A Binary Choice

A Film Noir Text
By Christoffer Helgesen
Inspired by: The Max Payne Games

Chapter one: A binary choice
There I stood. Holding a gun in one hand, and a life in the other. The bullet was trembling in its dark nest. Whispering to me from inside the chamber, praying to set it free. One more shot, one more kill, and then it was over. They were all dead. This final gunshot was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. Firing a gun is a binary choice. Either you pull the trigger or you don’t. As surely as the bullet rips through the victim’s flesh, organ and bone, it shatters the image of the man who pulls the trigger. My image was already torn apart, pulverized. I pulled the trigger. It was over. The source of all my miseries was dead. John Doe was gone, but so was my wife and baby girl. No amount of bullets fired would ever change that. I fell to the ground and dreamt about one week ago. When the American dream still hadn’t turned into a nightmare…

Chapter two: That old familiar feeling
It was a Sunday morning. I woke up to sunlight that had forced its way through the dark skies. Turned around to see my wife’s face, one look at the beauty, before meeting all the cruelty the world has to offer. Sometimes I got afraid of waking up from my life. Could I really be this lucky? Could life be this perfect? I kissed my baby girl awake. It was Memorial Day, and we were going to visit my father’s grave. He was a war hero from World War 2. Guess that’s how I ended up at the NYPD. My wife was holding our baby girl as we drove to the graveyard. I looked at her, I couldn’t stop smiling. It started to rain. Looked like the dark skies had won after all. Suddenly out of nowhere. A car drove past us; they were being followed by blinking lights and the sound of sirens. I felt the rise of that old familiar feeling. I hated it. I welcomed it.

Chapter three: A cold day in hell
Suddenly a man took a shotgun out of the window and started shooting randomly around. Guess he thought our car would work as a good roadblock against the police. I drove in the back of their car, hoping that the driver would lose control. The speed had turned deadly. They shot at the police car; guess they must have hit them, the sirens was fading away behind us. The mobster hit our tire, the car flipped around. After the third flip it all went black. I could hear another car crash. Maybe the mobsters had lost focus? Throw the rules out the window, odds are you’ll go that way too. I woke up and didn’t like the way the show started. But I had the best seat. Front row. My wife was dead, my baby girl was fighting to breathe. Fighting to stay alive. I took her in my bloody arms, and held her tight. I said everything was going to be alright. I didn’t know who I was trying to fool. I prayed to God so he would wake me up, that did not happen. My life had turned into a nightmare, which I couldn’t wake up from. The desperate breathing from my girl faded along together with my hope…

Chapter four: A rise of hatred
I carefully put my dead baby on the floor, and then forced the wrecked door open. I left my dead family, and with them I left my heart and mercy. I didn’t deserve to walk away. I hated God for letting me live. The mobster was screaming out of pain. I felt obligated to put them out of their suffering. I had my Desert Eagle on me, I hadn’t fired it for a long time now. Something told me, that was about to change. My vision was blurry, but the screams of pain worked as a good beacon. They had driven into a tree. The driver had rocketed out of the front window and lied in a pool of blood. He could barely breathe, was in shock. Guess I didn’t make thing any better by putting three bullets in his head. The shooter was still alive. I smashed the window and dragged him out. Started asking routine questions:” Why did you run from the police? Why did you shoot!? Who are you?” All I saw in his eyes was two black holes. It was nothing there, no regrets, no remorse. Just a cold indifference. He was high on some kind of drug, and was mumbling about some fallen angels. I was never going to get anything out of him. He was in no use for me; I killed him with my bare hands. Hit him hard in the face, repeatedly. When it started getting mushy I stopped. Like always, the dead had all the answers I was missing. It wasn’t that they weren’t eager to talk; quite the contrary, the dead had plenty to say and once they started, they would never shut up.

Chapter five: Nothing to lose
Both of them had a tattoo on their neck. It was a picture of the drug “Valkyr”. This picture was tagged all over the city. The
drug was a fast spreading virus. Now my wife and baby girl had become one of its many victims. I had to stop the madness. The sirens were coming closer and closer. There wasn’t time to explain, I ran. There was nothing left to lose. I was going to take the lives of those who had taken mine. To die would only be a bonus. I started my hunt in the sub city of New York. I went from buyers to dealers, working my way up through the food chain. Some needed persuasion to give up names; I had the right tools to give them just that. The night became my playground. It was perfect. Less chance that innocents would be caught in the crossfire. And less chance to meet some blue uniforms. My name was all over the newspapers, radio and TV. I was wanted for questioning. I didn’t know when I had last eaten, and it felt like a million years ago since I last slept. Coffee and donuts kept me up and running, but not for long. I was beginning to get tired. Every step got more and more exhausting to make. But I could not stop now. I was so close. All the clues from the junkies and lowlifes pointed at last to one name: “John Doe”. I knew who the maker of the drug was. And I knew what to do with him.

Chapter six: Waking up from the nightmare
It didn’t take long to find him. He owned an old manor just outside the city. Every stone of the manor was built on other peoples miseries. I shot my way in to his office. He reached for his gun, I shot his hand. He didn’t ask any questions. Guess someone must have told him I was after him. He knew who I was, and what was going to happen. I fulfilled his expectations.

… John Doe was gone, but so was my wife and baby girl. No amount of bullets fired will ever change that. I fell to the ground and dreamt about one week ago. When the American dream still hadn’t turned into a nightmare…