[ WP ] You are a retired assassin . The only thing you want is to die . Keeping you from this is the fulfillment of your last contract : A celebrated performer paid you to kill him if he ever tried to make a `` comeback '' as an old man . After years in retirement , the performer announces a world tour .

Retirement never really suited me. You spend your days and nights running wild all of the globe, constantly worn thin between a thousand different contracts, and all you can think about is taking a rest. Hell, I ’ ll be the first to tell you that a vacation every now and then is great, I used to love taking a week off in a city I ’ d already been to countless times and just being a person. Do you know the first time I went to the top of the Empire State Building was the third time I had been in the building? Yeah, no kidding, the first two were for work and I couldn ’ t just hang around all day waiting to get caught. It was nice to take a little vacation here and there to just be a person. 
 
 For the longest time I thought of retirement as just one big long vacation at the end of my job. In a way, I guess it was but let ’ s be realistic here all good things have a limit. I went from being high strung for months or years on end to just not having to worry about anything at all *forever. * 
 
 Don ’ t get me wrong, I don ’ t mean to complain too much, it did get better. At first though it sucked. You see, I promised that I would never take a contract again. I had a lot of money saved up and a lot of free time but nowhere to really go. So at first, I traveled, a lot. I spent a year seeing the world, taking the kind of trip some people take when the graduated high school back in my day ( or after college these days, I guess kids wait a little longer ). 
 
 I ’ m droning on, I ’ m sorry for that, it ’ s just that I spent so long not being able to tell anyone about anything, now I kind of just start talking and it all gets away from me. The short and long of it is, after more than two years of meandering through life without a job I realized I need to find purpose or I was going to lose my mind. So I stared honing some skills. I trained in Martial Arts for a while and even took yoga, I already speak three languages but I never could bring myself to lean a new one, it seemed unnecessary and it felt like work ( obviously I spent a lot of time “ studying ” as a hitman and it was far and away the shittiest part of it all ). I know it is too late to make a long story short but let me jump ahead and tell you that I need to be on my feet and working with my hands so I opened a wood shop and make high-end ( ish ) furniture. It started as an experiment, I just wanted to make a nice bedside table with a secret compartment in it. Of course I have a lot of time and resources and an addictive personality so I wound up with a garage full of tools and a house full of new ( if not nice ) furniture. 
 
 Anyway, one morning I was having my coffee on my porch, like I do on any sunny day, before heading to my shop. I open the paper and what do I see, Jimmy Canoe Comeback tour. 
 
 I sat up so fast, I spilled nearly all my coffee on myself. The hot, sticky mess that now stained my previously clean work shirt went unnoticed as my mind went back 20 years. 
 
 Jimmy called my agency out of the blue and asked for me specifically. I don ’ t know how much you know about the business but that is not the way things are usually done. Either you know a guy, and you deal with him directly, or you get in touch with an agency and they send out a rep who gets all the information and sends out a bid to the whole agency then I and the other hitmen try to get the contract and fill it. Obviously, I like the first option better, because when you aren ’ t racing the completion, you have way more time to set the thing up perfectly. Don ’ t get me wrong, flying by the seat of your pants is part of the job and I enjoyed more that was necessarily healthy, but there is just something about killing a mark the right way that makes the whole experience perfect. Having that one job go so well, just nailing it with no flaws, feels like diving for a ball out in right field, snatching it out of the air and beating the home team in the bottom of the ninth. 
 
 It was strange that Jimmy called the agency, because he did actually know me, we were friends, in so far as people like me could have friends outside the business. Hell, we even played together in a garage band growing up. His older brother and I were the same age and we needed a bass player, Jimmy had only played trumpet and piano before but he could shred within a month. Pretty soon his brother John had to give up the guitar and let Jimmy play ( all for the good of the band ). I had seen Jimmy a few times since high school, but he hadn ’ t seen me. I caught a few of his shows and I tell you, the kid really had it. 
 
 He has me come up to his house for a meeting. House? What a joke, Jimmy lived in a castle. One of those big places, out west on the coast. The property was six acres with a wall around the whole thing. The gate was open when I drove up and a guard waved at me as I drove by. I actually knew the guard, he used to work for the same agency as me until he got picked up by a private security firm, but that is another story. 
 
 I didn ’ t really know what to expect, how many people can a filthy rich rock star want dead? Probably his producer, or his wife. Probably something easy and quick but ultimately uninteresting. Boy was I wrong. He didn ’ t want me to kill anyone, at least not yet. I sat down with Jimmy by his pool, overlooking the pacific and for a while the meeting was strictly social. I wanted to know what touring was like and believe me when I say this guy could tell you some stories. He wanted to know all about my life, I told him what I could, maybe even a bit more than was wise, because I was less cautious at that time than I was when I started out. 
 
 Eventually after several bottles of some very nice wine he talked about retirement. This was the last thing on my mind but I could tell the years on the road had worn Jimmy. He got really into drugs for a while then cleaned up in the past few years but he made it very clear that he was ready to give it up for good. 
 
 “ Music is the greatest thing in my life, ” Jimmy had told me, “ But I have a family and it is time I make them the most important. ” 
 
 Then he pulled out a duffle bag and put it by my chair. 
 
 “ I ’ m going to do a farewell tour, ” he said, “ Then I am out for good. I want to hire you but that money is yours whether you actually have to do the job or not. My last show is on the fourth of July this year. If I ever go on tour again, I want you to kill me. ” 
 
 I admit I was shocked, and in those days I prided myself on being the kind of guy who wasn ’ t surprised by anything. “ Look man, if you want to quit just quit, this isn ’ t a game it ’ s your life. ” 
 
 “ I know. I know what this means and I don ’ t ever want to go back on this deal, believe me. After this last ride, if I ever get started up again, I ’ ll know what ’ s coming. ” 
 
 *I ’ ll know what ’ s coming* 
 
 Those words bounced around my head all the rest of that day. On the porch, in the shower, sitting in traffic, even at the shop. I thought a lot about how I gave up the game, how I said I ’ d never take another contract. I thought about how killing Jimmy wasn ’ t even a *new* contract. In the end I told Toni, one of the girls who owns part of the shop, she would need to run things for a week or two while I went to see my sister. I don ’ t have a sister. 
 
 Eighteen hours after I got the news, I was in Jimmy ’ s house. He still lived in the same mansion but his security was reduced to a single rent-a-cop in the gate house, not one of the heavy hitter like before. 
 
 “ I was hoping you ’ d come. ” 
 
 Light flooded the room and my old friend sat up in bed. He looked awful. His face once, tan and a little fat, was now pale, and he had lost so much weight that his empty skin sagged off his skull like a melting candle. 
 
 Jimmy reached pushed a control and the bed began to tilt forward into a sitting position, his arms were thin, like a child ’ s arms that had been stretched to fit an adult body, I couldn ’ t see his legs but even under the covers I could tell they were no more than a frail remnant of what they once were. 
 
 “ As you can see, Michael, the years have not be as kind to me as they have been to you. ” 
 
 “ What do you have? ” I asked him. The situation was clear to me now. He wanted a way out and I was going to be it. 
 
 “ Cancer, obviously, a few different varieties I am afraid. Some are terminal and even without them certain treatments for the others all react poorly with each other. I have been dying for a year now, they wanted to give me drugs for the pain but I gave that up a long time ago. ” 
 
 ***When I started writing this I just let it get away from me. I had no idea there was a character limit so the rest is in a reply to this comment*** 
 
 

