The Laws of Delicious Murder
Short story by Abdel Latif Moubarak Egyptian writer
I woke up to find my name written in the newspaper… Right beneath the main headline, in bold and cold print, were the details of a murder that hadn’t happened yet, or perhaps happened in another world where I was the absent one.
The silence in the apartment pressed against my chest like a wet woolen blanket on a sullen winter night. A faint light slipped through the cracks of the curtains, embracing the fluttering dust of the room like wandering souls searching for bodies. I rubbed my eyes repeatedly, like one hoping the nightmare would dissipate, but the paper was real, its wet ink still staining the tips of my frozen fingers. My name… “Salim Al-Ezzi”… paired with a heinous accusation: “The unknown killer who snatched the soul of the famous writer Raafat Al-Attar at the exact stroke of midnight.”
I gazed at the wall clock hanging in front of me; its hands were moving at a terrifyingly slow pace, pointing to eleven-thirty at night. Half an hour separated me from the time specified in the newspaper. Am I facing a crazy journalistic prophecy? Or am I the protagonist of a poor novel written by a sick mind and left at my doorstep?
I lifted the newspaper with trembling hands and began to read the minute details that made my hair stand on end. It wasn’t just a regular news report, but a recipe for cooking a crime, or what the late writer called in his last article “The Laws of Delicious Murder.” I suddenly remembered that controversial article published by Raafat a few weeks earlier, in which he spoke of the elevation of crime to the status of fine arts; where killing is not merely taking a life, but a luxurious tasting of the harmony of nerves and the silence of the last breaths, just as connoisseurs enjoy a carefully prepared gourmet dish.
”Delicious murder does not recognize randomness; it is based on sacred rituals,” one of Raafat’s famous sayings echoed in my ears as an annoying echo.
I found myself drawn toward the closet, where memory keeps the keys to Raafat’s apartment. He is my old friend, or rather my mentor who taught me the arts of storytelling and mystery. How could I be his killer? I who have never killed a single ant!
I went out into the street like someone walking in a viscous dream. The night air carried the scent of cold dew and the sleepy breath of the city. The gray cement buildings looked like towering tombs. Cars didn’t feel the movement, nor pedestrians the time. Only my footsteps broke the silence of the street, every step bringing me closer to Raafat’s apartment in the upscale neighborhood.
I reached the heavy wooden door. It was tightly locked, but the key in my coat pocket opened the lock with a strange smoothness, as if the door was waiting for me with a devastating desire. I entered, and the darkness was pitch black, swallowing the details of the large living room. The small screen of my mobile phone lit up to reveal a strange and horrifying scene.
Raafat was sitting on his plush leather armchair, and in front of him was a wooden table with a glass of dark red wine, an open notebook, and a fountain pen. But what stopped my breath was the sharp kitchen knife planted with supreme skill in the middle of his chest, exactly as the newspaper had described. There wasn’t much blood, and the scene looked more like a surrealist painting.
I stepped forward with hesitant steps, as if I feared breaking the air of the place. I stood before him and looked into his open eyes, filled with a strange look; it was not a look of terror, but of satisfaction and obscure defiance.
A faint sound coming from the corner of the room made me start in terror:
— You’re late, Salim. I thought you would arrive exactly five minutes before midnight.
I turned around in fright and saw a person standing in the darkness next to the bookcase. As he stepped forward into the light of the screen, I made out his features. It was… Me!
Yes, a second copy of myself, smiling coldly, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt.
— Who… who are you? And how…? — I mumbled in a faint, almost vanishing voice.
The other clone answered me in a calm voice, the calm of death itself:
— I am nothing but the side you have always denied, Salim. The side that believes writing alone is not enough to create immortality. Raafat wanted to write the greatest crime in the history of literature, but he didn’t have the courage to carry it out himself. We agreed weeks ago… he writes the law, and I execute the sacrifice. The newspaper wasn’t a prophecy, but the death contract we signed together with the ink of blind passion.
I stood rigid like a stone in a statue. Vague memories began to sneak into my mind: images of long nights spent together discussing the details of this moment, how we would choose the knife, and how we would write the crime in the newspapers before it happened to leave the world an eternal, unsolvable mystery. I had forgotten! Yes, my conscious mind had erased these details to escape their true weight.
I looked at my hands and found faint traces of blood on them. I turned again to the armchair and saw Raafat’s fountain pen still pulsing with ink on the open paper.
The other clone approached me, placed his cold hand on my shoulder, and whispered in my ear like someone casting a secret spell:
— Now that you have tasted the law in all its details, it is no longer possible for you to return to the old Salim. You must write the final chapter of the newspaper… The chapter that tells the world how the killer escapes into eternal texts.
The phone screen suddenly went dark, leaving me alone in the room with the echo of my voice and Raafat’s voice, while the clock hands ticked, announcing the beginning of midnight and the start of a new chapter of the laws of delicious murder.
