed professionally with a dark, wool jacket. Somehow, I felt as though I’d just been invited to a power competition with the way he glanced up at me. And yet, in the most awkward state of being: caught off guard on my roof, I noted to myself that if that were the case at least I was the one starting on higher ground.

“Hello, Monty,” he said.

“Hello,” I replied with a squint. Good move: he knew me, but I didn’t recognize him.

He gave a guarded smile. “Forgive my intrusion, I didn’t call ahead of time. Although, I had a feeling you’d still be here…”

Was that an attempt at an insult? If it was, I wasn’t going to let it phase me. “So it seems,” I continued doing what I came up here to do, look for Oliver. Clouds were definitely rolling in, hinting at a possible storm for the early evening, and I had to find Oliver before it would come. Having had a longer look, there did seem to be a small patch of white-gray about 3 or 400 meters from here within the southern hills’ folds worth examining further…

“I don’t know if you remember me, my name is John. John Siberly? You might remember my father Bill, although you referred to him as Uncle Bill, I think.” I peered down back at him and then it hit me. He did look like Baby John all grown up.

“Baby John?” I asked with hopes of putting this little yuppy in his place when showing up unannounced. “Oh my God, it’s been so long — you’re all grown up now!”

He chuckled like a good sport, “Yes, Baby John. Well, I was hoping you weren’t too busy, perhaps we could catch up over coffee or tea?”

I looked back over to the white-gray patch, wondering if it seemed possible to be my lost sheep; or maybe just a patch of snow. There were no other snow mounds around though. I think if it were snow, it would have melted by now. “I’m afraid I can’t do that at the moment.”

A silence followed, but I refused to give into it, peering out further for any other sightings.

“It does appear you’re busy — may I ask: what is it you’re doing up there?”

“I’ve lost a sheep of mine,” I looked back down at him. “You remember Oliver?”

“Oliver?” he asked.

“Well, certainly you remember Hildy over there,” I motioned to her. “Oliver’s mother.”

“Oh, Oliver! Yes, I remember him!” he said. “He ran away?”

“Yes, he did — you see those storm clouds ahead? I need to find him before it comes down,” I looked back over at the lone white patch, which did seem to move slightly. I glanced at my watch: it was just past eight. “You can come with me if that’s,” I motioned to the car and whoever was driving it, “not a problem.”

Before he could answer me, I headed back down to the ground. This utter child was not going to keep me from finding Oliver. I retrieved my compass and met Baby John outside. “Well?” I asked.

He looked at his driver, staring at us through the window, then looked back at me. “My driver won’t leave me.”

“Nor I my sheep. Unfortunately I must herd them while I find Oliver,” I insisted on this.

“Well,” he glanced down at his shoes. I suppose he thought about the mud he was about to endure in his oxfords. Just how badly did he need to speak to me? “I suppose we could park the car — no one else is here?”

“No, everyone left. Not too keen on pasture life anymore.”

“I can certainly empathize with that,” his eyebrows lifted at his own concurrence. His driver finally exited the car. “This is Stacy,” John said, “He won’t be a bother, but he will be following us — for security reasons.”

I glanced around the empty hills. “Um…ok,” I shrugged. I gathered all the sheep and moved out towards the white fluff. John stayed next to me, Stacy stayed a few paces behind even the sheep. It would be at least a half hour walk to a possible Oliver.

“So, how you been, John?” I asked once we got in a rhythm.

“Um…I’ve been better.” he said.

“How’s London treatin’ you? Never been there, but I imagine it’s just like any other metropolis.”

“Sure, sure, London has been, well…. Listen, Monty, something happened over in the Americas and it’s made it’s way over to Europe, which is the whole reason why I’ve come out here. We don’t have a whole lot of time.”

“Clearly, because you haven’t wasted much of it — I do appreciate that, by the way.”

“Well, I wish you would appreciate what I have to say next and, um, well, how do I even say it? I’m afraid — very afraid, actually — have you been watching the news?”

“Don’t watch it. The news bores me,” I said. Truthfully, there wasn’t anything insightful on there last I checked, which was some ten or odd years ago…

“So — sorry, but — you do know about the whole lockdown, right?”

I looked at his concerned glance. “Lockdown? No,” I chuckled. “I’m afraid not.”

“Really? You haven’t? Well, people keep dying, Monty. Strangely. Inexplicably. And um, well as you know, I have quite a large family — as does my wife. They’re all over in Glenorchy for now while I’m out here visiting you. And, well, I think we’re all interested in coming back here. You see, Sydney and Auckland have cancelled commercial flights. No one has been able to make it out here. New Zealand is predicted to be…perhaps the last piece of land to be contaminated.”

“I’m failing to understand: there’s a worldwide…disease, is what you’re saying?” I asked.

“Yes, in quite a rapid fashion. I’m asking you — insisting — if we can build a safe house here.”

I stopped walking, and so did he. “Here?”

“Yes,” His eyes were wide with potent concern. “Of course, this is your property and all, obviously you’d have to have a spot in it — ”

“Your safe house?”

“Yes, I urge you to consider this project quickly; we don’t have much time to ponder. Hardly even a few days.”

“You can’t possibly build a safe house in a few days, John,” I started walking again, and so did he.

“Pardon my forwardness, but with the right amount of money, I believe one can do just about anything.”

Well, here was a peachy little twat. “Well, sorry, John. Today, I’m trying to find my sheep — not sell my lot over to you.”

“Right,” he said. There was a silence for a minute. We were beginning to go uphill a ways when he tried again. “But…you do understand that — you guys are next, right?”

“Yeah, but what does that even mean, though, right?”

“Monty, I really urge you to catch up on this because what I’m sayin’ is, it’s bad.”

I didn’t say anything to this. This hill was making both of us lose our breath a bit.

“This isn’t, like, fake or anything,” he insisted.

“I’m sure it isn’t.”

“Then what is it, then?”

“What is what?”

“What is it about this that — you’re not understanding?”

“I mean, I think I understand everything fine: there’s a global lethal virus goin’ ‘round,” I said between breaths, “I live on the last land mass that has remained clean, and you’re trying to convince me to sell my lot to ya so you and yours can survive — ”

“ — and you, too, of course,” he jutted in.

“ — right, and I said no to you already.”

“But I’m offering you a chance to-to survive!”

“John, regardless of the circumstances, whether I’m going to die or not — I’ll be fine on my own. I’m not selling you my lot.”

“Listen, I know you’re a smart man, Monty. I mean, I see what you’ve done for yourself out here and,” he chuckled, “I’m jealous, alright? It would take — a lot — for me to give this up if I had it; it’s absolutely amazing out here. But the fact of the matter is, I think your underestimating this virus, okay? I’ve seen this — f-first hand! I feel like once you watch just one news segment, you’ll be as afraid as the rest of us are. Shit, Monty, you don’t even have to sell me the lot as long as you’d just let me build here and me and my family live with ya — as long as you just let me do what I need to do!” his voice choked.

I stopped to look at him; his eyes had become watery. I sighed deeply, “However, your plan is absolutely ridiculous.”

“No, no, this is well-thought out, I assure you!”

“John, you want to build a safe house. To withstand a global epidemic. For how many people and within how many days? It’s just — ”

“Including you, 7 people and within 3 days or less,” he desperately said.

“Right, I mean, that simply won’t work.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’re right; but I don’t think you know that much either. Pardon my ignorance, but don’t you need builders? Who would build that for you? Are they going to work day and night for you? For you to accommodate your family without having to make any preparations for themselves and their families? I mean, that’s ludicrous, right? Not to mention your coming here and-and assuming that I’ll just grant you permission to build on my property.”

John looked down at his feet, which have become drenched in mud. He let out a deep sigh. “Monty, I realize this reunion is not under the best circumstances and I know how I must look to you, but… I honestly don’t care how other people view me. I’m a father with enough resources to keep his family safe during what may very well be the apocalypse of this fucking planet and — ”

“Save it for the soaps that will still find a way to air,” I began walking again. “John, I’m sorry, but I really need to find Ollie before,” I motioned to the dark clouds, “this storm comes in. The answer is no; so if you want to leave, you can — I won’t judge ya.”

He stopped in his path. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Monty! Do you want to die?”

I turned to look back at him and I noticed, also, that Stacy had gotten considerably closer to us.

“Look at you packing a sad. Is this the first time you’re being told ‘no’?” I asked. “Is big, bad Stacy going to punch my teeth out now?”

There was a silent glare from both of them.

“Tell you what,” I said, turning away and continuing on. “I’m going to find Oliver — that’s my missing sheep’s name, Stacy, in case you missed that bit — and then I’m going to herd my sheep back to my house. And then I’m going to make myself a lovely pot of tea in my quaint, little kitchen. And then I’m going to think about all the people that will, according to you, die before me and…have a sigh of relief.”

“Monty.”

“I really don’t need to discuss this further, besides someone else will take your money — ”

“Monty.”

“I think the Ikemans’ would be happy to cut a deal with you — ”

“Monty! That’s your bloody sheep right over there,” John pointed to an actually bloodied Oliver lying down under a short bush about twenty yards from us. I rushed over to him. He did not look good: the blood was coming from an almost severed hind leg.

“Christ, Ollie…” I could feel my throat choking; at least he was still breathing. I immediately started filtering through ideas on how to stitch this up — how can I fix him? How can I get him back home?

“If you opened your fucking eyes, you’d see a lot more, eh?” John shouted at me from where we were standing.

“Piss off, John,” I sighed quietly. And with that, there was a silent impasse between us all. An intermission, as if everything had paused when John started to realize the gravity of Oliver’s situation. Gently, I tried to lift his leg so his cut would be more closed, but also just to see how I could even lift his entire body. He weighed a healthy 90 kilograms. Oliver groaned at me, reminding me of the only time I had ever had to put down a sheep.

My father had a sheep from his adolescence, named Shelly: a black sheep just like Betty. Shelly was his most treasured sheep since he grew up with her, not unlike my relationship with Ollie. No one was allowed to feed her but my father. No one could herd her anywhere except for him. Shelly also never ran away, even when she got old. During her last year of life, we faced a harsh winter with slim mercy. I don’t recall seeing even one day of clear sunshine throughout the whole month of July; I believe I was about ten years old. At the time, we didn’t know that Shelly had cancer in her stomach and her body didn’t respond well to the winter months. By the end of August, when the heavy snowfall had turned to torrential rainstorms, Shelly couldn’t even stand up. She’d be wailing in pain throughout the night and day and my father couldn’t bare to put her through the misery anymore. He also couldn’t bare to be the one to do it and thought this may be the only time he could teach me to put down a sheep.

Oh, yes, I remember it well; the night I had done it. My father gave his farewell to Shelly and came back to the house through the dark rain. He poured his Scotch, the sentimental one, and sat down across from me at the kitchen table. He handed me his pistol and said, “Remember how I taught you to shoot?” to which I gave a silent nod.

“Well…” his eyes became wet and he looked down at the wooden floor, “Show her some love before you do it. And when you do it, you do it right between the eyes. Quick, don’t linger. Hide the gun up until when you put it to her head and when you know you won’t hesitate.”

I nodded to him, went out to the pasture, gave my last farewell to Shelly, and when I was good and ready, I shot her quick right between the eyes and I didn’t linger. Just like my father instructed.

“Bollocks. What do you think happened to him?” John asked. He was now standing over Oliver.

I looked up at him wondering the exact same thing. “I’m not sure. It looks like a bite mark, perhaps by a fox. But even a fox couldn’t do this much damage, generally speaking…”

“That, mate, looks like a bloody dingo bite or something. Do you guys have dingos out here?” John asked.

“No.” There was a silence. “I don’t know what animal around here that could have done this,” I thought out loud.

“Well, um, do you need some — assistance? Stacy and I can help you carry him back.” I was surprised at the sudden change in John’s attitude. Perhaps he still understood from his late father the love a shepherd has for his sheep. Perhaps he was still shooting his shot for my lot. In any case, I couldn’t refuse the help.

I looked up at him and nodded.

He ushered for Stacy to come over and they were both able to carry Oliver while I herded the rest back to the pasture. Stacy carried most of Oliver’s weight on his shoulders, the blood stain growing from Oliver’s wound down his back, while John kept Oliver’s leg from hanging. I began to think I may have to amputate the leg and I choked up at the thought of Oliver having to recover from that. But I knew it would ultimately make him stronger.

What happened to him? I couldn’t think of one plausible scenario in these wide open fields, with no huge predators, where Ollie gets his fucking leg chopped off. It wasn’t like he could have fallen down a cliff or something. It wasn’t like big cats or dogs lived around here — the only predator in these hills were foxes.

“John,” I said. He looked back at me. “Might I ask you…out of all the wide open spaces in New Zealand and with all of your — resources — why’d you come to my pasture with your proposition?”

I noticed that Stacy and John had a quick exchange in glances before John replied, “I thought I’d go somewhere I knew first, to someone I knew. I guess I could have bought anybody out, but…it would be wrong of me to buy their land and not offer a place for them to stay. And I trusted you, I knew you. Plus, time is more than limited. I needed to cut a deal within a day and hopefully start building within the hour of cutting that deal.”

In the silence that followed, I had to wonder: was I able to trust him? And surely he knew me, but when I was a child years ago — decades ago. If I couldn’t fully trust him, I couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to trust me with essentially his life along with all of his family members’ lives. Why was he so easy to place trust in me? It seemed as though he was using flattery at this point.

“What is this illness anyway?” I asked.

“Oh, there are many names to it, but the scientific name for it is Vultrex-16. It also has been named the Vulture virus, the Zombie virus…”

“The ‘Zombie virus’?” I asked with raised eyebrows. People can be so dramatic.

“Yes, have you seriously not heard of it? I don’t mean to judge you, Monty, it’s quite fascinating how detached you must have been just within this past month. It literally turns you into a ravenous eating machine, where you will consume pretty much any living, breathing thing in your path with enough brain power. I mean you do eventually die from it within, like, a week it seems, but…it’s just horrendous, torturous — it eats your fucking brain,” John appeared to be sincerely anxious about this. He glanced back at me. “I mean, honestly, have you left your pasture in the past month? Gone literally anywhere else?”

“I lead a pretty sustainable life out here without needing to buy a whole lot from the store. Last I went into town must have been…oh, three weeks ago?” I didn’t remember seeing anything unusual then.

“Hm, well, that was early in this whole mess…that might have just been when the virus went international, the first few cases in Europe and China. London has gone totally awry…” he trailed off. He looked back at me again, his eyes were wet, but his voice didn’t waver. “It killed my mother.”

I remembered his mother, Mrs. Siberly. She was kind to me as a child, always offering me something she had just baked. “I’m sorry, John,” I said.

“Yeah, well…me too.”

I began to see the impact it all has had on him. This, no doubt, was another reason he came back here. To his childhood roots.

We were silent until we got back to the pasture. “Come bring him over here,” I directed them towards a woodwork table I had out back. I quickly put a tarp down and, with genuine care, they laid Oliver on top of it. I quickly herded the rest of the sheep out to the front. Hildy would not let me go and would follow me wherever I moved. She was quite vocal, too, grunting ever so often. I went to go get my first aid kit from inside and when I came back out, she was standing right outside and refused to stay with the others. She knew Oliver was in trouble and she also knew that if she kept following me, she’d eventually be able to be near Oliver. I couldn’t really fight her on it; I understood her need to be with him. When I came around back with her, Stacy had a flashlight inspecting Oliver’s wound and John was smoking a cigarette.

I handed Stacy my crook, “Would you mind holding Hildy back for me? You don’t need to put this around her neck, really, unless she comes too close. I imagine she won’t move much though.” Stacy looked at me plainly, said nothing, and took my crook. He moved closer to Hildy and stood guard — I started to like him.

I cleaned away all of the dirt and dried blood. Oliver began to moan and Hildy began to shout at me.

“I know, guys, I’m trying my best, alright?” I said to them both.

John was standing over Oliver. “Jesus, that is deep.” He wasn’t wrong; we saw torn tendons and exposed bone, severe blood loss… I was beginning to feel inadequate for this type of sewing process, but I was going to try — I had to try. The problem was not only the depth, but the width of the cut. It definitely wasn’t a stab wound; it looked like something had gnawed at him — truly like a dingo, as John had mentioned earlier. I began to stitch him up and John had to hold Oliver’s head down, which was not an easy process as Oliver tried to take a few bites at both of us; the level of pain to be sewn back together must have been atrocious. Stacy maintained a good control over Hildy throughout the whole process, thankfully. I did what I could; most of the cuts were closed and we couldn’t see the bone anymore — I turned to John for an opinion. He nodded at me, “I’m not licensed or anything, but…I think you did the best job a man could do.”

I returned a nod and patched him up. “Help me bring him out to the shed, would you?” I asked John. He obliged and we were able to lay Oliver down and leave a bowl of water next to him. I would have to watch his wound closely for the next few weeks, make sure it remains clean. The Sun was beginning to set into an early evening glow. John was just checking his watch.

“Right,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “Why don’t you and Stacy come inside for a Scotch — ”

Just then, John’s phone rang. As he answered it, we started walking back to the house, where we left Stacy holding down the herd. The clouds were beginning to roll in and it looked like a massive thunderstorm would begin soon.

“Hey, love,” John said into the phone, “I’m just about finished here. Sorry, oh, you called me before? Right, no, I didn’t get any calls — I think the service is spotty out here.”

I walked up to Stacy and motioned at the crook he still had. “I can take that from you, mate — much appreciated, yeah.” As I began, walking back into the house, John followed as did Stacy; John still on the phone.

“What do you mean, what?” John asked his wife. “What on Earth do you mean? You’re…you’re absolutely certain of this.” John has started to look magnanimously more anxious than before.

I started to pour Scotch into three glasses — the sentimental one.

“Deirdre, darling…keep calm. I’m so sorry, I must go. I will see you soon.” John’s eyes wide as he put his phone in his pocket. He looked at the Scotch in front of him, then quickly at Stacy (who met his eyes), then quickly at me. “Monty, you need to see what’s happening. Stacy, pull up the tablet; show him, please.”

As Stacy was getting out their tablet, I looked at the Scotch I had put in front of us. “Right, well, it would behoove me to at least pour one out for your mother and let you say your whole piece,” I said.

John scoffed and glanced over at Stacy, who glanced up at him, and then went back to the tablet screen. “Right, mate, since you don’t fucking believe what’s happening,” he picked up a shot of Scotch and held it towards me, his eyes furious and glassy from cynicism, “let me tell you this is the last of the real world you will ever witness; rest in peace to my dear mother and the whole lot of them. To all the ones who ate, and to all the ones that were eaten. If I didn’t think it before, I certainly do now.” He took his shot. “We’re all completely and utterly…fucked.”

Stacy held the tablet in front of me and started scrolling through videos, photos, tabloids… I was shown videos of what seemed to be humans, though they looked discolored and their eyes were white, cannibalizing on other humans in the streets of towns and cities. I saw blood draining from an infant’s gnawed neck and dogs nibbling on guts spilled on sidewalks. Humanoid monsters were running amuck, pulling their own hair out and clawing down their next victims. Gangs of them banging their heads through locked glass doors and scratching out the eyes of their screaming prey. People throwing molotovs helplessly at them, driving over them as fast as they could, trying to literally climb brick walls and shitting themselves as they died getting eaten alive. I saw headlines that said this was truly the end of mankind. Newspeople absolutely horrified at their desks, announcing that a new discovery of this virus has come out: animals can get it, too. People’s pets have been killing their owners. Animals have escaped zoos and farms and have gone wild along the roads. It appeared that this was what John had just heard over the phone from his wife right before I poured the Scotch.

“Your sheep,” Stacy said as he picked up his shot, “is going to die.” I looked outside to the shed and noticed it had begun to pour.

I looked back at John and Stacy and I, for the first time in a long time, felt companionship; or at the very least, sincerity. With a single look, we all knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath and downed my shot. I didn’t want to believe any of this — I lived out here because I wanted no part in any of this shithole of a rock. I wanted to herd my sheep and die herding my sheep. I took my gun and went outside, towards the shed. I was going to see for myself; I would see if Ollie’s eyes went white like the sick, white like the snow that did in my father’s dear Shelly. Hildy saw me walking over with my gun and started wailing just like she did this morning, her voice drowning with the rolling thunder.

I stopped outside the shed and stared at Ollie laying there; he was already trying to crawl towards me, his leg chaining him down. He looked up at me, his eyes white and his mouth chomping at me just like on the news, and I couldn’t help but sob right then and there because it was all true. No matter how alone I was with my sheep, I could admit I was no less a part of this than John or Stacy or any of the rest of them. And I felt selfish, absolutely stupid about it: thinking that I could be invisible — immune — to the world if I just made my solitude and my farm my only religions. But I was never invisible, and right now my sheep were making that abundantly clear. Hildy was scared of me, maybe wanted to kill me — and so, at the moment, did her son. And as the gun weighed down my hand, I wondered what the point of this would be; what my life would mean if I chose to protect myself over my sheep, rather than dying with them. I could let Ollie bite me, but the thought of him eating me or me eventually consuming the rest of them absolutely broke my heart. And they would know it as it was happening. They would see themselves disappearing one by one. No, this was cleaner — this was more pleasant than the alternative. And when I really thought about why I chose this life, it was to remain peaceful.

“Goodbye, Ollie.”

I lifted the gun and, without hesitation, I pulled the trigger.