He can feel himself drowning and the man pressing down on his throat, forcing his head below the bathwater, isn’t helping. At first he thrashes and it takes a moment for his brain to throw the reins over wild instinct. He can see the warping face of the man who is murdering him through the lens of the upset waters and the electric halo of the bathroom light behind and above him. While the assailant has been wise enough to hold him by the throat with one hand, and beat him around the head with the other, he has left his, the One That Is Being Murdered, hands free.
He’s already wasted a precious minute flailing and fruitlessly grasping at the hand around his neck, as well as trying to bat away the punches that come flying from on high through the waterline to pound the side of his skull. Against all judgement, he forces his arms to collapse into the water and rest a moment while he thinks. It’s hard to think when you’re swallowing water because you have no breath left and because there is a large man crushing your throat. But as the darkness avails him of consciousness his arms fly from the water.
By sheer surprise, he latches onto the man's hair and face and yanks. A small release as the murder tilts, leaves of his throat a moment, and then he is up. Blinking, gasping and throwing all his weight up, then down, as he wraps his arms around the murder’s neck. He feels something sharp, a broken tile maybe, clatter against the side of his jaw as the strangled assailant grabs the nearest thing and launches it at him. He heaves and they go spinning across the bathroom floor with a wet squeak.
He turns out on top, the murder’s neck in the crook of his arm, his other hand holding the other man’s arm up behind his back. There is a great deal of grunting and spittle flying from behind clenched teeth. He has a mind to drown the murder in the toilet. Seems justified. But that’s a slow death and one that’s just as apt to turn on him, just as he turned on his murderer. So he smashes his head down on the rim of the toilet, again, a third time; until the porcelain cracks and its dust settles on the pooling blood of the still murderer. Though he supposes he is the murderer now and he has learned a lesson from his predecessor; don’t drown what you can crush.
Paddy Dobson
21st January 2021