I came home from work from a pretty average day. Before stepping to my door, I stopped to unlock the mailbox and see what the day had brought. It's one of those tiny apartment mailboxes where the contents are usually smashed because it's too small for anything other than a postcard. It's usually full of bills and junk mail and advertisements for places that I will never shop at smashed into this ball of garbage that makes me wonder why they bothered killing the tree. Today was different. Today there was a large manila envelope addressed to me from someone I had not spoken to in a long time. A girl I went to High School with and who I had only spoken to a handful of times in the twelve years since.
I stepped inside my apartment, sat down my briefcase, took off my coat, and sat down to open the envelope. Atop the sheaf of papers inside was a neat, typed letter printed on stationary from the law office out of which she now practiced. It was short, only a few paragraphs. A month back I had run into her at an event we both attended in my old hometown where she still lived. I said hello but then quickly moved on. We were not friends. We were not enemies, but there are very few people you keep in contact with from High School, and she was not one of them. I really didn't think anything of it. However, the contents of this letter demonstrated that she felt otherwise.
To summarize and paraphrase, she was offended that I did not speak to her at the event. It contained wild conjecture as to why this was the case. She was looking forward to seeing me and didn't know why I was distant, what she did to offend me. The moral of this little package was that regardless of who we were now, there was a time when we were very close. That we were "not so different." And to prove this, the sheaf of papers enclosed were a collection of correspondence from me to her over the course of about two years.
I was floored. While she was busy thinking about me, I thought of her not at all. This could not have been more out of the blue. However, I now had an interesting opportunity. For someone with no memory, I now had the means to fill in some of it with words written by my own hand. I tore through them immediately.
My first thought was revulsion at my butchery of the English language. Given that I was fourteen, I think this is understandable, but it was still painful to read. Then there was the whining, the teen angst. I was very depressed as a child and she was one of the few I would talk to about it. How she put up with it I don't know because all I did was whine about how I hated pretty much darn near everything. I hated this person, that teacher, this song, that class. It was both ridiculous and typical.
Then of course, I was also madly in love with her at the time. So if I wasn't pouring out my angst, I was flirting with her. Stringing together compliments and promises that I thought were witty and original but that were really just crude and clumsy. Half notions of romance gleamed from television and movies. It was annoying and cute in that childlike way, evidence of a not yet fully developed mind. (And oddly successful when used on girls of the same age) We decided at one point to just be friends and nothing ever became of it.
I read through thirty or more letters, feeling a bit nostalgic and content in a way that I had not felt in a long time. But on top of that, there was a nagging feeling. A feeling of something missing. I was not so much bothered by what was said, but by what wasn't said. I was a very private child and am still a private adult. No one person knows everything about me. I tell certain people certain things, but not enough to any one person that they can put it all together. I learned this habit at a young age as was evidenced in these writings.
She would always ask me what was wrong? Why was I so depressed? What happened? I would always evade these questions. I would say I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I would hint at things that happened that I just couldn't talk about. I would sometimes act as if I would start to reveal my secrets but then change my mind at the last minute. I recognize it now as an adolescent mind's ploy for sympathy, but it got me to thinking. What actually happened? Did something actually happen? Some memories are clear. Some are just a void in my head where I know a memory should be. Some are shrouded in fog, like standing on the edge of some fey glade snatching glimpses of the secrets within. Some are encased in blackness. These live in the dark parts of my soul. But for some reason, this exercise of letters became a light in the darkness. It was then that I remembered my first kill.
The first kill was simple. It was sweet and it was innocent as was the twelve year old boy who did it. There was this girl, Laurie. I had been "going steady" with this girl for almost an entire summer while we were at the same church camp. We promised to be together forever. In the first week of my seventh grade year, I got a letter from her breaking up with me. She said she liked a new boy at her own school and didn't want to be with me anymore. My little child's heart was broken. That weekend, I caught a bus a few towns over to where she lived. My parents trusted me completely and didn't question when I said I was staying at a friend's house. I hid outside her house and watched as the little boy came over for dinner with her family. I watched as he left and then followed his walk home. Times were different then and it was not uncommon for a twelve or thirteen year old to walk home alone. He took a short cut through a park and crossed a bridge over a large creek. This is where I would confront him.
The following weekend I did the same. I watched her house as he came over. When he was preparing to leave, I sprinted ahead to intercept him on the bridge. I did not plan to kill him. I simply wanted to explain that this was my girl and I would kindly appreciate if he would give her back to me. However, when I confronted him, he didn't seem to like this idea. He was the bully type and began shoving me. I had no choice but to shove him back. Back and over the side of the bridge. The fall was not great but the rocks at the bottom were sharp enough to spit his head wide open. I leaned on the rail and idly watched as the life drained from the wound on the head. The trails of blood on the rock gave the prettiest reflections on the moonlight. I realized I felt better and I realized I no longer had interest in the girl. I shrugged and went home.
His death was all over the news. He, of course, fell. "He shouldn't have been in the park after dark. Someone should have been watching him." No one even suspected foul play. I simply smiled, marveling at the ease of it all. I put it behind me and soon forgot. Then there was Amy. I was now fourteen and all grown up. We were obviously soul mates, but she could just not see it. She had one of those pesky boyfriends that I needed to get rid of. I knew the boy and he did not know of my feelings for his girl. I lured him out onto the walkway of a bridge that crossed the big river in my hometown. The look of shock as I pushed him over the edge was just?satisfying. Now free of him, Amy should have been ripe for the picking, but she was too busy being "upset." I mean seriously, what was the big deal? He was gone and we could be together now. I did her a favor. But she just couldn't see it that way which grew terribly irritating. I finally had to get rid of her too. A jumping suicide over the death of her boyfriend, it was so simple. I put it behind me and soon forgot.
I only killed once or twice more in High School. I really hit my stride in college. I was older now with more means at my disposal. I met many soul mates but for some reason, they just didn't get it and most of them had those pesky boyfriends. Those I dispatched quickly. Never the same way twice. Never a pattern, that was how you got caught. Once I realized that all women were stupid, I realized that I would have to teach them that we should be together. I had to convince them that we were soul mates, as if this were not self evident. Some I would simply tie up and starve until they got it, but that grew boring. Some I would beat mercilessly until they got it, but that too grew boring and they were too damaged to be any fun anyway. So then I tried more psychological torture. Minimal damage but with the promise of more. Exotic implements of exquisite pain. Threatening of family members. Threatening with snakes or maybe a sack full of river rats or spiders. Maybe pulling off a fingernail or two. But eventually that grew boring and I found it was the screams I loved most. The attempted screams through a gagged mouth or the tears carving fresh tracks in blood stained cheeks because their bound hands could not wipe them away.
Then began the carving. If I loved a girl's smile, I would cut her cheeks to make it bigger. If I loved a girl's eyes, I would cut them out to keep them for my own. Sometimes I would just carve strange designs into the flesh. The stomach is so soft and makes a great canvas. My favorite game became slicing off the skin in long thin strips. The goal was to see how thin I could get them because that made it last longer. Also how long I could get each strip, this was evidence of a skillful cut. This produced endless muffled screams and they would eventually pass out which would give me time for a quick meal. Sometimes I packed a lunch and sometimes I just dined on what I had cut if I forgot to pack one. It was all very? satisfying . But then, I would take care of the evidence, put it behind me, and soon forget. I suppose if I would have remembered I wouldn't have had to keep doing it over and over, but it's not my fault my memory is bad.
I read the letters again and silently thank my friend for this wonderful jog of memory. Maybe she has been my soul mate all along. She is married and has a four year old child, but I can easily handle that. A child's scream will be something new and exciting. I shall have to drive back to my hometown to pay her a visit and thank her. Speaking of driving, I now know what that strange smell in my car is. I shall have to take care of that and then soon forget.
rating: 9
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