Fall down, I killed you

Русский вариант - http://proza.ru/2016/05/21/2175

“Is it possible to forgive an enemy?
- God will forgive! Our task is to organize their meeting..."
Al Capone

That winter there was a lot of snow and we kids spent more time outside than at home. Our yard is located among four five-story buildings. I was 12 years old at the time, and my friend Otto was the same age. We were both in love with the girl from my building, but we didn’t show it to each other, let alone suddenly trust our feelings. Her name was Gerda, she lived on the fifth floor, I lived on the third. For some reason I was sure that she liked me too, just me, and not Otto.

We built two walls out of snow, like two fortresses, and threw snowballs at each other, hiding behind the snow fences. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gerda’s friend enter our entrance. This means that they will also go out into the street and I will probably see Gerda now, perhaps they will stop and watch our battle. I wonder which of us Gerda will root for? Whose side is she on, is it really Otto?

They actually came out and approached us. Gerda turned to me:
- Felix, won’t you take us to play in the snow?
- You can, then you will be white, behind this wall, and we are black, okay?

And we began to prepare for battle - making and stacking snowballs - the girls for their wall, we for ours. Finally it started. The conditions were as follows: only the one who got hit in the face by a snowball was considered killed.

I hit Gerda in the face and shouted:
- Fall, I killed you!
But she did not fall, but answered:
- I can’t, there’s dog shit here!
Otto shouted:
- Then you are wounded, run back to that tree and fall!
Gerda ran to the tree and stood there.
- Well, why don’t you fall? I killed you?!
- I can’t, it’s dirty here too!
From above, from the open window, the voice of Gerda’s mother sounded:
- Gerda, go home.

It was already getting dark, we all had to go, do homework, study homework. Gerda entered our entrance, her friend left the yard, and Otto and I decided to play some more - until we were called.

After Gerda entered the entrance, literally a minute later, a seventeen-year-old guy who lived on the first floor jumped out. He was covered in blood, held a knife and, spreading his arms, began running around the yard and shouting:
- I am an eagle, I am an eagle, I have a sharp beak and claws, I am a predator!!!

For ten years now, Gerda has been gone... With her death, Otto and I suddenly somehow immediately matured, changed, became serious, and began to look at everything with different eyes. We began to spend more time in solitude and began to study better. Both were transferred from school to gymnasium. No longer embarrassed by each other, we admitted that we were both in love with Gerda. Later, at university, we noticed that we both liked girls who looked like Gerda.

And now about Gerda's killer. He was the only child born to parents who were over forty. Before that, they didn’t have children, they came to terms with it, but suddenly their son Mike was born... There is an expression: “if it has arrived somewhere, it means somewhere has left.” So it is in this case. Mike was big for his age, but at the age of ten his development stopped and by that time none of the children played with him. Mike lived in his own world - Mike's world.

He was huge, well-fed, tall, and then he was already perceived as an adult man, but not as a teenager. His oddities were especially dangerous and began in early childhood. Only his parents could control him as a child, but they did not always succeed. Although “behind his back” everyone called him a “vegetable” and passed him by.  He considered himself an eagle and considered knives and sharp objects - screwdrivers, awls, stolen from his father - to be claws and beaks.

The “Eagle” flew out to hunt, its prey being birds, cats, and dogs. He cut them, sometimes in front of their owners, but their complaints remained unanswered - Michael was not placed anywhere for treatment, nor was he isolated from society as dangerous, for fear of infringing on the teenager’s freedom and aggravating his mental trauma.

He also had other oddities - he unscrewed light bulbs on the first floor, hid on the stairs going to the basement and scared people coming and going. Several times he suffered from the husbands of frightened women, but this did not stop Mike, and he continued to be an “eagle”. Until he killed Gerda...

The court sent him for compulsory treatment to a vegetable store. Mike's parents, previously quiet and uncommunicative people, after the incident generally tried not to catch anyone's attention, closed themselves off and lived their own lives. They were almost invisible, they were alone in their solitude.

Ten years later, some psychiatrist decided that Mike had been cured, was no longer dangerous, and he was released from a closed hospital. The people who witnessed the tragedy still lived in the entrance. The parents of the murdered girl lived there, and only we, the children, grew up, and the rest aged ten years, but their children, born then, became the same age as Gerda.

Anxiety and fear gripped everyone - an animal fear that they had already gotten used to and decided that the horror under the name Mike would not visit them again. He appeared, thinner and hunched over, but still mad and not cured. Residents began to be afraid to appear alone, leaving and entering the entrance in twos or threes, often in their hands there were bats, knives, clubs - in general, everything that anyone could get their hands on with a weapon. People put peepholes into all the doors. But the residents were still afraid of Mike - they stayed at home, did not go out and did not open the doors unless absolutely necessary.

We have all repeatedly contacted the police and other authorities, convincing them that life has become dangerous, we are afraid of a neighbor who is a murderer. However, this did not bring any results. They told us that he is not dangerous. Officials were again afraid to infringe on Mike's freedom.

One day Mike’s mother stopped me, apparently on purpose, and said:
- Felix, you’re a journalist, can’t you really help us all? I would write an article about everything. It's Russian roulette - waiting for an incident with Mike. We, his parents, are afraid of him ourselves. The table knife disappeared, he again unscrews the light bulbs on our floor, as he did then, and began to scare people coming and going from the entrance. We were categorically against him being released from the clinic. Help, Felix!

“Frau Zimmer,” I answered. - We have already appealed to all authorities, but to no avail. Looks like we'll have to wait until there's a lot of bloodshed again. I just graduated from university, I’m looking for a job, I want to immediately move from my parents to another apartment and live on my own, but how? I'm afraid to leave them here to the mercy of fate and chance.

It didn't take long to wait for blood. On Saturday at lunchtime, a heartbreaking cry of a cat was heard in the entrance, followed by Mike's cry of glee. We all ran out into the entrance. On our third floor landing, a cat was lying in a pool of blood, which had previously quietly left some apartment when the owners were letting in the guests. Now she was dead, a bloody Mike was running through the floors with a knife in his outstretched hands and shouting: “I am an eagle! I'm a predator!

Patience ran out... The next day, Sunday, Otto and I waylaid Mike standing with a knife on the stairs to the basement. He was again going to scare those entering the entrance. The light bulb was unscrewed. Otto and I spread our arms and said to Mike:
- Hello. We have turned into eagles here, the main eagle is missing to teach us how to truly fly. You can do it! Be our main eagle?!
Mike immediately agreed and pointed to the seat next to him.
Mike, you need to not scare, but really fly. Let's go to the fifth floor, from there you can take off well and soar over the city for real.
We went up to the fifth floor and asked him to open the window on the staircase. He did it.
- Now show us how to fly! You can do it, right?! You are an eagle!!! The main eagle, big, strong, real!!!
He stood on the windowsill and suddenly turned around and addressed us:
- So I can crash...

In his face I saw doubt, fear. Apparently, this “vegetable” may be thinking something else in his head. Seeing his doubts and feeling that he might change his mind, I immediately jumped up to him and pushed him as hard as I could:
Fall down, I killed you...

When the police, the ambulance and then the corpse truck arrived, we, the neighbors, were all standing nearby and silent, each thinking with relief: “That’s it...”
Gerda's father came up to us and stood between us. The man said quietly:
- Thanks guys...
We looked at each other - how could he find out? Well, yes, he lives on the fifth...

The police announced Mike's cause of death as suicide. The neighbors, not without joy, began to talk about him: “The eagle flew away.”
A week after the incident, Otto and I visited Gerda’s grave, put flowers in a vase and said:
- Gerda, he fell, we killed him...

2016