I know what you’ve come to ask me, and to be quite honest, I’m not sure I have an answer for you. Many people have spoken to me about it over the years, and my answer varies with the time.
Sometimes my response is, “Because I felt like it,” or “She started it.”
Most of the time my response is simply nothing at all.
But, since you’re going to be the last person to ask, I’ll try to lay it out for you.
I was not an easy child, as one might assume. I liked to be outside, being in the house always seemed like a punishment for me. I didn’t want to see my mother, with her judgmental glare and her overactive imagination. But, the main reason I liked the outside was the wind. The wind was invisible, but you could see the way it affected the things around it. I always felt a bit like the wind, looking for a tree to bend.
My teachers resented me. Teachers like to feel needed, they like to help children. I guess that is the whole point of it, so who can really blame them? I was beyond help, but they always tried anyway. Sure, I did well in my classes, I was academically excellent, but this was the most frustrating part of it all. My issues stemmed from my social interactions.
My first friend was a girl named Anna. She was kind, and she was patient. You had to be, in order to be my friend. She had these pink ribbons that she wore in her hair everyday. I loved those ribbons, I’d pull them gently, twirl my fingers in them. Anna didn’t mind, she would just sit quietly reading her book while my hands twisted in her ribbons.
One day, she came to school without ribbons. The pigtails were there, but the ribbons weren’t. What were my poor little fingers to do? I adapted to my situation. My hands found solace in her hair, grabbing and twisting just like I had with the ribbons. Anna was so sweet about it at first. But, as my hands continued their fidgeting, she began to lose her restraint. We were ten years old, after all.
She started to cry as I kept yanking and twirling. The book she’d had in her hand was forgotten, tossed aside and tear-stained. Maybe a normal child would have stopped then, seeing that they were causing pain and about to get caught. Or maybe they’d have remorse for the pain itself.
I was no normal child, however, so I just pushed on, not a care in the world, face blank and guilt-free. Eventually, the teacher found the source of the crying and got upset with me. She instructed me that I was not to sit near Anna or play with her at recess, or I’d get into big trouble.
Anna was my first friend and my last. I was homeschooled for the rest of my education.
My first job was in a small town in Oklahoma. I did tech work for the local university, watching the college students walk about, not sure where they were going. I was their age, but I felt older, like an ancient deity raised from their slumber.
This was where I met Patrick. He was a sweet boy, like Anna had been a patient girl. If I were someone normal, I’d probably consider Patrick to be the love of my life. He was beautiful, sculpted like a statue laid about in Rome.
He didn’t like for us to be together in public, there was so much fear in him. I didn’t mind, I liked keeping secrets. Patrick’s friends saw us around, suspected things, but he never told them, and neither did I.
When he left Oklahoma, he never looked back. It was sad to watch him go, to know that I could follow him if I wanted, but that it would be useless. For the first time in my life, I felt like a small boy. Even when I was a small boy, I felt like a monster hiding under the bed, waiting to pounce.
I wanted Patrick to come back, and wanted to remember the feeling of him. This was the closest I’d ever gotten to caring for someone, and it had slipped out of my fingers like Anna’s ribbons.
I know what you’re thinking. I know you think I’m rambling to waste your time. In truth, there is a lot more you need to know to understand me. You probably never will. I do promise I’m getting to the main event.
As I got older, my mother did too. As much as I loathed the woman, I was required to care for her. There was no one else left, she’d made sure of that. So, I returned home, leaving the woods of Oklahoma behind.
The last day my mother was alive, she tried to speak with me. I wasn’t a talker, so this was already a bit annoying, but I tolerated it.
“You see the paper?”
“No.”
“Some man is killin’ women in the area.”
“Men are always killing women, ma.”
“Yeah, but this guy looks real freaky.”
“Does he now?”
“See for yourself.”
My mother threw the paper on the dining table, pointing to the picture of the man. I’d been doing the dishes, but at the sound of the paper dropping, I turned around with a sigh. It took me a moment to find what exactly she was pointing at with her gnarled finger.
There he was: Patrick splattered on the front page of the newspaper. Something must’ve shown on my face because my mother looked up at me with a weird expression.
“What, you know him or somethin’?”
I turned back to my dishes, “No, ma, just looks like someone I used to know.” The lie was sour in my mouth. But, the Patrick I knew was not a killer. It simply wasn’t possible.
“It’s a shame, this girl is pretty, too.”
“Mhm.”
“She is, real cute. Name’s Anna.”
My hair stood up on the back of my neck as my mother continued to drone on.
“Remember when you had a friend named Anna?”
“Yes, ma.”
“You were a piece of work, you know that?”
“Yes, ma. Sorry, ma.”
“Ah, well. That’s the past.”
I spent the night tossing and turning, sweat sticking to my back. I’d always been a good sleeper, no nightmares had the power to wake me. But, this was different. I sat up in my bed, frustrated, preparing to retrieve a glass of water from the kitchen.
That was when I heard the window shatter.
“Ma?” I called out.
The voice that answered me sent chills down my spine.
“No, not Ma.”
I rushed to the living room, where Patrick now stood. He was soaked from the rain, breathing heavily. He was in a prison jumpsuit, which told me he’d just fled. He was bleeding from the glass cutting into him.
“Pat?”
“Hey, babe.” The tone was mocking and it made me shiver.
I’d been so occupied with the man standing in the living room, I hadn’t noticed my mother asleep on the couch. How she hadn’t awoken from his entrance was a mystery. I looked back to Patrick, who had a horrifying grin on his face.
“Pat, what are you doing here?”
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Well, sure, but-”
“I came to kill your mother.”
It didn’t phase me as it should have. I stared at him blankly.
“Well, there she is.”
He faltered at that, like I’d called his bluff. He glanced nervously at the sleeping woman, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Are you scared, Pat?”
He said nothing, making no move to follow through on his menacing words. I remember watching him tremble, a deer in the headlights. Poor thing was so out of his depth, I wanted to help him.
So, I shrugged, “You had your chance.”
He watched me anxiously, eyes dilating as I stepped forward, gripping his wrist as I whispered, “Now it’s my turn.” I pulled back, shoving Patrick down into the armchair. I basked in the light of an audience. How delightful it felt to be watched.
The next few moments were hardly moments at all.
One minute, I had grabbed the knife.
The next, I was standing over my mother.
She opened her eyes and gasped when I slit her throat. The emotions that swam in those eyes didn’t even make me flinch. She croaked out a string of words that meant nothing to me, gripping my wrist in a panic. I almost laughed at her. I did laugh when those emotions died into nothing. When she died into nothing.
My vision sharpened as the coppery tang flooded my senses. As if my adrenaline was rewarding me with a high. I smeared her blood along my hands, then on my cheeks, all the way down my neck. It was refreshing, like a night cream. I let out a deep sigh, massaging it into my temples.
Late at night, I still dream of that feeling. The scent of blood, the taste of it in my mouth, the way it dried and cracked on my skin.
I remember the feeling of Patrick’s hair between my fingers, the sound of his sigh as I massaged the blood into his scalp. I remember the deep kiss, and the way I tasted his blood when I slashed that beautiful throat of his. He’d gurgled it and spat it into my mouth, and I can sometimes taste it when I lie awake at night.
I didn’t feel like I’d just killed two people. I still don’t feel it.
Well, anyway, they’re calling me.
What? You want to know why? I just told you.
Yes, I did. You weren’t listening.
Not everything happens for a reason. I don’t know why I did it. It felt right in the moment, like it made sense. If there is a lack of payoff here, it’s because of your expectations, not because of my story.
Of course, the second body they found in my house was not Patrick’s. It was Anna’s. I don’t remember killing her, but she was there. There’s a lot of debate around whether or not Patrick ever came into my house. There is no current record of his arrest.
So maybe it was all a dream, maybe this is still a dream.
In the end, does it truly matter? The universe is vast, the world full of billions of people.
No, you’re right, it still matters. But to whom? Oh well, I have one more thing left to say.
Just remember that when you die, the things you most regret are the things you didn’t do. So, take that trip to Italy, learn a language, drop out of school, do whatever makes you happy, so you don’t die full of regret.
I know I won’t.
