[European Style] Praying Mantis

For the next few days this serendipitous secret haunted me like a nightmare.Once again, my mental state was the focus of everyone in the office.

"Robbie, are you really all right? I think you'd better see a doctor," Mrs. Maisel, deputy editor, advised me. "Your face is terribly pale."

In the other corner of the office, the editor-in-chief Mr. Darkry returned to his post after attending his nephew's funeral.But he seemed to have obviously lost his previous vitality, as if he had aged ten years.He propped his head on one hand, holding a yellowed photo and chatting with his colleagues around him: "Actually, Jimmy is a good boy. You see, how cute he was when he was young. If his parents hadn't divorced, he must be a character now."

"Death is the best filter. When a person dies, people around him can only think of his good points." The words of "Alan" flashed in my mind, which made my hand holding the pen uncomfortable again. trembling.

Should I report it?Will Dominic be arrested?Will he go to jail?Why did he want to kill Jimmy? ...

These questions kept running through my head and nearly hanged me.I couldn't help but send my police friend a message: "Dwayne, I accidentally discovered my friend's secret. This secret is a little special because it's illegal. Do you think I should call the police?"

Soon, he replied to my question: "Is he on drugs? What's the matter! I see guys on drugs every day. As long as they are not half dead, I don't bother to talk to them."

"He instigated suicide." I typed that, thought about it, deleted it, and retyped, "Yes. Well, I know what to do."

At this moment, my mobile phone screen suddenly changed to an incoming call status, and the caller displayed on it was "James".I hit the answer button and asked in confusion, "Hi, James. What's the matter?"

"Robby, how are you doing recently?" James' voice was very hoarse, sounding like an old man who was dying.

"OK How about you?"

"So-so," he said. "How's Nick doing?"

"He's fine." I had to lie, "We get along very well."

"Then I don't have to worry about it." James let out a hoarse laugh, as if his vocal cords had been torn.It reminds me of voices from hell.After a long silence, he suddenly said, "Listen, I..."

"I am listening."

The voice on the other end of the phone faded away for a few seconds, and I could feel James' mind in a violent struggle.Finally, he spoke slowly, and pronounced the death sentence on himself: "I went to the hospital a few days ago. I got cancer. The doctor said I have about two months to live."

"I...I'm sorry." I was caught off guard by this bad news, and I could only comfort him with words as much as possible, "Don't worry, modern medicine is developing very fast, maybe your life can be prolonged for a long time..."

"Don't comfort me, I've lived to this age, I've experienced everything. Now it's time to leave." James said slowly, "Robbie, now that you are Nick's best friend, I think I have an obligation to tell something about you."

"Okay, I'll write it down, James." I even took out a pen, intending to write down the information I learned next.

"Laura chose to take Nick out of Boston because something unfortunate happened to him," James said. Chose to entrust Nick to the care of the church."

"Nick told me about it, he was in church every day as a kid waiting to be picked up by his mum."

"Yes, but those priests, they are a bunch of bastards." James' tone became agitated, "They, they put Nick..."

A trace of unease welled up in my heart.

"They tricked Nick into a dark confessional room and molested him," James said. "I hate pedophiles the most!"

I can't describe the shock of that moment in words.I remembered Dominic's disgusted expression when he saw the priest's child molestation scandal. It turned out that he was not only a bystander, a protester, but also a victim.

"The reason I told you this is to let you try to understand him." James paused, "You know, once a person is traumatized, it may not recover for a long time. Since then, Nick's character has changed It's getting a little weird. I thought, if you guys got into an argument one day..."

"I understand, James. Don't worry, I am very tolerant." I comforted him, "Boys at this age are always impulsive, and I have experienced it too."

"Thank you, Robbie," James said in a trembling voice, "...and one more thing. I don't think I need to hide it from you any longer."

I immediately tensed up.Could it be...

"I'm Nick's biological father." James seemed to be confessing the mistakes he had made. "This is my fault. Laura is a beautiful girl. We were all drunk that day..."

I got it right.

"Does Nick know this fact?" I asked.

"...he knows," James said. "I told him myself."

It's hard to imagine how much courage it took for the father, whom his son calls "grandpa," to make this decision.

"If I didn't tell him the truth, he would have pointed the gun at his own head long ago." James said with a wry smile, "I have treated him as my friend since I was a child, so he trusts me very much. He told me, He thought he was in love with his stepfather. It was not allowed, but he couldn't control his love for him, so he could only choose to end his life, thus ending the pain. At the moment of death, he gave me I made a phone call to explain my last words."

I was too shocked to speak.

"So I can only dissuade him with my own experience." James said, "My eloquence succeeded, but Nick was also destroyed. He became more and more weird and started breeding those horrible bugs."

"I'm sorry, did I scare you, Robbie?" James asked. "I'm going to visit Laura one last time in a few days. Then I can die. Anyway, thank you for helping to take care of Nick."

After hanging up the call, I knew I would not be able to continue working for the day.I asked Mr. Dacre for leave, but he waved at me without saying a word.He looked haggard and depressed, and it seemed that the death of his nephew was a great blow to him.However, standing in front of him, I, who knew the real murderer, didn't have the courage to tell the truth anyway.In a sense, I am an accomplice who covers up the criminal!

Thinking of this, I ran out of the newspaper building without looking back.The brain that was impacted by the cruel truth has not yet recovered, and the heart that was condemned by conscience was beating wildly, so that I rampaged on the bustling streets of San Francisco, messing up the originally smooth traffic.I think I must look a lot like the "living corpse" described by Leo Tolstoy (①).

Homosexuality, pedophilia, incest...

All the clues finally formed a complete network at this moment: Due to the experience of sexual assault in his childhood and the shame of his birth, Dominic's character became weird and paranoid, so that he began to do some unbelievable things. thing.He loved his stepfather, Douglas Curley, and his student, the handsome Christian Grande.For some unknown reason, something bad happened between him and Professor Curley - I think he should have killed the latter.A year later, he repeated the same trick and poisoned Grande to death with a large amount of heroin.As for Jimmy, I haven't thought about the connection between them, maybe when I tell the police all this, the truth will come out...

I think of the first day when I came to the office, the editor-in-chief Mr. Dacrey who was sitting in the corner introduced me enthusiastically in front of everyone, and offered me a cup of coffee at lunch; The hearty smile and the strong hand on my shoulder resolved all the anxiety in my heart; I remembered that I got into trouble last year because I emphasized the authenticity of the report, and Mr. Dacre took the initiative to solve all the problems for me...

He is a good boss who cares about his subordinates, and an old gentleman who is careful with his friends.Even though he called my reporting on Dominic a gay novel, he still deserves to be respected by everyone and to live happily ever after with his family, avoiding suffering.

But this beautiful wish was severely broken.

I knew I had to make the most important decision of my life, and I had literally written the result in my mind: I had to call the police.

Right now, there's only one thing I'm missing: evidence.

I have to go back to Curley's and get that SIM back!

The author has something to say:

① "Living Corpse": a play written by Leo Tolstoy.Through the plot of the protagonist Fedya Protasov and his wife Lisa's life tragedy caused by a marriage change, it shows the sad reality that an essentially excellent Russian is destroyed by the dark society and finally becomes a useless "living corpse".