Showing posts with label wet works. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wet works. Show all posts

Friday, May 18, 2007

Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Or I am at least.

The following is not at all connected to Wet Works. Or possibly completely connected.

Disclaimer the First: I have much respect for human life, I do. In Real Life, I’m quite the pacifist. This is just too little sleep, too much caffeine, end of term jitters, and a well meaning and usually lovable friend who would not just shut the hell up even though I was not in the effin mood. Not a psycho, just like to play one on TV.

Disclaimer the Second: The following material is of a graphic and disturbing nature. If you've got any qualms about murder or torture in fiction you should give this a miss.


If I were to kill you, this is how I would do it. The room would be empty of furniture, stark clean lines, no color on the walls, no covering on the ground. Well lit center, edges in shadow so that you can wonder if there was an exit out there somewhere. I’d like to have you hung from your wrists, but it would be too much of a cliché. Instead I’d have you on a table, ankles and wrists bound tight, stretched out in a nod to the medieval. Black Sabbath’s Paranoid would be on constant repeat, to prevent things from getting too somber. No blindfold because that would rob me of the pleasure of your expressive face.

We would be alone, you and I, with no one around to hear you scream. And trust me, you will scream. You’ll resist at first, choke them down, but I’ll rip them from your throat until it bleeds, and then I’ll make you scream some more. See my plans for you are much bigger than a happy dagger slipped softly between your ribs. I’m going to take my time with you.

I’ll let you admire my large, shiny hunting knife; twist it this way and that in the bright lights, letting it glint cheerfully at you. It would rest briefly at your temple before traveling oh so slowly down your face. I’m going to use it to lightly trace your neck, sinews tight with fear, down down, collar bone, fluttering chest, heaving sides before stopping just below your navel.

Just as panic begins to set in, filling the room with the wet rattle of your breathing, I’ll pause. Frowning and feigning reluctance I’ll pull away and wait for the guarded hope to slip into your eyes before plunging in to the hilt. My grip will tighten on the handle before I pull up. I wonder how much resistance your body will put up as I split you open.

I’m not going to eviscerate you. Entrails are all good and well in theory, but the reality tends to be too messy. That said I don’t know how I’ll resist the lure of being elbow deep, and tinkering around with your blood warm insides. The liver is supposed to hold your body temperature for ages I've heard.

Will you beg? Will you cry? Cover everything in tears and sweat and snot and the stench of your fear? Will you be worth all the work, all the quiet preparation? I put in a lot of time and effort for you, you know.

“Shhhhhhh,” I’d whisper to you stroking your face with a maternal touch. I’d press my lips gently to the top of your head and lovingly smooth back your hair. I’d solemnly look into your terrified eyes before slashing your throat and stepping back to watch your life bleed away.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Bits and Pieces

Sometimes contentment is curling up with a dystopian (my favorite kind of literature) graphic novel and a cup of hot apple cider (Second Cup, you rock). Sometimes it’s spending the night with chili cheese fries and a cherry coke from Johnny Rocket’s and season one of Stargate (going awww at the titanium gatesheild).

Sometimes contentment is spending time with your family in full view of a twilight sky that would not have looked out of place in a renascence painting. Sometimes it’s hanging out with your uncles (who you adore) over smoldering coals and talking over everything from Good Will Hunting to the crappy music they used to listen to when they were kids.

Sometimes contentment is someone letting you know that what you do matters (thank you Krispy). Sometimes it is finding your best friend online for the first time in ages and poking fun at her just like you did in high school.

Other times it’s very far away, not at all important, and all you have is 200 words of fiction.

Short? Yes. Sweet? You tell me.

I haven’t gotten rid any of Ari’s stuff. People have dropped a few hints about helping me find some sort of charity to which I could donate some of his things. The truth is, I haven’t even started packing things away. I still pay rent on his place, and when I’m there it seems like I’m there waiting for him to get ready so that we can go already. He's always late, and I'm always impatient. Impatient for what, I'm not really sure. For more opportunities to strike out I guess. A little pool, a few beers, you’d think I’d loosen up some but I just can’t talk to chicks like he can. He’s always been the suave one where as I tend to impress with my amazing powers of stumbling over every word I say. No complaints though, some chicks are into the whole bumbling fool thing, so it’s not like I never hook up.

The thing is, of the two of us, I've always been the more dispensable. I’m the one with no attachments to speak of, no significant academic presence, the one with the transitory lifestyle. If my life had ended that night the ripples that would have been caused would have been very small, infinitesimal. And yet I’m the one left to knock around in my empty life.

That’s why it seemed so much simpler to get rid of my stuff instead.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Waste Not Want Not

Despite being more than a little attached to my mind, my mind tends to find bloody imagery more interesting than other things at the moment.

Well, bloody imagery and handball, since it’s the only national team that gives us reason to be proud. So we kicked the Irani team’s collective ass and breezed through to Thursday’s finals. Some moments in today’s game our players truly were poetry in motion, and the Qatari commentator whole-heartedly agreed judging by his flowery sometimes hilarious metaphors. Go Blues. We may get something glittery *and* gold methinks.

Anyway, back to the wet works. A continuation of last post’s piece.

Blood. Lots of it slicking my hands as I tried in vain to staunch the flow. Had the bullet hit his thigh just inches to either direction Ari would still be alive. Instead his femoral was ruptured and he gasped out his last breaths in front of me, his hands and mine covered in his blood. So much blood, its smell so strong that I could taste it. Coppery tang and I kept gagging, but I couldn’t throw up until they came and took him away. Only then could I let my stomache rebel and the pavement was baptized with both our insides.

That was the first time I saw a gun up close. But the killing urge didn’t come then. Even after Ari’s death I still saw academia as a warm protective cocoon that would protect me from the harshness of the outside world. It was months before she revealed herself to be a fickle mistress who would lead you to your death as soon as warm your bed. I was naive enough to believe that we were victims of a random mugging, and it never crossed my mind that it was Ari’s research that put an end to my best friend’s life. Metzger may not have carried the bullet but a few whispers into the right ears and I watched the only family I had bleed out on a sidewalk. It was seven months and four days ago that I found out.

I finally get why he was so sympathetic, so understanding. At the time I was pathetically grateful for his presence. Right now I’m just glad that all I’d sobbed to him about was worthless sentimental crap about growing up in Ari’s shadow. I wonder how soon I would have joined Ari in the nether world if Metzger had gotten what he needed out of me. Now if only I’d get what he needed out of me, I’d know where to go from here.

Unfortunately, Ari and I hardly ever talked about work when we got together, which means I’m going to have to go through everything. This scares the shit out of me. Ari was brilliant, and not in my wildest dreams could I hope to come close. I only hope I can piece together what it was that got him killed before I end up in the ground alongside of him.

Friday, December 08, 2006

A Terrible Thing To Temporarily Lose Track Of

River Tam from Firefly (The Academy), Ender Wiggin from Ender’s Game (Battle School), Jared from The Pretender (The Center). Beautiful, terrible piece of fanfiction about post-Atlantis Rodney Mckay from Stargate: Atlantis.

A week of fantasies fueled by an amalgam of the above. I tend to live long hours in worlds of my own construction. Happiness is boring, pain is interesting. Sometimes they are worth writing, oftentimes not. I don’t fetishize pain (much), but I tend to lean towards flawed broken characters, because I find them more interesting. I may have an overly analytical mind.

Result.

I wipe my hands on the thighs of my jeans, leaving damp patches I can feel through the denim. It wouldn’t do to have a slippery trigger finger when the time comes. Time. It’s been seven months and four days since I decided to kill him. Six months since I bought the Berretta, 92, military, supposedly untraceable to me. Five months of trekking out to the northwest corner of nowhere and shooting tin cans into the dirt.

A sniper rifle would have been safer, but it meant more time and more effort. More than three months to be a decent shot and two more to be a great one. Plus, I wanted to smell his blood. I wanted to see his face, wanted to see the change from warm familiarity to shock.

I shower, shave, and put on my best suit. Put on my gloves; smooth Italian leather, bought special for the occasion. I arrange and rearrange my hair, adjust my tie, once, twice, three times. I feel like a girl getting ready for her first date. On my way out I stop by the picture one more time. I brush my hand across our faces, bright and jovial at last year’s faculty Christmas party. Arms over one another’s shoulders, faces flushed with drink, and I remember feeling so… fraternal. We could have been brothers, once upon a time. I feel fond, almost tender. I almost rethink what I’m about to do. Almost, because some secrets should never see the light of day.

The sidewalk is covered in gray slush and my feet are wet, but I can still feel sweat pooling at the base of my spine. My heart is in a marathon pushing through that final pain barrier in the last stretch, just a little faster, just a little longer. I finger the pretty in my coat pocket and keep my feet from picking up the pace. Musn’t be overeager.

It’s over much too fast for my liking. Recognition, pleasure, fear, anger, resignation flash too fast across his face. The first shot rings out loud, the other two less so. The crowd swells and closes. I slip away easily; the 92 down a sewer grate farther down the street. I regret not being closer. My mind toys with what it might have been like to feel the warmth of blood on my face, a small discreet splatter, but blunt objects are inconvenient.

He was my first kill, but I have a strong suspicion he will not be my last.