Hands, Feet, and Daffodils

This is a short story I wrote about a year ago. The link can be found to the right under "short stories" and will always be up.

Hands, Feet, and Daffodils

The thought had occurred to me precisely one week ago today. The date, as it so happened to be, was Friday, June 13th, 1888. My wife, though she knew not, was the one to instill the first glimmer of such a thought upon my mind.
We were sitting upon our vast gardens in front of our manor in a section we refer to as our Rose Garden, and she, looking as radiant as ever, looked up upon our mansion, which, as fortune had struck upon us, stood four glorious stories high. She examined the architectural beauty for quite some time before I pressed her as to her thoughts. She smiled, a lovely smile that I believed my wife was the only person capable of, and asked me in her sweetest voice if she thought our estate was more than we needed as two people. She went on to ask what we needed such a large manor for, and why we needed to flaunt our own power and fortune.
I sat in a trance, unsure how to respond to such a query. As I sat, I thought of her words, but I saw them quite differently than she. For what I saw within her words was one word, the word of ‘power’, and that was when the thought had first come to me. I was, in that moment in time, indeed powerful, and I had just the idea to prove it, if not only to myself.
My intention was simple, I would kill a man; commit the most violent of acts. In that small act, I would prove my true power in taking another’s life, a life that, as it would show, I value lesser than that of my own. But I am sure you ask, sir, or madam, or whomever has the decided misfortune of currently reading my memoir, how, exactly would a cowardly act such as murder show my true power? But I answer, the true beauty within the act would be the part that showed truly how powerful I was, in the simple, yet wonderful fact that I would truly get away with it.
Each night the thought consumed me. I would watch my wife sleep, watch the rise and fall of her chest beneath our bedding, and I would dwell upon the thought of how I would commit such an act. To kill, the action had to be most perfect; the victim chosen specifically for the task at hand. I watched my wife, with such vigorous hate, such terrible loathing, yet I loved her for numerous other reasons: for one, she had given me the thought to kill, to take the life of someone innocent, and show my power by getting away with the act of murder.
The thought stayed with me and I laid awake at night for one, two, three, for six total nights I laid awake devising my plan filled with hate and love and worst of all, insomnia. Then, upon the sixth night, I knew I had all the tools to set my plan into motion, and just as God had rested upon that seventh day, just as he had finished completing the creation of the universe, I, upon the seventh day, would have my plan in full order, and I would prove to the world my powers, just as God had done, and I would do it on the seventh day.
The seventh day was upon me. I woke early and exited my estate as if I was on a mission, yet no one, not the maids, nor the butler, nor lest of all, my wife, had any inkling of what I was about to accomplish. The garden boy, I do not remember his name for it was never important to me, was to be a major player if my plan were to succeed, and I knew he would be arriving for his work for the day early, and thus, that is why I exited the mansion as early as possible, leaving my wife behind to sleep.
I went into the barn; there I would wait for our garden boy. He would undoubtedly enter the premise upon his arrival, and I would be there, lurking, awaiting him. I did not have to wait long to be satisfied; within moments the garden boy arrived and my most clever plan sprang into action.
I leapt out from behind the door as he entered, as stealthily as a cheetah. He scarcely noticed me before I snatched his head, pulling back hard upon him, exposing his young neck, and with his own cleaver I slit his throat. It was quicker than I had thought. His body instantly became lifeless as he collapsed upon the sandy floor of the barn.
I quickly closed the doors behind me in effort to hide my criminal, yet brilliant, act of murder. Then, unbeknown to me, for reasons to this day I cannot fully explain, I cut off the young man’s, the garden boy’s, hands and feet. I dragged his remaining torso behind the barn where I buried it quickly, in hopes it should never be found, then I shuffled the dirt floor about within the barn, covering the blood stains left behind with additional soil, until finally, it was covered to the max, and the evidence of blood would never be seen again.
Lastly, I took the hands and feet, and I buried them along the four corners of the vast gardens in front of my manor. My intention was simple, the garden boy had spent many years in his young life caring for my gardens, and thus, I felt, even within his death, he would still be able to care for the gardens, however, instead of tending to them on a daily basis, he would instead become the ultimate fertilizer, and so that is what I did.
I buried one hand just below my wife and I’s bedroom balcony, just near enough the daffodils that my wife enjoyed so much. The other hand I buried near the other side of the manor, near the rose garden, the very garden in which my wife and I had been on that fateful day when she put the idea of murder into my mind. The feet, I buried near the front of the entire estate, towards our gate and stone wall. Each would serve, not only as a reminder of what I had accomplished, with such ease I might add, but also, as I said, to become the ultimate fertilizer. Even in his death, the garden boy had value.
The next day my wife rose before I. I, however, heard her rise as she walked towards the very balcony that looked down upon the gardens and the daffodils. I rose onto one arm within my quarters and looked at her as she looked out upon our gardens. Now, the time had come for me to cover my own tracks, for she would undoubtedly notice the absence of the garden boy, so I asked her simply, “Have you seen the garden boy? I need a word with him?”
She turned to look at me, a look of true evil within her eyes. The look surprised me; I feared she had known, but then, her voice was just as sweet as ever, “What do you need with our garden boy? You have never spoken two words to him since his employment upon the grounds.”
“I,” I began calmly, “assure you, it is a matter of the daffodils - they are looking sickly, and I hope to have him thrust more attention upon them.”
I had said the first thing that came to my mind, for the burial of his hand near the daffodils was still at the forefront of my thoughts. My wife, however, did not seem convinced, instead she turned her back upon me and looked down, presumably at the very daffodils in which I spoke. Her voice was calm as she looked down upon the gardens, “I do not see anything wrong with our beautiful daffodils.”
I did not think, but I reacted. I rose quickly from my bed and sprinted towards her. She suspected nothing for she was still looking down upon the grounds. I grabbed her, one ankle in each hand, and dumped her body over the fourth story balcony. The sound of her body hitting the hard soil below caused me to know that she too now found herself lifeless. I stood, rooted to the spot briefly and looked upon her fallen body. Indeed, she appeared lifeless. I quickly sprang into action.
I ran down the stairs in search of the first person I could find, a butler or a maid, and I was not disappointed in quickly finding our butler. I hastily told him what had just occurred, and he quickly ran to my fallen wife’s aid.
It wasn’t long after that the police arrived at my manor. They began asking me questions, and I played it cool, answering them calmly, yet not too calmly, for I was to play the part of the grieving husband. I conveyed to them that we were talking about the daffodils when she leaned over the balcony to get a better look, and she slipped and fell, to what appeared to be her death.
The officers continued to question me, and I, as cool and collected as I could, given the circumstances, continued to answer each query posed to me. After a great while, they seemed to finally have been satisfied with my demeanor. They made to clean up the body, at which time, they all, in turn, consoled me for my loss, offering their deepest sympathy.
I was inching ever closer to not only getting away with the murder of the garden boy, but as an added bonus, I also had found myself blessed by killing my wife. All was falling into place; my power, even if only to myself, was nearing confirmation.
The daffodils, however, did not provide me with cover for my story. One of the officers noticed it first. The soil was disturbed near the daffodils. He asked if I minded if he were to dig at that very spot, to see why the disturbance was present. In my haste to cooperate with the authorities I ran and got him a spade so he could dig up whatever treasures lay under the disturbed soil.
As he dug, I knew what he would find, the hand, which I had buried there just the previous day – the hand of the garden boy. It wasn’t long that they found the other hand and the two feet. It took them quite a bit longer to find the rest of his body and head, but soon, they had all the garden boy’s pieces in place.
Not long after their stark discovery, I was arrested as the prime suspect; the only suspect. The story the authorities concocted to explain what had occurred was simple, they said my wife was having an affair with the garden boy, and that was why I had felt the burning desire to murder them both. It was a good theory, but quite incorrect. The truth of the matter, as it happened to be, was much simpler than that.
The truth is, and I believe that you, sir or madam, would readily agree, that I am, and forever will remain, quite mad.