Begonnen aan nieuw werk - UNIT 9

Nu twee manuscripten bij een uitgeverij liggen ter beoordeling en ik in de "rustpauze" een paar stukjes geschreven heb ('De ontmoeting' en 'A void') alsook wat basiswerk aan een te komen kort verhaal in een postapocalyptische wereld, ben ik begonnen aan mijn volgende werk: 'UNIT 9'. Het verhaal wordt verteld door drie personen, elk met een heel andere kijk op de omgeving, personages, en gebeurtenissen. Het wordt, evenals 'Professor Ethiek' (verhaal numero 2), een postmodern stuk, maar dan zonder de mix met Engelse uitdrukkingen. Weet nog niet of het echt iets worden gaat, maar het begin is veelbelovend.

De ontmoeting

Wenen, 1913

Op de boulevard komt een man de hoek om gelopen. Gebruind door de rijkelijk schijnende zon in zijn thuisstreek oogt hij vreemd in het kille Wenen, waar bleekheid de mensen (niet) kleurt. De mensen om hem heen hebben degelijke, Westerse kledij maar hij is in hun ogen te simpel, te vulgair gekleed. Een overwegend in het zwart gekleed heerschap zonder hoofddeksel. Mensen lopen een beetje met een boogje om hem heen en fluisteren iets naar elkaar. ‘Vast weer een Russische verbannen extremist…’ Hoe juist. Opvallender dan zijn somber geaarde kleding is echter de grote snor die zijn in de jeugdjaren door pokken geteisterde gezicht deels verbergt. De man heeft een iets kleinere linkerarm dan de rechterarm, eveneens te danken aan een ongeluk in eerdere tijden in Georgië. De man, ondanks zijn geringe lengte, straalt de revolutionaire kracht uit die hem in de stad brengt –niet door de ban van de tsaar, maar om de Baas te spreken. Tijdelijk woont hij hier ook, maar hij verlangt terug te keren naar moedertje Rusland. De Baas is wel het land uitgezet, en verblijft met medestanders in deze pittoreske plaats alvorens door te reizen naar Zwitserland. De besnorde man steekt het pleintje over.
In tegengestelde richting loopt een eveneens besnorde man, als is diens snor meer bescheiden, te meer daar er geen littekens verborgen hoeven worden. Ook deze man is armzaliger gekleed dan de elite van Wenen die geniet van een rustig wandelingetje in de doorbrekende zon. De man is bleek, heeft vurige ogen, en een eeuwige neerwaartse trek van de mond. Hij is het soort type dat overduidelijk in deze contreien thuishoort, maar liever hoger wil staan op de sociale ladder. Dolgraag wil hij erkenning, en de grote opgerolde vellen papier onder zijn beide armen zijn de kunstproducten die hem daartoe in staat moeten stellen.
Man nmr.1 bemerkt de zonderling die hem bijna bereikt heeft maar langs hem heen kijkt. Het valt hem op dat ze beide van vergelijkbare lengte zijn. Ook de tegemoet komende man straalt een zeker elan uit, maar het is eerder van het verbeten pessimistische soort. Hij is matig benieuwd naar de kunstrollen onder de armen van de man, duidelijk persoonlijk gekoesterd bezit. Wellicht eigen werk?, vraagt hij zich af. Ze passeren elkaar, en de eerste man knikt, en de tweede man tikt onhandig tegen zijn baret, en één van de kunstrollen valt op de grond. De man klungelt ze op te rapen maar de man zonder hoofddeksel, bereid mensen te helpen daar zijn overtuiging solidariteit preekt voor mensen in de lagere klassen, helpt hem en overhandigt de rol. ‘Danke’, zegt de schilder beleefd maar kortaf, en haastig spoedt deze zich verder. De eerste man kijkt hem even na. Er is iets met die man, denkt hij, daar gaat de geschiedenis nog van horen. Een enge grijns verschijnt op zijn lippen. En ook van mij, lacht hij, voor hij verder gaat met zijn wandeling.

Bovenstaande is NIET gebeurd maar het had gekund. Heel even, begin 1913, te Wenen, verbleven Jozef Stalin en Adolf Hitler binnen enkele straten afstand van elkaar. Bovenstaande zou zomaar gebeurd kunnen zijn. Wie had ooit kunnen voorspellen hoe de geschiedenis beide mannen zou behandelen, hoe zij geschiedenis zouden schrijven, en hoe zij geschiedenis zouden herschrijven.

Three letters (short story)

Three letters

Not too long ago I frequented my ole pub down in the centre of town intending to enjoy the quiet of an evening alone, entertaining myself I fear not the least since nothing can be called wrong with it –although there is a stigma about being alone in a public place, as if one has no friends or companions when one happens to be alone in the one instance one is seen. But the night turned out to be a lot more interesting than the regular solitary binge, for I overheard large parts of a conversation between the two men sitting next to me at the bar, which I heard more, at first at least, out of proximity than curiosity, and which I want to retell for reasons I prefer to keep to myself.

As I mentioned just now, it was parts, though sizable in nature, that I heard, so common logic and deduction, as well as my interpretations concerning the rest of the conversation, will have to do to relate the complete story, for it should be a fluent narrative, lest it confuses the simpler souls that never read stories like these.

Though not much time separated my arrival in the pub and the start of the conversation of the two men, I, fortunately, did not tune in while the interaction was halfway through, nor did the short interval deprive me of an opportunity to seat myself comfortably with a cold, refreshing beer, so appropriately gold in color, for as a benign goddess of fluid luxury she may rightfully be described. I sat there for a whole of a couple of minutes, three of them I’d say, before the man next to me was joined by his comrade, and I heard them exchange a singular talk.

‘Why, there you are, Lloyd! I’d expected you much sooner, my most gallant fellow. What kept you from arriving at the time agreed on in advance?’

‘Oh you ask a rapacious question there! Rapacious because of its pronounced eagerness for information, that I will give to you now. I am late, dear Christopher, because…it is in a word… rubbish I had to experience in the little trip I have made to come here.’

‘Tell me, old boy.’

‘Well, you are, of course, acquainted with the law of Murphy, that dark and thus prophetic thinker of yore. Well, today everything followed his well-known law, proven and rejected everyday. I will deprive you of the discomfiture of hearing about my dreadful day up to the point of departure, so I’ll start with when I left home. In a nutshell: my key broke, I tumbled down those marble stairs leading to my door, I landed on a lady whose neck broke my fall, though thankfully I did not break hers, and every mode of transport I tried failed on me.’

‘By Jove, you’re not saying what I think you are?’

‘But I do, I walked over here all the way.’

‘But that is no small matter, I’d say!’

‘I know, my legs feel like they were struck by that most faithful tool, the sledgehammer.’

‘How on Earth did you occupy your mind during your journey?’

‘By cynically thinking of the failures in the near past as less horrible than those that transpired before them.’

‘Worse still than your trip?’

‘A lot worse.’

‘Do tell, if it is not too painful or too much of an inconvenience for you.’

‘Well, it may help to tell, to relieve the burden of memory if you will, but comfort may be hard to find.’

‘I am getting fearfully intrigued.’

‘And rightfully so, my story surpasses that of the most fervently hoping amateur-writer. I suppose, it all begun yesterday, when everything degenerated into an abyss of myopic despair.’

‘Two beers please (directed at the barman), go on then (directed at Lloyd).’

‘I received this letter in the morning, neatly delivered right on my doormat, which displays the ambivalent greeting of: “Well…come, if you must”, a hairy monument to my pessimistic outlook. It was cased in a lovely designed envelope, often the portent of good and assuring news. So I opened it grinningly, for a second even allowing the fantastic hope of having won the lottery, when I gazed disbelievingly at the text printed on a jolly yellowish paper.’

‘And what did it proclaim?’

‘To be short: I have been evicted.’

‘What!’

‘I’d say. Yes, evicted. Out of the house I’ve called home for more than twelve years.’

‘But how?’

‘Well, somehow the bank got wind of me breaking up with Hailey, who, as you know well, is, at this moment, the sole owner of an income and thus, in the capitalist tongue, all that matters in a household. Since I cannot cope with bills presently, I must leave my trusted home, meaning, o irony, even more bills, probably.’

‘They can’t just throw you out… can they? Where would you stay?’

‘That is an interesting question, of which I do not possess the answer outside the proverbial carton box under the bridges near the station.’

‘That’s nonsense!’

‘I told you already all was rubbish, and I meant it. But regardless of my present statue as bum, worse still is what happened next; what was in the second envelope I might say.’

‘What could possibly be worse?’

‘The death of a parent…’

‘No! Your mom or dad…?’

‘Me mum. Only seventy and a heart attack. When I opened that second letter, a little distraught as you may understand, I found in it her death certificate accompanied by an obituary, kindly sent to me by auntie dearest.’

‘What, she couldn’t afford a short phone call?’

‘Of course she could, she does have a nice paycheck. But she does not care too much for me, never did actually. Odd woman –kind of spooky, many opinion sincerely. Anyway, normally I’d relieved my emotions with Hailey, she who dumped me like a stray dog in a cold December night.’

‘A gruesome imagery you display there.’

‘But how could I not, C? Is there anything under the sun like sharing with a lover, which comes closer to equaling all its glorifying warmth?’

‘I guess not…’

‘Right! Nothing under the sun… But I venture to pose the seemingly unbelievable statement: it was not yet the worst that happened, for there was, naturally, always envelope number three not too look forward to.’

‘Something worse than eviction and the untimely death of so close a relative as your mother? Something that is even more offensive than that?’

‘Well, objectively speaking perhaps not, but how can one remain indifferent when one is confronted with one’s impending demise, one’s forthcoming, imminent I can say, end of existence.’

‘End of existence?! I refuse, categorically refuse to believe that! It is impossible, ludicrous even!’

‘And yet ole boy, it is true. The third envelope contained the results of a medical examination I underwent recently. And it is established beyond doubt. Metastasized cancer…in my balls. Oh well, I suppose, I do not use them anyway since Hailey left me…’

--At this point I cracked up, albeit so completely inappropriate and awful; however, I managed to save myself, as well as Lloyd from the awkward situation in which sensitive matter was overheard by a third party and this fact becomes known to all. I did so by pretending it was about a text message I faked reading. The two men gazed uncertain at me, but then continued their chat.--

‘I do not quite know what to say to this flood of bad luck, for I assume that was, bad as it may be, the end of it?’

‘No, not quite. Three letters containing such odious news all delivered at once? I suspected the mailman, a ghastly man, of saving up on them to maximize the impact on delivery. So I went out searching for him, to question him about it as it were. Then, a girl passed by and winked at me lustfully, and so, as any respectable man would have done, I turned my head proportionately to her position relative of me, and had a rather unflattering meeting with a telegraph pole, causing her to look at me, as to see why so many a stranger suddenly erupted in chuckling, with more disdain I ever happened to see in my short life.’

‘Were you alright?’

‘No, a temporary concussion, allowing me to entertain the possibility of viewing the letters as a side effect of my condition, so when I returned to… well what once was my home… you can imagine my sadness upon coming back to reality. So I went to sleep to give my aching head some rest, and woke up just in time to be able to keep the appointment I made with you this day, only to be a unwanted spectator at the concert of unlucky happenstances with which I have already regaled you, and thus be late.’

‘My, a story indeed well suited for the realm of cheap fantasy or realistic horror.’

‘True, very true, needless to say.’

‘I wonder how you managed to get here at all, instead of doing the mature thing and crawl in your bed crying all day long.’

‘That indeed was a long considered option, but I have to keep thinking, and doing stuff lest I go insane, though ironically I suppose, my thoughts may jump-start me into mental instability.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I started pondering about the meaning, or lack thereof, of it all. Take religion for instance. How can a man who in three days time, starting with the departure of Hailey, loses everything his world needs not to fall apart and to keep it together, still believe in a kind God awaiting in Heaven?’

‘Some, though not me obviously, might propose a test of some sorts you are being subjected to, in order to determine your faith and its strength.’

‘A little superfluous I’d say since even if I were to pass this test, and I’m not saying I would, I would still be terminally ill, with too little time left to do anything with my newfound faith in the Almighty…’

‘You are right. So, I guess you are an atheist now, eh?’

‘Absolutely not, I believe in God staunchly!’

‘But you just said…’

‘I know, but I don’t. I don’t believe in a kind God, but I do believe in an evil God, who can outdo the devil in an attempt to destroy your life. Here, I’ll tell you an even more far reaching contemplation: there is no God in Heaven but there is one in Hell, since there is no Heaven and Satan is God… the only God.’

‘I see –you’re now a Satanist.’

‘A devout one at that, without the need for changed prayers and rituals, because of my God-is-the-Devil-idea.’

‘I don’t think Hailey would’ve liked to hear you talk like that.’

‘I know. Have you by any chance seen her in the last three days?’

‘I have, actually, yesterday if memory serves me. But let’s not get into that right now; it will make you even more bitter.’

‘I’d think I’m not bitter at all, just honest with life, that’s all. I feel… serenity. It is a calm acceptance of the end nearing, a quiet clarity that my ordeal will soon be over.’

‘O Lloyd, nonsense, nonsense I say to you in earnest! What is the prognosis of yur condition?’

‘About two more years left in me…’

‘There you go, just think of all the people with malaria or polio who felt like you a day, an hour even, before a cure was found. Medical research does not stand still, Lloyd, it evolves. And so do you I may add –bodies can become resistant to aids, is that a more terrible disease than cancer, even testicular?’

‘You’re comparing rotten apples with rotten pears, you fruity friend.’

--Again I laughed, still pretending it was about a phone message. Christopher said to me he surmised I had funny things in my inbox, apparently. I told him I had received a couple of jokes, entirely innocent of course, about people from Wales, and was mightily grateful he did not ask me to tell one of them, since I could not have improvised that much. The attention shifted away from me soon however, when Lloyd pounded another cold one.--

‘Easy there, ole boy.’

‘Why, I can do what I want now, no longer am I bound to society’s laws and ethics, I am free now, because I’m terminal.’

‘And impending death makes you free?’

‘No, but conquering the fear of dying does, for it is that final fear, that abundant fear of death which keeps us in check. Allow me kindly to postulate a little more on this.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Gladly. What keeps one from punching armed men, from disobeying laws, from stretching the basic rules of ordinary conduct? Is it not a fatality of oneself that keeps most people from behaving badly, more so than rules or traditions? Everyday we are in one way or the other reminded of our own mortality, for instance the speed limits or the macabre graveyards. On has to keep oneself under control, lest one shortens one’s expiration date. It is the image of death which, following reverse psychology, keeps us from cutting our wrists as teens when the world no longer seems merrily, when parents become adversarial schoolmasters and schoolmasters become a little too friendly. To quote the most remarkable man of philosophy ever to exist: only when one is alone, one is allowed to be free, for only when one is alone, one is allowed to be oneself, which is necessary for being free…’

‘I knew that one day, that book I gave to you would come back and sharpen its ferocious teeth on my backside.’

‘Perhaps. But from that point of view it becomes markedly easier to stipulate that only in death one is, given the ever present plague that is humanity, completely free. For in order to be free, I would have to be alone, since only then could I be truly myself, and only in being myself I can be free. Since I would never be left alone on this godforsaken planet of the human element, being alone is impossible in life, and thus: so is being free. Since I want to be free of the many burdens I carry, I have to free myself from the world. Does that make any sense to you?’

‘It does, though I find that eerie and not the least comforting.’

‘Comfort –how much comfort could I feel when I die slowly and painfully, when my life is not…’

‘But hold on you act as if dying is natural, as if it is not the exact opposite of life itself!’

‘And why should I not? For what is more natural than dying, that inescapable ending of all that lives. Even though it is the final chapter, it is just another chapter in every persons’ biography. All that lives must die, and shall die too. Unfortunately, somewhere the idea has crept in that it is to be postponed until it no longer can be postponed. This is absurd, if we accept people’s right to live, it should be normal too to have the right to die, or, accept that ending life is a part of the right you have of it.’

‘I guess that’s kind of true, but then again, why rush anything? You have two years ahead of you, part of which at least will not have to be spent in dreadful agony. Why not doo all you wished to do, or wish to do? Vacation? Skydiving? Slap the queen?’

‘They would be… well, fun I guess, but I would constantly be reminded that it would be the last I’d enjoy before I start coughing up blood, which may very well be even more devastating mentally than physically!’

‘Why not try one thing then, one thing you’d like to do and see if you cannot keep up with it?’

‘Because all things remotely enjoyable for an extensive amount of time takes a lot of administration, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Well they might not really like the fact I have no house as of tomorrow, so this, C, is where my joy ends. This is to be my last entertaining evening.’

‘If I had known that beforehand I would have taken you to all prostitutes strolling Main Street, load you up on all drugs outlawed by the House of Cowards, and go on like that until the pleasant illumination of dawn stops us from our nightly adventures.’

‘That would have been nice, but it also would not have made any difference, for I am determinate to act out my last decision in… of life.’

‘Even if it means never seeing Albion defeating wicked France again?’

‘I am afraid not; I have found rest and acceptance in my death, which will go how I’ll choose, and when I’ll choose.’

‘What will you do with your possessions?’

‘I have in fact already put something on paper about that, but I can’t say yet. You see, even though penniless, the costs of the eviction will fall on me to bear. To do so, I’ll let them impound as much as is needed by them to cover their expenditures. Afterwards I will have stuff left but nothing to put it in, so I guess I’ll just take whatever I can carry easily and leave the rest to face the elements and scavengers. If you want, you can come tomorrow and collect certain books you’ve always fancied having.’

‘I might just do that, at least, the very least, to salvage them from the brutes who’ll kick you out and storage them in case you change your mind about them. I think I’ve some spare room in my basement, and it will be no trouble at all to…’

‘Yesterday?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You said earlier you saw Hailey yesterday, you did!’

‘So?’

‘So, she is in Cork with her parents. I called you yesterday and you were at the office. You said…’

‘Alright, alright, I wasn’t at work. I was in Cork, explaining to her folks why the two of you’ve broken up.’

‘Why would you be the expert on that?’

‘I’m not the expert, Lloyd, I am the reason.’

‘You are the reason of what exactly?’

‘The breaking up part. Hailey left you because she slept with someone else, and regularly too.’

‘You?’

‘Me.’

--For a good second I thought I was about to witness a bar fight caused over, what else, a woman, but the throbbing vein in Lloyd’s neck subsided and he sighed heavily.--

‘I see… well… I guess… since I’m dying anyway, whether by my own hand or cancer, I’d rather have her be with a befriended Judas than God… I mean Satan knows who.’

‘You’re not mad at me?’

‘Not mad, but not all too happy either. As I said I have resigned in my fate, whatever that is, and will not cause trouble or even frown when further unexpected events come upon me.’

‘That’s… very big of you, albeit a tiny bit odd.’

‘Thank you. No really, thank you –it has strengthened my desire and fortified my resolution on whether to live or not.’

‘Well…’

‘I only hope you will be as lenient towards my intentions as I have been to your indiscretion, revealed to me only now, and not have me confined to an asylum for lunatics or something.’

‘Of course I won’t. Over the years you have forgiven me for my many eccentricities and although deeply disturbed by the prospect of losing such a good friend, I will not stand in the way of you executing the decision your deliberations have reached. I accept your logic on three points: first, overcoming fear of dying does make you free; second, death is an undeniable part of life and since your rights include the right to live, you also have the right to die; and lastly, soon you’ll suffer horribly and that you do not deserve.’

‘I thank you.’

‘But I must leave now, for Hailey awaits me, probably naked, and I don’t want to let her down like you did every night. You’ll pick up the tab right, thanks.’

--With that, Christopher got up, patted Lloyd on the back, and left the bar. I tried to discern the emotion prevalent on the latter’s face but could not quite make it out. After a few minutes of subtle observation he suddenly hopped on the seat previously occupied by his “friend”, which was next to mine, and looked at me with a forced display of cheerfulness.--

‘Would you mind drinking with me, stranger, so I can open up to you and discuss the iniquitous ways lives sometimes develop.’

--I looked at him, straight, got up, and, copying Christopher, I patted his back and spoke to him.--

‘What do you think, you pathetic moron, why would I waste my precious time, time I do have in abundance by the way, unlike you, on a dumped and terminally ill loser who does not even respond angrily to his friend’s betrayal of him? I hope soon you will cut your wrists or whatever, for I intent not to spent a mere minute on he whose friendship would last only as long as it would take him to gather the required cowardice to kill himself. I only hope that your suicide will be slow and hurtful, worse still than being devoured by cancerous cells, and then, upon entering Heaven and discovering that in fact it does exist and so does God, be spitted out of there to bade in the fire filled pools of eternal Hell. Goodbye, Lloyd, you retarded weakling.’

--As I left him I emptied the remains of my beverage on his crotch and walked out of the pub to the cheerful sound of sobbing. It turned out to be an entertaining night indeed. I am God. I am Satan…

Waarom schrijvers schrijven

Why do writers write?

People always ask: why do you write? The first thing you say is: not to make money if that’s what you think. But then you get stuck –it’s a difficult to answer question. Basically, it is so because there is an urge, the same painters feel when they get inspiration to paint, or when Michelangelo “saw” David in a solid block of shapeless marble. As Stephen King said: the story more or less writes itself, drawing on the author's experiences and fantasy to make it better and more realistic. I agree with the Master of Horror. When I wrote Complex, the manuscript currently laying at a publisher’s office for evaluation, I put in a lot of “me” in the story but it was that feeling, when waking up before normal people do, with a brilliant idea in your head, writing it down quickly to avoid the forgetful aspect of clarity –that feeling kept it going. Later you think: how did I come up with that? Or: where did that come from? Sometimes it really is the story itself, there in the most global form, like a dotted water painting of it. As a writer you have to interpret that main and incomplete form and put down your version of it –then it becomes a matter of talent and ways with words, but the stories seem to be there, in your mind, waiting for you to experience something, which makes you think of it and pluck it from the depths of your mind. Why do writers write? It is a pointless question, for there is no definitive answer: sometimes it’s because you’re angry; because you’re making a point; because you feel you have to. For me it’s usually the latter. When I write stuff, it’s not with a big schematic or building plan, a blueprint if you will, that’s gonna lead to the end-version. No, it’s putting your fingers on the keyboard or your pencil tot the blank pages and then, simply, write. When I write a chapter of some story automatically, jotting down line after line which my brain produces nearly subconsciously, I know it will be good one, or at least in my opinion. When I have to actively struggle to get the words down there, as is often the case for me with dialogues, then I know it will be stiff and fabricated. Why do writers write? Because they have to, because they feel the urge of a story waiting to materialize, because they cannot rest until they start working on it, feeling the liberating experience of the story coming to life. Writers create entire worlds that most people will never get to know, but sometimes a book can change your life. Sometimes getting a tear or a smile or an “atta boy” is a good answer to the tired old question: why do writers write?

A void (short story)

Just as he was ready to pound the wall with his clasped fist in a fit of extreme enragement the doorbell ran a soothingly short amount of time and he got up and about his business. It was go time, and he knew it. He checked himself in the small, rectangular mirror just inside of the hallway and saw that all was fine –a damn fine looking man, or so he opinioned. And then he opened the door and as soft and refreshing air filled the small hallway that somehow reeked of wet shoes although he kept those elsewhere, and as he looked at the hapless young woman in front of him, it dawned to him that he liked her just fine…well, just fine enough, to be more correct.
She was deliciously exotic, but not altogether black; she was more a lightly brownish tint of color, painting the smooth and hairless arms, one of which she extended in the beginning of a salutary handshake. Her long and blackish hair extended roughly halfway ass-ward. Her black eyes seemed inexplicably joyful and bright. Yes, she was a fine specimen of femininity –the type that men look at, cry about, flirt with, yearn for… But to him, she was just a spicy and nearly done piece of meat, and he was the proverbial butcher, waiting for the moment to make a mighty meal.
As he extended his hand in a mirroring gesture, waving a flash of a smile, a brief flash, which she answered with a genuine and broader one, he remembered the little amount of laboring sweat dripping down the forehead when he saw the advert on the board of the community college, and, being equipped with a near perfect memory for the irrelevant details man busies himself with, engraved in his mind the information it contained. The girl, called Anna, wished to learn the language he spoke so naturally, being born in the titular country, in exchange for a course in fluent Spanish. He could not possibly care any less about Spain or any Mediterranean country for that matter, but he did care about Anna and all that came before her and so he answered immediately, removing the advert somewhat later, when nobody was minding other people’s business and he threw the crumbled paper carelessly in a smelly container of garbage and cigarette stumps. He informed the lass that he was most interested in learning the basics of the Iberian language, and would exchange the advantage of speaking to a native with reciprocity. She obviously had no live, eagerly mailing the same day, the same hour actually, and accepted his deal, and he had smiled, peering to the hellishly lit screen over the edge of his well-deserved glass of Scotch. The arrangement was quickly made, over the chat function of his, naturally false account, and here she was, and so was he. And it was very promising indeed, say I and so would he.
He stepped back into his apartment, courtly inviting her to advance over the door step and he contemplated whether he saw a glitch of hesitation before doing as invited and he smiled in the darkness of the closing hallway. He motioned to the door with his keys, a very portent of what was awaiting, a clear sign of intent, yet she happily let him pass, him smelling her wonderfully scented perfume and slightly frotting her, and he locked the door, controlling the lock twice.
He fancied to wonder about the simplicity and undeserved trustfulness common among common women; that she would willingly fall for the trap laid, accept the unusual venue for a first meeting, and not even so much as frown as he checked the closed door, albeit he did so in a very convincing casual action. Indeed, such folly mankind oozes, being of lighthearted nature, in deviance of the Darwinian struggle for life and oxygen.
He lead her on into the main room, in which he liked to move all of his current project, although not at once, lest he loses some, and it was there, in the absence of any family pictures, seeing the abundance of books about the occult and degenerate villains, in the drawn curtains and crack in the mirror dominating the south wall, that she should have seen the signals that open view gave her, but it was not be that day, that girl, who simply seated her heavily sought after derriere on the red couch, not half of a yard near him, and he sat down to, but did so in an overly dramatic, slow motion, as to give her the idea she was with a man of extremes. Again, if the message entered her inferior brain –inferior caused by optimism- it did not show at all and she even complimented him on his nice apartment, which, location wise, was indeed ideally suited for most people who could not afford it, like her, or so he guessed. He stood up again, in similar slow motion, and asked her about her coffee needs –indeed, needs, for people the age of students as she and him too, cannot live, cannot function properly, without unhealthy amounts of the black fluid. She liked a small amount of sugar and just a pinch of milk. Naturally he dumped way too much of both ingredients, because he simply did not care about it, being completely devoid of basic human manners –manners instilled in the apelike race by state and church lest they get out of control and start to destroy all and everything, even all and everything they love most, for humanity in a most nature like state, is destructive beyond the normal imagination. People, however, accept the rules of the game and behaved for the most part, or confined their inner beastness to the privacy of their homes; but not him, dear God not him. He took a bottle of coke for himself, actually containing some illegal coke, if you feel me, for he liked to experiment (in all meanings of the world, to be honest) and could not perform all of his rituals without being slightly under the influence of nefarious drugs or booze and so it had been on every previous times with all those that had come and gone before Anna, and it would be equally so with those after her. For the moment however, the friendly Spanish teen was all he thought about and his concentration was at its utmost –for in times when he was alone, his mind simply lapsed into the world, the realm of fantasy, fuelled by his remarkable memory, which provided him with an unending stream of imagery from all those that had been his guests before Anna, and it filled him with the anticipation of what would happen with those that came after, for this was not to be the last time, just as it was certainly, decidedly not the first.
He handed her the cup and sat next to her, unnoticeably closer, a matter of a few inches. And then she began to talk, without invitation, enquiring, or reason given by him, just a nice little lady chatting away. And the way she made a habit of giggling every now and then came close to defrosting his Siberian heart. She was a splendid person, one who makes friends easily, at least among the menfolk. But it was more a charade, a play in which only half of the actors were aware of it; her talking about the pleasures of life, him scanning her body, becoming aroused with excitement, but also sizing her up, speculating strength and swiftness. He had never missed a target, but it wouldn’t kill him to make preparations, though the same could not be said for her. A void to be filled, avoid to not be killed.
Yes, his void. It all came down to that in the end, I suppose. It was his one defining characteristic, of which all the others came. The void that made him cold, or even that was incorrect, as he felt nothing, nothing at all but the emptiness inside him, like a big hole in the ground through which one, if one was to venture near enough, would be able to see the hellish abyss unleashing its drooling demons with their vile weaponry and murky eyes, one would see the great lake of fire, or, though essentially the same, one would see nothing at all, only a big and black field without any marks or life. His inner being was a charred and fanatical beast hell-bent on destruction and torture, and every so often, though often would be the better of the two words, the beast took over. The beast that had perfect night vision and thus operated favorably in the absence of unbearable light, that shines its unmasking heat on all that crawls beneath the subtle surface of normal mankind, or as normal as mankind can be, mind you. The void first presented itself when he was at the tender age of sixteen, and, ever since giving in to the void’s needs he has been doing…it. God, how he loves it. That he actually can feel, but only that, and only for a short while, until the fantasy simply fulfills him no longer and he needs to replenish his inner craving for human souls. And the same it was now. He could not wait to consume her, to fill his void, however temporary, with her supple flesh, and beastly darkness hardened his appraising eyes.
She seemed more aware now of his continuing silence and her volume dropped a bit, and her eyes began at last to search the room for some symbol of normality, but in the barren room only barely lit by a lamp in the corner, next to his position on the couch, with the curtains drawn, there was no such thing to be found, and suddenly, and surely, she became frightened. She wanted to slap her well proportioned forehead and gauge her stupidity for coming over here without mentioning it to anyone, for the pure reason of not having met anyone to tell it to in the short amount of time that had passed since he had noticed and responded to her advert. It dawned upon her that he had yet to smile a smile more than polite ones –no genuine laughter had escaped his periodically shivering lips, that were almost scarlet red. For a brief moment she wondered whether he was wearing lipstick but concluded that would be ridiculous. She fell silent.
Silence can say a lot more than words and in that seemingly hour of a moment that she looked at him, something of an instinctual feeling came over her, it was a gut feeling, telling her to “get out”. But get out of what? She was at a loss. He had not cloaked his pathways well if he was thinking of raping her; to be sure, her email account contained his messages and for the police cracking her mail would be a walk in the park. But then she got goose bumps over her deliciously smooth arms, and a bright red appeared out of place amidst the light brownness of her cheekbones, that were protruding noticeably from under her eyes. Why would the police crack my account? Could I not show them myself? And the absence of a reassuring answer to her own question was quite dreadful, and she moved away from him on the couch, hoping he would not notice. But what did he notice? He was zoomed in on her eyes and his wouldn’t blink. Like a mechanical man he simply stared, waited, but on what she didn’t know nor was she particularly keen to find out. And then, realizing this was getting nowhere, she spoke to him, hoping to get through his lethargic apathy.
‘Say, why are you so silent?’ Fake laugh. A small one.
Nothingness. He only stared, and she noticed he had a hand inching away to the lamp standing adjacent. Then he spoke.
‘Silly girl, all alone in this cavern of my domain, of my dominion.’
She nearly jumped; his voice sounded so different than before, where was the slight accent, the kindness, indeed, the humanity? He sounded like he stared. As a robot, but of a special kind –a robot that was having loads of fun, playing not unlike a cat would with a mouse or a toy. And her fear crept upwards, and her hands clasped on her tightening crotch, and she held her legs pressed stiff together at the joints of the knees, and she glared at the robot-man, the beast-man, and she swore his eyes were filling up with a redness, almost, in a very literal form of burning eyes with a fiery look.
‘What in the name of Heaven are you?’ She said it almost stuttering, unsure of everything but most of all of him and her chances of getting out this house, that seemed incredibly dark all of a sudden, and she wished the curtains had not been drawn or that she had noticed them being drawn earlier.
And when she asked that, he could no longer contain his yearning beast, the demon from within, and in an instant, the man he never truly was vanished, only to be replaced presently with the void that filled him completely and was thus in a way his eternal essence. The beast started to drool and the insanity prohibited him almost of responding, but somehow the beast like to talk to its victims.
‘A serial killer’, it said, ‘that is what I am, and is it not wonderful how you have chanced to get into this little predicament –locked in all alone with a serial killer, mind you, the nastiest and most inhuman of all types of killers and the sort. Actually this would be an appropriate time to scream…’ And with that, it flicked off the light framed by the lamp standing next to him and utter darkness filled the apartment, gobbled it up like an enormous black mouth, rotten to the core. And the beast, seeing, with the night vision inherent to beasts, her well, moved about the room, touching this and moving that, growling here and sighing there. And the girl was very confused by this ballet of the macabre and twisted on her heels. It was rather like an unwanted dance. Unwanted by her, that is.
‘Tell me, what do you want?’ She gasped into the darkness, noticing only his cold and half-closed eyes that stared insanely focused on her. And when he would close them and shift positions, she could only look everywhere she could to find him, by the grace of the white in his eyeballs, and find scarce solace when she did. He kept moving and making sounds here and there and she desperately wanted to get to the door but was afraid to advance, content to swirl in a fixed place, and with an astonishing clarity remembered him locking the door and checking it carefully too. This is not his first time, she thought, and if only she knew just how right she was. He stepped closer, moved his eyelids together, appeared left of her, again a step closer, and repeated this. Something seemed to hold off his frontal assault to which she would have been defenseless, but she did not know what it was and thus could not exploit it. Had she known it was her lack of screaming, so different from all that had become houseguests before her, she would have kept silent forever. But when he was too close to bear it any longer, she exhaled precious oxygen violently and made a run to the locked door, hoping somehow to get through. And obviously she trapped herself even more by doing so, for now she leaned backwards against the door, and was enclosed by the opposing walls of the small hallway, but even worse were those scoffing eyes, creeping ever nearer. Indeed, he was already within striking distance, within arm’s length, and he touched her –it was a quick tickle of her leg, but it was enough to sent her thought processes haywire. She smelled his sweat now, and it filled her nostrils with a salted flavor. He closed his eyes. She could feel him somehow, feel him stepping forward, breathing hard, hard below too, and she was confident he was standing perhaps no more than a quarter of a foot from her face, and she sank to the stability of the floor, half in mind to roll up like a ball and eject fountains of tears. And in a flash, his eyes moved rapidly to her position on the floor.
And it was not that he hated her. Not at all. In his own way, he rather liked her. Nor was it that he hated all humans. Although he viewed the species as primordial apes, powerless against the whims of Nature and nations (germs and Germans), that was an altogether exaggerating word for it. Too harsh a description. It was just that she wasn’t terribly important to him, but then again, who was? No one…and thus no one was save and all were in great peril, for he did not, or could not particularly care who he would feed to his inner beast, who would be taken by it, who he would partake to fill his void for a while.

And then, at last but alas too late, she indeed began to scream, and rather loud too.