Free Hunger and Thirst by Richard Matheson

back defensively, I’m not afraid! But screw your courage to the sticking point – the phrase emerged from the library of quotations in his mind.
    He shut his eyes and thought of the pawn shop.
    He thought of the little dumpy display case in front of the shop, like a glass island, filled with shiny cameras staring out a passers-by through unblinking eyes; lensed cyclops
    He thought of the windows; hanging gardens of saxophones and clarinets and trumpets and guitars; music never to be heard. Typewriters, fishing reels, grindstones and barometers, violins and shotguns.
    And the watches. Especially, he thought of the watches. Rows and rows of them hanging head down on their velvet beds with their shiny expansion bracelets or their cheap new leather bands.
    The old man had wanted his watch there.
    In that morgue for time pieces. For nine dollars. The watch his own mother had paid seventy five dollars for when he got out of the army.
    He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, his heart still thudding slowly and heavily.
    My mother is dead, he told himself again and again, working himself into an even greater pitch of self justification. There is no place to go. There is no place to rest and there is no escape. I must do for myself what must be done. No one else cares.
    Very well then!
    His teeth clicked together and fury at a world shook him. He shut his eyes, lips tight, hands clenched at his sides. I’ll kill the old man, he thought suddenly, Oh God, how I’d love to do it. I’d like to be like Raskolnikov, I’d like to hide an axe underneath my coat and go into the shop and corner the old man and chop open his shiny, greasy head and cut up his brains into mincemeat!
    Imagination without control. He trembled on the bed. Oh God, my temper! He cried within, I have to keep it checked! I can’t do anything if I lose my temper.
    But the brief battle was quickly ended. He let himself go and lay shivering and smiling coldly and murderously.
    “Why, of course,” he said.
    And shuddered at the studied sound of venom in his voice. For a brief moment he was a complete and frightening stranger to himself. But then, like a well-taught actor, he caught up the script for his new role and became Hyde and relished it.
    Of course
, he thought. The layers above are gone. They had fallen off the old, dirty robes. He was free of them, next to naked, cruel and powerful with a new strength of clear detachment, armed with the might of trapped animals and raging, desperate men.
    He drew in a shaking breath that made his chest throb.
    Tonight
, he pledged.
    But I’ll be smart. I won’t murder the old man. No, that would be foolish. Why murder when it is such a great thing in the code? It puts a spotlight on the incident and, in the blackness, you might be picked out.
    That’s it. It was decided. He’d think of killing the old man and enjoy the thinking. But he wouldn’t do it, actually. Beside the simple perils of it, he didn’t think it would be good for him. Not killing. It might cause a reaction in him that he wouldn’t be prepared for. He might break down, become panic-stricken. There was no point in that. It was the money he wanted anyway. He’d just lie here and think of chopping up the old man and driving the sharp blade edge over and over into his…
    Again. The trembling. Almost, the sexual excitation. An ecstasy of committing unpunished violence. His organ was hard. His hand clutched eagerly at it, taut bent pieces of bone and flesh, white and bloodless. He began to tear open his pants.
    He commanded himself then—no! I must not! It weakens resolve, it makes me think too much. It builds up the layers again. Oh, how clever a method nature had evolved for building up dispassion. He caught her at the game. It made him chuckle. He took his hands away. And went back to his plan.
    Anyway, he thought, the old man will wish he were dead when his money is taken away. Yes, of course. What was there precious in the old man’s life