Laconic

He looked me in the eyes and said "don't fill the hours of your life with empty words." I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that, and since he eventually came to what we would call a 'sticky' end, I wasn't sure how much of his words were to be trusted. And by sticky end, I mean someone stabbed him to death. I don't think it was the end that he had envisioned for himself, but then again who predicts the exact way they will die? It wasn't fair how he died, after all he wasn't some raging lunatic on the street corner proclaiming his love of Jesus, and telling the rest of us that we were destined to burn in hell. No, he was just there. He wasn't trying to save the world, in fact, I am pretty sure he hated most of the world and in particular the people in it. 

He wasn't the sunshine that makes all your problems go away, nor was he the dark cloud that followed the unlucky among us around. He was just who he was, not someone you'd trust with your sister, but someone you could count on to be there. And being there was just something he did. There is a lot to be said for just being there. There, wherever it might be, is just there, it can be Ten Sleep, Wyoming, or New York City, it didn't matter to him. If you needed him there, well there he was. He could be counted on to be there for you, he was just at hand. The breakdown you were in the middle of having? He would be there to sort you out, and make sure no one died. Or at least if they did, he kept the news from you until you were able to process it without being put in a mental institution.

The blade that killed him was just that a blade. It had no particular grudge against him, it was made in Sheffield by some craftsman who had no idea that he was fashioning a murder weapon. Knives have many uses, killing people is just one of those uses. It went between his ribs as smooth as goose shit on glass, and I am not really sure how much pain he actually felt. It wasn't the quickest of deaths, it took him a while to leak all his lifeblood out onto the pavement he landed on, but it wasn't as gruesome as it could have been if the knife wielder had put some thought into it.  

They (whoever they are) say that the last argument of kings are cannons. His last argument, one that he lost, was with a blade. It was odd in a way, because he wasn't the arguing type. His advice about not filling the hours with empty words wasn't just advice, it was the way he lived his life, and eventually died his death. He was unapproachable, or so people said. If you were to ask him, he would just say he was just sitting there minding his own business. Which, if you've ever spent a lot of time minding your own business, you will find that a lot of trouble comes you way in that minding.

The sun browned girl that walked into the bar didn't attract nearly as much as attention as she thought was her due, but I suppose that ended up working in her favor. She just walked in, and put a knife between is ribs, and walked out like it was just another a Tuesday. We weren't paying that much attention to him and her, because women had a way of finding him. It was a mystery to us as to how he managed to "pull" so many very, very pretty women. He wasn't exactly ugly, but he was no Brad Pitt, nor did we think he was a Shakespeare, since he was man of very, very few words. 

She just walked up to him, appeared to whisper something in his ear, and put a knife between his ribs. Those of us at the bar were more impressed at her hotness than anything else. We were very confused what she was doing talking to him, and by the time we had sorted it out, he was bleeding out on the floor. I was the closest to him, and after the shock of what I was seeing wore off, I rushed to try to help. I tried to staunch the blood pouring out of him, and convince him that "help was on the way, and that he would be fine" Even as I was telling him these lies, he didn't say much, he just looked up at me spat out a bit of blood, and said very calmly, "remember lad be laconic." Then the light went out of his eyes and he was as dead as dead can be.   

I wish there was a happy ending to this, some way of making his death mean something, but it didn't. It was just his death. Maybe it was senseless or maybe she had a very, very good reason for making him unalive like she did, we never knew, because they never caught her. She was a ghost, a spirit in the material world, but a spirit that knew how to use a blade to deadly effect. I suppose none of this mattered to him, he wasn't able or didn't want to spend his last moments on this mortal coil explaining the whys of his murder, all the knowledge he was willing to impart was "be laconic." I hope to follow his advice.