Duel

Because of life tormenting me beyond tolerable limits, I called for a duel in the front of the surging crowd in the square. Then, he looked at me directly in the eyes and said mockingly “what made a cowardly person like you, dare to throw down the gauntlet at me?” and turned back. I called for his attention, and when he looked back, I affronted him by lightly slapping his cheek and said “I ask you to accept my formal request for a duel.” He told me to set the date and the place, and select the weapon; I told him without hesitation “a gun and the foot of the mountain on the night of a full moon.” Accepting my proposal he said “who will be the witness?” “How about the light cloud passing by, though fog may be too dense, and therefore obstruct vision, haziness would appeal to the sentiment of one of us who may fall,” “and it’s better, if there’s a brook nearby, because we can hear the murmuring water that may soothe the flaming hatred; the shackle of our predestined evil-bond.” Near the brook, by the mountain foot, we stood, holding guns in hand, face to face. Listening to the rippling water to reaffirm our unfortunate affinity, under the moonbeam calm and indifferent. When the light cloud shaded the moonbeam we turned our back and proceeded five steps each stepping on the heap of fallen leaves, and as the cloud cleared my shadow and his shadow turned again to face to face. Our outstretched arms at gunpoint were aiming at each others' heart. Life told me “fire first,” I pulled the trigger but missed target; the empty echo came back to me after it turned around the hillside stepping on the drifting leaves. Then, life pulled the trigger; the bullet pierced my heart and hit the moon, the fragments of the shuttered moon fell by my feet, and drifted on the flowing water dyed red with the stream of blood gushed out from my heart.