Excuse me if its not up to serial-killer fiction snuff, but it was my first true attempt involving the psychological aspect of crime.
Sometimes the very qualities that define you can be disconcerting. For Jonah, this had been true ever since he could remember. He had a typical childhood, filled with bouts of laughing and running, sporting an uncaring nature. These times in Jonah’s life were crystallized in memory, mental saran-wrap covering over the images to preserve in the times that he loathed himself. It was difficult for Jonah, living half a life, endless transitions between lunacy and lucidity.
He could feel it coming on, as slowly as he always did. Slowly, then suddenly. He would be strolling down the street, enjoying his freedom from himself, when it would hit him. The stench would fill his nostrils, like so many rotting sacks of human shaped offal. It would be like he had walked into a wall, everyday life became difficult beyond reason. The thoughts dominated his existence, pounding other idea and concepts into pulp and forcing them to a cramped corner of his psyche, the lock and key lost until the course of his madness ran through. Eventually he was left panting, a portion of his life a forgotten haze of abstract violence, emotions blurred together into a great red loathing. He never tried to recall those times after he accidentally did the first few times. The pain was excruciating, the needles of his memory piercing his skull, as if forcing them out into the world to see. Worse, the sickening longing for the madness to return. Jonah was afraid of losing Jonah, the man, and becoming Jonah, the madness. Yet, he knew what he really wanted.
Though he had the want, the longing, ever since he could remember, the first event that he could remember, his catalyst, had been a strange thing. He had overheard his mother reading news to his father, as his father ate breakfast. Almost burnt toast he remembered, and orange juice, from a newly opened container. “A serial killer?” His mother had inquired “why would a person kill so many other people, its absolutely unspeakable!” His father had made some sort of non-commital response, kissed his mother on the cheek and left for work, leaving Jonah to wonder why you wouldn’t want to kill so many other people.
Brightness. Being awake. A hangover.
The first 3 things that Richard felt were all equally discouraging. His fight for his precious sleep was viciously aborted when his roommate walked into the bedroom.
“Dick, you can’t seriously still asleep,” his roommate growled, vehemence dripping from his tone.
Dick’s grunted response was not enough to placate his clearly annoyed roommate who had spent the better part of the day cleaning up after the raucous party that had occurred the night before, at the behest of Dick and his friends.
The result was a struggle that resulted in a slightly bruised Richard awake and eating breakfast, staring blankly at their beer-smelling tv, oddly coloured splotches appearing in the most opportune places on screen. He got a good laugh as a patch highlighted a weatherman’s junk, eliciting a strangled sound from his roommate who was not at all amused that their tv had inadvertently become the target of a run-by soaking the night before.
The laugh was cut short as a rather average looking anchor man interrupted with an update on a local FBI investigation, the gist of which Richard had caught a couple of weeks prior. A serial killer had eluded capture for many months, and recent evidence had shown that he had been killing for nearly 30 years, always managing to go into hiding as police closed in on the culprit. Using connections created from stringing together these previously unrelated cases, they had found evidence that had almost lead them to the killer.
As he listened to the news anchor relay the news of the murderer’s apprehension, he barely registered the words, instead lost in a singular thought, overpowering like nothing else had ever been before. What has stopping him, Dick, from killing people? Why shouldn’t he? The thoughts disgusted him, not because of their vile nature, but because he thought of others, his roommate, his landlord, so many people. Walking land-fills, filthy bags of human shaped excrement-waiting to be ended, their stench removed from existence. Something was pulling him, forcing him to fall into himself. He was losing control.
“Dick, I swear to god if I have to clean all this shit up myself.”
He was furious.
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