Aaron, a Hammer, and God

The crime of which I am to relate is one not of matriculation or premeditation, oh no. There are such fires in the hearts of men that burn much hotter than madness and cruelty. These flames are those of passion, vengeance, and justice. My crime was the bastard child of a sinuous concoction of all three of the aforementioned vices.

The night wasn't cool as it always was in autumn. It was an exception, a rebellious night when the temperature would rise to the higher sixties on occasion, only to die back down half way through the next day. However, this particular night was somewhere in between the hot and the cold, a simple warm. Recently, my accomplice and I had acquired a twenty pound sledge hammer, which we had affectionately named "The Hammer of Justice". As was typical on nights like these, driving with the top down on my Volkswagen Cabrio, the two of us were seeking retribution in the style of vigilantism.

Earlier, before the eve of the crime, the young woman who was to become my victim sat still and cold in chemistry class. For the length of a year now, we had been friends, but in the past week she had thrown nothing towards me but discord. This particular day however, when I inquired about her well-being, she instantly lashed out at me. I sat and listened to sting after sting of her verbal abuse for several minutes. At the moment, it merely slid off of me and I went about my day. However, as the hours continued to pass by, they seemed to grow in intensity, as I couldn't get the thoughts of her abuse out of my head. The more I thought about what she had labeled me, the more I began to fester with anger. It simply boiled up inside of me, much in the same manner as water does in a kettle on a hot stove. By the time day turned to dusk, I was haunted by the words that she had spoken earlier. They were all I could think, hear, or concentrate on.

I had, at length, ventured out and picked up my friend for dinner at Donato's Pizza. During the course of the meal I explained to him my previous encounter of the day. He reacted in much the same way as I had, with nothing but an acknowledging nod at first, but by the end of dinner he was in a tumultuous uproar. We ate the last pieces of pizza with the ferocity of a pack of hyenas and stormed out of the restaurant.

We drove around the town, patiently waiting for the dusk to fade into the eternal darkness that is night. The need for justice rose in my bosom as I commanded the wheel of my car, top down. Along the floor of the car, in between the passenger seat and door, the Hammer of Justice calmly waited to be called into action. The wind seemed to match the fury of my heart and whipped at my small automobile with wild abandon. It howled madly in my ears and burned tears into my eyes. When we believed the hour to be late enough, I began to navigate the neighborhood that she lived in. I turned off the lights on my car and crept silently through the streets. I picked out every turn carefully, so that we would be precisely positioned to initiate the crime.

My pulse quickened as her house loomed overhead. The moment of atonement was near... so very near. My partner slowly unbuckled his seat belt and reached down for the Hammer of Justice. The target crept closer and closer. Her mailbox seemed to jeer at me, but he would fix that. I could tell he was gripping the hammer very tightly. His knuckles began to turn white as he stood up. I, unknowingly in the heat of the moment, increased the pressure I was exerting on the gas pedal. My partner looked at me wild eyed and exclaimed "What the hell are you doing? Slow down!" He quickly looked away from me and centered his gaze on the mailbox. A sharp CRACK rang out into the still night air as splinters of wood shot off in all directions. My partner racked the mailbox with such panache that it spun madly off of its post. "Stop the car!" he yelled at me. Instinctively, I did just as he commanded. In the heat of the moment, he dropped the hammer to the floor of my car and leapt over the passenger door. He scooped up the fallen box with catlike grace and ease. Before I fully comprehended the situation, he was in the back seat of my car. The night air was violated once again, but this time by the screeching of tires as we made our escape under the cover of darkness. My accomplice and I cackled with triumphant laughter and went home for the evening.

The next morning began as every other before it. Every student shuffled solemnly into the building and was herded by a series of bells into their respective classrooms. Fist period came and went. Second period came and went. Third period began slowly and quickly started to unravel.

Now I know it is cliché for a criminal to return to his crime scene, so I figured I could do one better. My steps eventually took me to the victim herself. I wanted to see first hand what my destruction had done; I wanted to relish the moment. The moment I walked into the classroom my eyes locked onto my prey. A vicious smile spread across my face like the black wings of a vulture as it is about to descend upon a freshly killed carcass. She looked distraught as if something was greatly distracting her from the toils of the day. I could see the marks of fatigue on her face and bags under her eyes. Each of these facts merely increased my feeling of being completely pleased with myself.

"How ya doing today?" I asked with a face of sincerity. Her eyes slowly looked up and gripped mine in a cold vice. Not so good, she replied. "Oh, I'm sorry... why not?" My house burned down last night. I simply had nothing to say to this. I was flabbergasted. Her aged eyes let go of mine and fell back to her lap. Over three hours of swelling pride had been, I should say, climaxed with one sentence. Now I believed that the Almighty did one of two things; saw my justice fit, or deemed it necessary to make me feel guilty for my actions. Either way, there was no storm the night before, but her house was struck by a bolt of lightning. It took everything in my being to keep from laughing at the situation.

And so I had arbitrated retribution. The Hammer of Justice would see the moonlight again.