The Noble Fool

Besides being a full time teacher at a local secondary school, there were several things Jace would do to ensure that his bills were paid and his stomach was full, especially when the rent of his house took up most of his salary.

He would visit the lady down the road to mow her lawn, fix old and outdated devices, sell imported cigarettes, wash cars, and stop a student from ending her life.

The suicidal child was a student he used to teach every Thursday morning. He could not understand why she had come to the point of ending her life; her marks were good, above average.

So you could imagine his surprise when he spotted her petite figure slip inside the school’s storage cupboard.

Out of sheer curiosity, he decided to follow her, not expecting to see her standing on a chair, a thick rope wound around her neck, dangling from the ceiling.

He had just enough time to stumble inside, throwing aside boxes and crates in the tiny, cramped space, grabbing her legs before she kicked the chair, moments from cracking her windpipe.

She kicked and screamed, pulled at his hair, pounded on his back with her tiny fists, and scratched at his face.

By then, an army of students and teachers had gathered in the hall. Jaws dropped, eyes wide, as they witnessed their teacher and colleague struggling with their classmate, clad in his rumpled and untucked shirt and tangled hair, which the girl was still tugging at.

It was clear that they had taken the whole thing wrong, despite explaining what had happened more than once. Even after showing them the rope and chair, he was let off with a warning from the principal, though his colleagues would never look him in the eye again.

Still, he could not complain; he had not lost his job.

The house owner, whose lawn he trimmed and mowed every Sunday, was an old lady named Grace.

She called him Jack, and he did not have the heart to correct her, mainly because she was deaf in one ear.

It was bad enough with her sitting on the deck chair, sipping at her lemon drink, while he drowned in his own sweat, pushing the grass trimmer back and forth, muscles bulging with the effort. She would not allow him to rest until her grass was trimmed perfectly and the mess was thrown away.

Only then did she allow him a couple of minutes inside her home, cooling in front of the air conditioner with a glass of ice cold lemonade. He did not like lemonade much but did not dare to voice his preference. She would slap the ten pounds in his hand and send him off with a fond tap on the cheek.

Her way of showing gratitude was one he had always believed in.

The man whose life he had saved was named Alec, a crazy drug addict who was often found muttering to himself. He lived next door to Jace, almost always out during the late night hours, returning just when the first string of sunlight stripped the sky.

Alec was a regular customer of his small cigarette sale, which he usually set up as a Sunday stall.

Neither spoke a word. He counted out fifty pounds, placed it on the table, and waited for Jace to give him his two boxes. Though he had heard the rumours, he could not help but feel sorry for the guy. It was obvious that something was eating at him.

This is why he had not been nearly as surprised as most would be when he drove by a particular alleyway one Monday evening, coming straight from school. At first, he had not noticed anything unusual until the nearby streetlights cast a soft glow, revealing a dark lump of a figure on the ground.

Slowing the car a little, he craned his neck, recognising the bruised and bloodied body of his neighbour sprawled out on the ground, left for dead.

In haste, he got out of the car, forgetting to turn off the engine. He rushed to the motionless man and felt his neck for a pulse.

At the faint thump beneath his fingers, he placed his hands beneath Alec’s armpits and half pulled, half dragged him towards the car, grunting at the deadweight. The man groaned in pain; it was then that he noticed the bloodied trail beside his feet. He paused, gently placing him on the ground on his back, his wrist knocking against something cool and solid.

A knife.

Its brown handle protruded from Alec’s lower abdomen. Jace cursed, his mind going blank for a moment. His next-door neighbour had been stabbed. And from the looks of it, he did not have much time.

He had to get an ambulance.

A deep groan startled him; Alec was muttering something so low he could barely hear him.

He bent down, placing his ear close to his mouth. “Get it out,” Alec breathed, voice coated in agony.

Jace furrowed his brows in confusion. “What?”

“The knife, you idiot,” Alec coughed so hard that tiny bits of spittle flew from his mouth, the movement causing more blood to leak out of the wound.

“Wait, let me call the ambulance,” Jace tried to calm him, but the man was adamant.

“No time.”

He did not give Jace a chance to think. With the last ounce of strength he had left, he raised a shaky hand, gripping the front of his shirt. “Do it.”

Jace had not known any better than to obey. In his mind, the sooner the knife left the man’s body, the better his chances of survival.

Had he known that removing the knife would only speed up the process of Alec’s imminent demise, perhaps this story would have met another end.

Nevertheless, oblivious Jace quickly got up and ran to his car, rummaging in the boot for anything he could find, including a thick towel and some bandages—not that they could patch up an incision that big.

When he returned, Alec’s pale face had turned bluish grey. He was slipping, and Jace had to move fast.

On his knees, he placed the towel against the wound, pressing down hard, bracing himself for the shout of pain from Alec. When he heard nothing, he assumed he had passed out from the pain.

Good. It would make it easier.

With a tug and a squelch that almost made him retch, the knife came free, its blade glinting, drenched in blood. Quick, he held the towel firm against the wound with one hand, fumbling for his phone with the other, and quickly dialled for the ambulance. In a rush of words, he gave their location.

The sirens tore through the distance in minutes and released him from hysteria’s grip.

He stepped aside once they brought out the stretcher, watching as they carried Alec inside.

Appeased, he got back into his car and drove home.

Later that night, he received a call from the hospital asking for the contact number of Alec’s immediate family. When he had nothing to give, the nurse explained that they needed consent to run some tests on the body.

Convinced he had not heard right, Jace asked her to repeat what she had said. But there was nothing wrong with his ears.

Alec was no more.