The night the Rhymer went whack

58

The righteousness of good would not exist—without evil.

Straffe also looked and wondered with despair at how his genes could bring so much hatred and murder and negative passion, then he reflected on his flaws, his personal demons and how those created Reshod—and now Nick. All this time he considered himself good, all about morality and wholesome things and yet it was he who actually spawned all of this evil. First the world’s destruction now the nails for the coffin.

These thoughts sunk him into misery, aging him terribly with suicidal tendencies, impatiently venturing out at night and inviting death, but it never came about. He’d walk the streets drunk to the point of blacking out with pockets stuffed with cash screaming and yelling and explaining to the world who he was—a pedophile, the father of death and the creator of annihilation, but to the would be perpetrators, he was too obvious. A target too good to be true, so they all stayed away. He was too vulnerable.

He’d awaken after each black out episode, unfortunately, hung over and disappointed before crawling back to his home and wallowing in his despair. Maybe this was the misery he inherited, an earthly pain he was punished to feel each waking day. Death, with its unknown-ness, might bring peace and he knew he didn’t deserve that so facing reality, he holed himself up in his home, sealing off the outside world and internalizing the hurt until the day his life would end naturally.