Flash fiction - @son-of-satire's EMPATHY competition
Can we feel empathy for a murderer? Can we make someone else feel empathy for a murderer? These are the questions posed by @son-of-satire today, in this post. He gave us the end of the story and invited us to fill in the rest of it. Here’s what I came up with.
Nigel woke to another sunny day. He stretched and yawned, and for a moment, one blessed moment, he was happy. But then he remembered and the pain came crashing down again.
It was six months since his wife and daughter had been killed by the drunk driver and the pain hadn’t lessened at all.
Some days he was numb. Some days he felt the depths of despair. Some days the anger was overwhelming. But most days it was searing pain and crippling grief.
He was still unable to comprehend why the driver only got community service and six months loss of licence, while Nigel had lost his whole reason for living.
He’d stopped going into work, and didn’t care when he was sacked. His savings would run out soon, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that either.
He wasn’t sure when he had started stalking Chester. It must be a few weeks ago, as he knew Chester’s routine by heart.
He now frequently dropped into Chester’s favourite bar. Often enough that they now acknowledged each other with the kind of nod you give someone you see around but don’t actually know.
Nigel didn’t know why he did this, but remembered the old adage – keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
That night, as Nigel approached the bar – on foot, he didn’t drive any more – he saw a car he recognised, Chester’s. He must have his licence back.
Nigel’s already fragile state of mind shattered. He looked wildly around, and saw an empty bottle in the gutter. He grabbed it and smashed it against Chester’s windscreen in a fury. When the bottle broke in his hand, he looked down at the shard of glass he was now holding, and the blood on his hand, and finally knew what he had to do. He must stop Chester from killing again.
Ignoring the pain in his hand, he resolutely turned towards the bar.
Nigel walked into the bar. In his right hand was the shard of glass, dripping with blood.
With no decipherable expression on his face, he walked over to a table in the corner, where Chester was drinking alone.
Chester turned towards the man with the glass shard in his hand and asked, "Is everything alright, mate?"
Without so much as a moment's hesitation, Nigel lifted his hand and buried the piece of glass into Chester’s carotid artery. He then sat down at the table where his victim once sat, and finished his drink while he waited for the police to arrive and take him away.
Everyone in the room whispered among themselves as they stared at the bloody corpse on the floor, and the seemingly psychotic man responsible for it, sitting there sipping a beer.
Thanks for reading
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small % yes - the rest need the electric chair
I think there is a difference between empathy and condoning an action. Sometimes we can have empathy or compassion for the person that committed the act, while still not condoning what they did. And most times we wouldn't even have any empathy.
We can not feel empathy for a murderer. you?
Many murderers, no, I wouldn't feel for. But the man in my story is in so much pain. Did you not feel for him? If not, maybe I didn't do a very good job.
One wonders why you're not writing fiction posts more often. This was awesome! The internal conflict that Nigel felt was so perfectly executed. I could feel the anger seep through every line. Chester deserved what he got. If I was Nigel, I would've done the same thing. Nice work, and good luck!
Thanks, Jed. The reason I don't do more fiction, is that mostly I don't have any inspiration for it. That is, there is no internal inspiration, no stories waiting to burst out. But sometimes an external factor like the closing paragraph that @son-of-satire supplied, or a picture, will trigger something.
Very hard hitting and impactful story. Raises some powerful questions as well. Very difficult to take a purely black or white perspective here.
Well written, and easy to read, despite the subject matter.
Lovely to have a comment from such a great writer as you. I think what @son-of-satire wanted us all to start thinking about was exactly that. We so often see only part of a story, and it's easy to judge. When we know more it becomes harder. Of course, mostly we would still not condone the action, but we can maybe understand where it comes from.
It's a clever take on the concept, certainly one that was ripe to draw out a different style of story. Very creative. Glad I saw your post, as it seemed to capture that well.
It's awesome that you did this.
Edit: I shouldn't have commented yesterday, I was too distracted. This is an excellent piece of fiction Deb, I agree with @jedau, you should do more, because I definitely could empathize with Nigel :)
We all get distracted at times, and lord knows you have reason right now. I'm very happy you liked it :-)
Hi kiwi.. Yeah i can understand his pain and emotions.. And feel sorry for him.. Its strange that the murdere is free within 6 months.. Relly strange.. Ithink he should be jailed for a long time at least 5 years.. If criminals are punished properly then crimes can be control easily.. Here in our country i saw many times that criminals are free soon and not punished due to lack of prove or evidense or due to power of money. This injustice cause anger disappointment in society and power to criminals.. Story shows dark part of life..
I'm not really sure whether anyone would get such a light sentence. But there are often times when people seem to be let off extremely lightly, whereas other times, a sentence seems overly harsh. The judges are not always wise!
May be.. But i think they are not dumb to take such decission but many other factors effected their decission power like political influence.. Here pressure of politicians and political parties become the reason of their wrong decissions because behind big crimes usually there are politicians and landlords and their influence did not allow judges to go against them
Absolutely. Lack of wisdom can encompass lack of judgement, but also corruption, like you're talking about.
"Everyone in the room whispered among themselves as they stared at the bloody corpse on the floor, and the seemingly psychotic man responsible for it, sitting there sipping a beer."
What a way to end the story....
Everyone wonders what's happening while Nigel sips his beer, satisfied that he committed a great act of service, preventing another murder, paradoxically with a murder...
Great
@son-of-satire provided the ending. Check out the other entries on his post, and see what you think of the others.
I did...
Also trying to provide a story too
But I like the way you recreated the ending
Dope
Wow - that was hardcore!
Though I think your character is coming from quite a different place!
There were no men called Nigel in 1971...
Maybe there were no Nigels till 1979...
he deserved it
Nigel certainly thought so!
There is no sense of compassion in the killers. Except those who are instant killers.
empathy is the process of replacing a person against himself. I never do empathy to someone who is a killer.
This exercise, to me anyway, was about distinguishing between being able to put ourselves in another shoes and feel their pain, while still not condoning their actions. In this story, Chester killed accidentally, but didn't learn from it. Nigel killed more deliberately, but he knew why he did it, we knew why he did it, and he accepted the consequences. So which of them can we respect, or maybe forgive, more? The answer to that is different for everybody.