They'll be coming for me again tonight.
They always come for me on what I like to call "Christmas Eve eve." I never have been able to figure out exactly why, but that's the date they like.
Every year there are more of them. It keeps getting harder to fight them off. I never would have guessed they were such a determined people, judging by the squalor they live in most of the time. They refuse to give up, no matter how many times they fail to take me down.
It didn't matter how many traps I set. Some of them would always survive. It didn't matter how remote I tried to make my hiding places. They always found me. Finally I realized the only way to get any peace would be to give them the success they wanted so badly.
Tonight when they come for me, there won't be any traps waiting for them. They'll find me asleep in my bed. They'll drive the stake through my heart, and then they'll cut off my head and fill my mouth with holy wafers. Then they'll burn my house down, just like they always do, only this time they won't be thinking about how they'll have to do it again next year.
A few months later, my land will go up for auction. I was very careful in my timing when I stopped paying the property tax. It should cost very little to regain what is mine, all under a completely new identity.
I'm quite grateful to the plastic surgeons and financial consultants who made all of this possible. That was why I made sure to select ones who had good life insurance policies, so their families would be well cared for.
I hope this works. In a few years it may become impossible to do it again, if the law enforcement agencies continue computerizing and networking with each other. Even the little backwater region where I live will be going high-tech soon, thanks to a few crazed militants with box-cutters.
If it doesn't work, next time I might let the villagers get their success for real. I've grown weary of their game.
Why can't we all just get along?
This may not be
the most original thing in the world,
but I did write it myself.