surely he must have known that one day this would all come crashing down around his ears? he got greedy.
at the start it was "just copy enough to get promoted", then promotion came "i'll just find my feet with a few well thought out zingers and some clever musings, no one needs to know and i can stop any time i want to." then promotion went. slowly the ctrl+c consumed him, slowly it turned him from sentient being to mindless word regurgitater, from advanced human to cheap mimicking parrot.
his wife would pick up the kids from day care and return home after both her shifts at both her jobs, rossi would still be where she left him, sat at the desk in a pile of his own filth, scouring page after page of redcafe. he hadn't slept for days, suddenly theafonis seemed to make sense, he was some kind of football emissary, sent from the future to show us the true path of football foruming. "fecking clarkie is having that one, boyo." he shouted to himself before agreeing with himself. his wife sighed from the kitchen and carried on with making the tea, "beans on toast again
" she thought silently to herself, this wasn't how it was supposed to be, she forced a smile for her two sweet girls and went back to her mindless stirring.
she'd leave him in a heartbeat if it wasn't from the kids, she came from a broken home, she couldn't put them through it all. she was dead behind the eyes though, he'd taken the spark from her, she was a shred of the woman she'd grown to be. he was supposed to support her as she got her acting career off the ground, she'd work part time and look after the children and then be the leading star on broadway at night as her loving family looked on. that was a long time ago now. serving fastfood and table waiting was a long way from the bright lights of soho. it wasn't meant to be like this.
"is daddy joining us, mummy?"
"no, he's busy working again."
a faint shout of "ho-ho, fecking clarkie has struck gold again, boyo!" crept into the kitchen.
"is clarkie the man making daddy do this, mummy?"
"i don't know any more, eat your beans."
"why do we always have beans and toast, mummy?, i went to sarah's house the other day and they had so much nice food. they all had nicer clothes too and her daddy came home from working abroad and brought a toy home from her before giving her an big kiss and cuddle and saying sorry for missing her dance recital but promising to be at the next one. it wasn't even her birthday and she didn't have to share it with jade, she just got it. why doesn't daddy kiss or cuddle me any more, mummy?"
"eat your beans, my sweet."
after they were done she made sure they brushed their teeth, bathed them, tucked them into bed, kissed both their foreheads and returned to her room, marking another day off the calendar, looking hard at the gun in her bedside table, before drifting off to sleep to the muffled cries of "clarkie, clarkie, we need to have that one, mate," seeping through the floor.
she came down the next morning and he was gone. she approached the desk to find the computer still displaying redcafe, how she hatd the sight of that site. the old monitor hummed as it normally did, the empty bags of crisps and onion skins littered the surface. she glanced at the grimy keyboard and noticed the ctrl, c and v keys missing. she looked on, puzzled and perplexed, "where has he gone and why are those keys missing?" her train of thought was broken by the sound of scurrying and a large shadow disappearing behind the sofa.
this would have shat her up at one point, but now the thought of a hell hound ripping her and her children to shreds was a peaceful one, it'd be an end to all their misery. she pulled the sofa back to find the adonis she once married shoving the grubby, missing keys in and out of his mouth and gurning at her, before letting or what could only be described as a sort of laugh and scurrying off on all fours to the back door and into the garden.
enough was enough, this could go on no longer. she picked up the phone, dialled 999 and reported a mad man in her house who's trying to hurt her and her children. she let out a blood curdling cry before hanging up. the sound of sirens was just minutes away, four cars and a van swept up the driveway as a startled rossi scampered up the nearest tree, hiding his special keys in his special hole.
the police burst into the house, clearing every room as they went, "everybody freeze! don't nobody move!" but each room was empty, they split and made their way upstairs and into the garden.
"chief, we've got something in the tree out here, we think it's he perp, come and take a look."
"just a minute, lewkowsky, i've got one more room to check."
as he opened the door nothing could prepare him from the sight of two pretty little girls and their mother laying in a pool of blood on the bed, the mothers eye's glistened more than they had done for seemingly a lifetime as the gun rested silently in her hand. "we've got an 1156, we're going to need an ambulance but i think it's too late." it was, they were already in a better place.
"nah you can't take only me, fecking clarkie is here too, get that fecker."
but yeah, he's hurting no one.