The Page From the Diary
By: Nana Dadzie Ghansah
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Regret, Short Read, Second Chances

He was in his thirteenth year when he met Darlene Timmons. She was a law student and member of a group researching the sentences of prisoners sentenced to life. Dave’s case fascinated her due to the paucity of evidence. She informed him that the group was going to take it up. Things moved quickly after. Darlene found evidence that was withheld by the prosecutor. She got DNA studies done. The DNA did not match Dave’s. Darlene filed for a retrial. The state decided not to retry Dave and released him.

Fifteen years after he was arrested for a crime he did not commit, he was free. His sister picked him up. She was the only living relative he had since their mum had died six years earlier.

Dave had landed a job as a programmer since he came out. He was one of the lucky ones. His life was slowly coming back together, but he needed to do this. He needed to exorcise the pain and anger. A wrong had to be made right.

Just then, he heard a rustling sound behind him. He spun around quickly to see two shiny eyes starring at him in the darkness. He lost his balance and fell against an empty bookcase that stood against the wall. The bookcase rocked like it was going to fall, but it did not. Instead, a lone book fell from the top onto his head, making him groan. The eyes kept starring at him. He reached for the flashlight in his pants and turned it on. It was a rat, and it scurried off as the light hit it.

“Damn rat!” Dave cursed, and suddenly he thought of Salim and his rat story.

He got up and spun the flashlight around. Soon the light fell on the book that had fallen on his head. He picked it up. He turned the light around some more. He saw a piece of paper that seemed to have fallen out of the book lying close to where he stood. He picked that up too. With the flashlight, he made out a note on the paper.

It read:

“So much time has gone by since that fateful day since Amy left me standing alone at the altar. So many dark and lonely years. I have hated her every single day since. I have wished her ill and cursed her. I have shunned love and affection and thought only of how to get back at her for ruining my life. For years, bitterness has engulfed my life, and now that I am dying, I realize the folly.

While I hated, she loved another. While I stopped living, she carried on.

If only I had known…”

Dave reread it. He then opened the book. It looked like a diary and had several entries. The page seemed to have been torn from the diary. He heard the rustling again. It was a rat. He wondered if it was the same. It scurried off again. He thought of Salim again and his rat story. Salim claimed a rat had saved his life. He told the story of how he had been lured into a trap at a drug house once. A rival dealer wanted to have him killed. He was waiting in a room where a deal was supposed to occur when a rat suddenly appeared from nowhere. It startled him so much he lost his balance and fell. Just then, the room was riddled with bullets. Bullets that missed him because he had dropped down due to the rat. He forever felt he owed every rat for that and had a pet rat in prison called Charlie.

Dave suddenly remembered what Salim had told him before he left:

“Son, not many of us here get another chance. You have another chance. Let the past be and make the most of it. Get a job, find yourself a good woman, have some kids, and settle down. Let the past be the past.”

It was almost midnight. Dave sat in that dark room, thinking.

The rat, the note, the diary, Salim’s words, his yearning to avenge the wrong done him. The two entries he had read from the diary were full of regret and depressing. For the first time in over fifteen years, he wondered if it was worth it. He pondered if killing Greg and Denise was worth it. He had watched them for two weeks, and they made a sorry couple. All he did was drink, do drugs, and beat her. She looked miserable and battered. Was it worth throwing away his second chance for revenge? Was the damn rat trying to save his life? That made him chuckle. He hated rats.