Samuel Corpacci (Rewriten)

Six months prior, Rosario, Argentina, Earth.

“Like I thought, it’s recovering. How is physiotherapy?” Samuel sat behind his desk, looking through x-rays of one of his patients' legs. He stared at them with apathy and visible discomfort.

“It’s alright. It hurts a lot though, but my knee feels a lot better now,” the patient, a middle aged man, sat on the opposite side twirling his thumbs.

“Good, it needs to hurt. And you don’t need pills, so I won’t prescribe any,” he gave back the x-rays to the patient who stood up and left after shaking his hand and thanking him.

Samuel buried himself inside his chair once the patient left and sighed deeply. It was early in the morning and he already wanted to leave. That desire left when he crossed eyes with a photo of his father.

“I know, I know; rise and shine and all that shit,” he muttered under his breath. Strongly holding his cane, he stood up and limped towards the door.

The door of his small consulting room swung open from the other side and an older man stepped through. His white hair was pulled back and set with a lot of gel, giving the sensation of plastic to his eyes. His face was round, fat and flat; like a bulldog but less cute. Dark blue polo, khaki cargo shorts and brown fake leather shoes.

He lifted his fat greasy arms up and hugged Sam, to his discontent.

“Samuel! My boy, how you been doing?” His breath smelt of tobacco and whisky. It was nine in the morning.

“Fine, mr. Solana,” he patted his shoulder and then stepped away as soon as he was released. “What brings you here? Has there been an emergency?”

“Awe, come on pibe. I don’t visit just for work, do I?” Mr. Solana put a hand on his chest and acted offended, but his cackle betrayed him. “Am just taking the piss. We did have an emergency. One of our kids shot a gorra (slang for cop) and is hiding now. He can’t come to the hospital.”

“Let me cancel my appointments and-” he started limping over but Mr. Solana held him by his shoulder.

“I already did that, Samuel. Come on, no time to lose.” Mr. Solana showed him a toothy grin and turned around to leave. Samuel glanced at his father’s picture, ashamed of himself. He limped towards it and turned it over before leaving his consulting room.

Mr. Solana wasn’t on sight while he dragged himself over the packed hallways of the clinic, so he walked to the front door. The chilly winter breeze crawled up his clothes, making him shiver. He fixed his gloves and beanie. Until the old man showed up, he turned around to look at the building’s entrance. Right above the door, unbeknownst to him, the old sign had been replaced. It still had the same name, it just was modernised. “Clínica Mario Solana”, founded by the old man’s old man almost a century before.

Honking came from behind him and he turned back again. There he was, Mr. Solana in his fancy Mercedes Benz driven by a tired man like himself. He limped over, the driver stepped out and opened the door for him.

“What do you think of the new sign? Great, eh? Got it for cheap too,” Mr. Solana mentioned as he lit up a cigar.

“Yeah, it looks nice. I will miss the old one though,” Samuel pulled out a pack of cigarettes and rubbed his finger against it. After a second, he pulled out one and lit it up as well.

For the next half hour Samuel had to swallow his tongue and listen the stupid stories Mr. Solana told him. “Did I ever tell you about that one time I ran over a dog and invited my friends for an asado? Bahahaha, the faces they made when I put the dog’s head over the table. Hilarious!” was just one of the many botherline psychopathic stories he heard. The only thing he could do was nod and laugh.

“Have you ever shot a man, Sam? Let me tell you, stabbing is way more satisfying. I remember the first time I stabbed a motherfucker. My dad was with me, he passed me the knife and” Mr. Solana motioned with his hands how he cut someone’s throat, with elite actor skills and sound effects to boot, “that changes a man. For me? It was for the better. Oh, we are here, finally.”

The driver stepped out of the car and opened Samuel’s door. He turned to Mr. Solana, who stared at him through the mirror. “He is inside that warehouse,” he pointed at one a hundred metres away, “I have other matters to attend to but when you are done Horacio will pick you up. Are two hours enough?”

“Yes,” he said as he stepped outside. Mr. Solana nodded, the driver closed the door and they quickly left.

“At least leave me close to the door, Jesus,” Samuel uttered under his breath in frustration, limping his way down the street. The first few metres he thought about how strange Mr. Solana acted. It was the first time he heard so many stories about his personal life, all regarding death and how natural it came to him.

He stopped walking and glanced around. There was no one in the streets and the only thing he could hear was cars driving in the distance. Samuel was the normal amount of paranoid, but that worried him.

While he advanced, one of the cars in the distance began to get closer, approaching from behind. In turn, he started limping faster. The tapping of his cane against the floor sounded like a clock ticking down seconds. It was quickly silenced by the roaring engine driving straight at him.

It felt like a big strong man had pushed him off his feet, if said man had the strength of a bull. Samuel felt his back cracking at a spot he didn’t like and both of his legs going limp as he fell face first into the pavement a few metres forward. His good knee was in more pain than the bad one and he had the worst headache he ever suffered.

Why was that happening to him? It wasn’t an accident, it couldn’t be, right? He tried moving his arms to crawl away but one was paralyzed under his weight and the other didn’t have the strength to do so. A familiar sense of dread got to him, washing over his broken body and trying to push it a bit further.

Another sudden hit startled him again, a kick to his side that forced him to turn around and face his attackers. His vision was blurry but he could still make out a few features. Grey hair, olive skin, an unkept padlock beard and a scar over his right eye. His chest hurt as his panicked breathing made his lungs touch broken ribs more often.

“I told you, doc; not even Solana could keep you from me. I would love to take you with me, give you a few more agonising days. He wouldn’t have wanted that, so I will give you what you deserve. They will take good care of you in hell, hijo de puta,” Samuel opened his mouth to beg, but he choked on his own blood. The last thing he saw was the muzzle flash of a gun.

Samuel’s eyes couldn’t pull away from that bullet slowly making its way to his face. It felt like his whole body had been tightly chained to the concrete below. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move a muscle. He didn’t expect to move but that didn’t make it any less scary. What was he supposed to do there? Repent for his sins? Beg for forgiveness as his many mistakes flashed over his mind? He had been doing that for ages and didn’t want his last moments to be so pitiful.

“What about this one? Do you sense any potential in his soul?” to his left, like the invisible white noise that permeates every room, Samuel heard a voice. Soft, warm.

“Delirium,” he thought, “so this is how it feels like? Weird…”

“No. Atleast, not any that we need.” The other voice felt like a chainsaw hacking at his eardrums. Hurting them.

“We could save it. Maybe even sell its-” It felt like a child asking their parents for a pet. Sam wasn’t sure he appreciated the effort or not.

“No.”

The bullet was almost touching his forehead, just above his sight.

“But-” the first voice turned even softer in contrast to the other one getting harsher. What a duality, one comforted him, the other tore him apart.

“I said no and that’s final. Let’s go,” that’s the last he heard of those two voices before the bullet pierced his skin and his sight faded to black.