This is a little flash fiction piece I wrote as an exercise to help develop my characters voice in narration. I'm trying to maintain a distinct voice while at the same time covering a broad range of emotions. Lemme know what you think
I was listening to "Sleep Now in a Fire" by RATM, so that's where the title comes from.
I’d just finished making the sketch of my brother’s killer and boy, you have no idea how badly I wanted to tear that piece of paper to shreds. But I didn’t. No, I just sat there for a minute, staring at it. It was like my mind was a camera and the image of that bastard’s face was the film. As I studied every detail, every wrinkle, scar and ingrown hair on that asshole’s face; I gradually came to realize what it was I was meant to do. I finally figured out why I had lied to the cops, why I told them I never saw the guy who killed my little brother when I knew all along that I did.
It wasn’t for revenge. I don’t care what the fuck you say. It’s not for revenge, it’s for justice, justice which my little bro would never receive if I didn’t do something about it. You see if the police caught the guy and arrested him, he’d go to court and get convicted. And even though they know he killed a little kid, the asshole judges would’ve definitely given him a light sentence. Twenty five to life, fifteen with parole or some bullshit like that. Shorty’s get killed every day for no reason all over this sick fuckin country of ours, but nobody gives a shit. They only care if they’re White or rich. You’ll never see a missing Mexican girl on the Nightly News. And all the fuckin school shootings that go on in the black neighborhoods barely make it into the local papers. I mean there’s guys’ doing life sentences for drug charges for fuck’s sake! A kilo of cocaine or a trunk full of kush is worth more than some Black kid’s life apparently. It makes me wanna throw up just thinkin about it.
And this is my little brother we’re talking about, he deserved better than that. He wasn’t like me; he wasn’t like any of the losers from our hood, groomed for failure. My bro was the only good part of me. He was gonna get out of that fuckin neighborhood, move far away from that house and be somebody the world would recognize. He was gonna cure AIDS or become the first black president or something. But now he’s gone, dead at twelve years old. Murdered before he even realized his own potential. He didn’t even get his first real kiss for god sake. No one should die that soon.
As I stared at that piece of paper I saw my bro’s name fading away, becoming just a number on a piece of paper, a statistic, another youth lost to inner-city violence. But I wouldn’t let him be forgotten. I was gonna find the son of a bitch whose face was on that piece of paper. I was gonna remind him of the life he destroyed, I’d whisper the name into his dying ear so it would echo forever into oblivion. I’d kill him the same way he killed Josh. I’d kill him with a knife only this time it’d be a thousand times more brutal. I wasn’t just gonna slice his throat, I was gonna take his fuckin head off. I’d saw through the meat of his neck with dullest knife I could find and I’d make sure the bastard was alive long enough to feel every second of it. He’d survive long enough to hear the sound of my serrated blade sawing through his neck bone. “His name was Josh Gideon,” I’d scream into his ear as I neared his spinal cord, “JOSHUA…ELIJAH…GIDEON!!!” He will know his name even if I had to scream it til my voice was gone.
