Hypothetical

Edmond is going to do something; Nel knows. Nel knows and, for whatever reason, cannot keep Edmond from this action. This action could be any action. But let us be dramatic; let us say it is murder.

The way out shall be the way in.

Edmond is going to commit murder. Nel knows that Edmond will commit murder, and in addition to this, he knows all the finer details of the act-to-be. He knows that Edmond will use a knife. He knows that Edmond will go during the day, when the door is left unlocked; but that on this particular day, the door will happen to be locked. He knows Edmond will regret bringing the knife; it was for cooking, really. A planned dinner will have gone wrong; Nel knows this. He knows Edmond is hesitant about the meeting. He knows Edmond will run home with cuts on his hands, leaving bloody prints on everything he touches as he stumbles in his grief. Nel knows the story of this murder; there is revenge caught up in it. He knows the dinner was supposed to fix it; but power is not so easily let alone. More often than not, it is traded, forced to either side, like a magnet. Perhaps the victim had wronged Edmond; Nel would know, Nel would know how serious a crime it had been, how he hadn't learned, how Edmond had sat down to dinner with a man who'd nearly murdered him.
But this does not justify the murder. Nel understands this, too. He sees Edmond, and he sees the law. He sees the victim become the criminal, the criminal pay his dues. Nel cannot keep Edmond from his crime, though more than anything, he would like to.
So he does the next worst thing to inaction; next bearable, that is. This is not a moral scale; this is Isaac's territory, all.
When Edmond asks what silverware is needed, Nel slips two wine glasses and a knife into his hands. When Edmond finds the locked door, Nel, who will have visited the victim-to-be a half hour earlier to talk about nothing in particular, will choose this particular moment to leave through the door in question, leaving it unlocked. Then he goes home to wait. In the hours before Edmond arrives, Nel imagines the dinner; how it will taste, how things will go awry. He has had too much wine himself, and his chest shudders when he begins to think of what Edmond will do in five minutes, three seconds. He demands everything of his imagination and presses each image against his senses like a branding iron; he thinks he smells the poor man's blood when he bites his tongue. He imagines himself in the place of Edmond, in the place of the victim, in the place of the wine spilling over the counter, in the place of the unused glasses in the cupboard; he fills his head with the treacherous crime and burns his blood with it. By the time Edmond stumbles in, twisting the knife awkwardly in his sticky fingers, Nel will have left the scene of the crime as well. He will be the first and last to see the criminal after the crime. He will take the knife from Edmond and listen as anger, regret, and fear pour from him. He will pour one glass of wine and leave the ruined carpet alone.
Do you see what has happened?
Edmond will not. He will continue to talk. He will not touch the drink--he has had enough of that color for the night, he says, and Nel believes him; Nel has had enough of it too. Nel has shared in his sin. Where his hands could not, would not go, his mind has. He has made it. His hands, next to Edmond's, are as clean as the counter tops. But pushed into his chest is that dark, shared stain. Edmond cannot see it; he will not. He will continue to talk. Nel cannot save Edmond from his crime; but neither can he commit the crime in Edmond's place (or desire to). So he presses his hands to Edmond's and takes the blood from it; as much as he can. He slips the knife into his hand; he leaves the door ajar. Edmond would not have forgotten the knife if Nel had not given it to him; if the door had not been opened, Edmond would have waited. Would have knocked. This murder would happen with or without Nel; but would Edmond have been caught?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. It does not matter, likely, because hiding Edmond from the law is another thing Nel cannot, will not, do.
Nel takes no pleasure in the blood on his hands, but he takes it, and he takes as much as he can bear to, because it is all he can do. If he had left matters alone, he would not be able to blame Edmond; but he would not be able to spare him from the law, either. Nel does, instead, just enough to put him on the line; there, magic hour, dusk, when all the other lines converge and he can think the thoughts on either side. There, Nel will believe that he himself committed the crime, not instead of Edmond, but as much as. He will have himself to blame instead of no one; cognitive dissonance resolved. Edmond will be tried for his crimes. Perhaps he will be acquitted given the circumstances; perhaps he will feel the brunt of the law. Either way, his chest is stained dark. And though free walking, Nel, just as guilty in the everhour of his mind, wears his chest stained, too, just as dark, fed by the thin, pulsing vein that runs up to his ever crafting mind.

It is strange, the things we will do to ease our minds.

This is the closest I have come to writing in a very good while.