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Just another morning in another black and white day. The sky screamed for change, and crowds of people hustled between skyscrapers all self-obsorbed and impatient.
Conners felt like dropping a table out of his window, watching as it plummeted, decreasing in size and spinning out of control until it finally and silently smashed on the pavement, causing all the little ants to gather around it, perhaps even killing a few of them.
Oh and what for their family and their loves and their lives... Another stupid death on another stupid day.
But then.. with a sigh, Conners rejected himself to his leather chair. He liked the table anyway.
He took a moment to try and apprieciate the chair. It had cost a lot, a lot more than what he could currently afford. It was a good chair, still had the smell of leather to it, if not memories of sex, drugs, and a tired ass carved into it's body. No drugs now, just the bottles. Beautiful brown paper bags, like every anti-hero needs.
Conners looked to the mirror image of his name, painted on the door. Oh sweet dreams of adventure, of love and heroicism. Women in red dresses, wanting their husbands caught, their pearls returned. All the things that really mattered, all the broken marriages and all the comfort in the world.
Like every man before him and every man since, Conners thought to himself, he felt dead. Completely, emotionally dead. He didn't want a woman's arms around him, nor some w***e to kiss and bang over the desk. Nothing but a deafening numbness. Conners opened the bottle, and took a swig through his teeth.
Yeah, anti-hero, that's it. The guys you never hear about because they just don't care to speak. Sure, you get all those war heroes, look what they did. They carried a man to safety, well done sir, well done.
No, they aren't the real heroes. They were the possible heroes. The guys who gambled the sacrifice, not the ones that made it. They gambled over dying, to save a friend's life.
Conners looked out over the city again. The real heroes, they're the ones who choose to make the sacrifices. To have to live with the fact they've given up something that to them, was life itself. And why?
Why not.
There was a beautiful symmetry to the skyline. It was as if the whole world was waking from the calmest sleep.
And like nothing before and maybe nothing that would ever come again, Conners felt peace within himself. No, maybe he had felt like this, some time ago. Some time long ago.
Conners swore at the world and tasted the bottle again. Heroes didn't need comfort. They didn't do drugs, didn't need someone to hold them, no. They never got paranoid. They never thought of what would happen if you failed, if your plans went wrong.
There was a knock at the door. Conners placed a bet with himself that some old hag had been found dead.
A man and a woman, both tearful, in pain. Conners looked at them, up and down. Whatever happened, they hadn't done it.
"You're a private detective.. yes..?" The woman asked, snuffled and stuffed up. Her hair was a mess.
Conners replied, biting his tongue before explaining his charges and guarantees. Perhaps he still cared after all.
"Somebody killed our children."
And that was about it.
-------------
He was right, the parents hadn't done it.
When people die, it's usually one of three things.
One, money. Two, power. Three, sex.
These kids weren't killed for sex. They were both girls, they'd been smashed to pieces, and literally pieces, but if you wanted these girls for sex, you wouldn't smash them up before, and you definitely wouldn't smash them up after, you'd just strangle them or stab them.
And unless they were someone elses kids, which seemed highly doubtful at the moment, number two was pretty much ruled out as well.
And nobody stole candy from babies anymore, there's the old and tired for that.
Conners looked at the mess of the bodies. He had only just realised that the police were in with him, clearing up the bits.
"Lovely city ain't it Conners?" The police detective asked. His name was John. He was a hero. "What'd you think, some paedophile covering up his deeds?"
"Do you think you'd be able to smash up some kids after coming?" Conners asked, trying to memorise the room.
"Maybe he couldn't get it in and got frustrated!" Some cop jeered. Some others laughed.
You didn't need a motive in a place like this. You don't need a reason at all.
-------------
Forensics came back saying they couldn't pin down what the weapon was. It was dull, but with sharp attachments, like someone had stuck razor blades into a cricket bat.
Nobody makes a weapon to kill someone specifically. They want to kill them, then just find whatever's easiest, closest. It takes a cold imagination to make a weapon, like it didn't matter who you killed.
The phone rang. It was John.
"We're tracking down stuff on the parents, trying to see what they've been up to, you got anything?"
"Haven't checked." Conners replied. "Sorry."
"Okey man, I'll get back to you on that..."
Heroes didn't need comfort.
Conners lit his cigarette.
--------------
No matter what you do in this life, no matter who you follow, admire, desire, you'll always be a slave to yourself. And no matter how much you hide from it, you will always be a monster.
There is no man that, when faced with complete anger, could stop himself from killing someone. No man who would not lose control and rape someone when so frustrated. No man who would not pull down anyone around him just to save his own skin.
Unless he was dead already. Unless he had abandoned all emotion, all love, happiness, fear and pain. All those things you can't control.
Two boys and a baby girl, dead. The baby was taken out of the cot. Conners guessed because the murderer couldn't get a clean shot with the bat.
Once more, the parents were seemingly dying. Crying every last tear of emotion.
"Our man on the prowl." John said. Maybe none of this was real to him. Maybe heroes did live in some fantastic world all of their own mind, where no normal man could ever kill them. Some superpower.
You didn't have to shoot someone to kill them. They die, sure, just like the war heroes, the guys who take the gamble on the bullet. If you want to kill someone, you rip away their lives.
In a city of broken marriages of dead men to dead women, the only reason half of them are still married is because they don't want to shout and let their kids hear what's going on.
And so, just like everyone else, they die too. Emotions just wither away. Love that maybe was once there, and could have been with someone else, dies.
Eventually people start living for just one thing. Television, sex, money, power, their children, their grandchildren.
Then, you can just pull the plug, and you create a different type of monster. Not one that cannot control what they feel, but one that cannot feel at all. A zombie.
And you'd think, Conners thought to himself, out of everyone, that John would be paranoid. That he'd lock his kids windows and let them suffer in the heat at night.
Conners put the phone down.
--------
John hadn't spoke a word. The cops were silent, cautious, maybe even sad. Maybe some people would never feel unless you fired a gun in their face anyway, and then, naturally, it'd be too late anyway. Almost ironic.
The Detective had CCTV outside his house. Cameras that the man didn't notice.
There was no pattern to these murders. They were all around the same area, the East side, the rich side.
The figure in the video was hunched and tall, and his face well concealed. He held a cricket bat by his leg, until he reached up to open the window after peering in. He dragged himself through, bat and all. You can't see what happened inside. The video was almost useless.
Maybe, just maybe, when you couldn't feel anymore, when you gave everything up just for one thing to keep you alive, you just became a leech. A vampire, sucking all the life you could, all the emotion you can find. Why parents look after their children, why they protect them, because it's the only life they have left. Why television becomes so important, so they can pretend all those emotions are theirs.
"Get out. GET OUT OF HERE, I WANT YOU ALL OUT!"
John stood, his wife tearful, holding and pulling his arm back. He wriggled away and threw an ashtray at an officer.
"Yes, sir, we're going." Another officer said, who glanced to the one who dodged the ashtray.
And John sat down, with his wife. The woman that used to be the mother of his daughter.
------------------
Poriot was a hero. Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes. They never had to deal with a serial killer, because he'd always get caught. He'd make that mistake, and the glaringly obvious motive would spring out, and before you know it they're all in the sitting room together, casting gasps to the monster in the corner who, for that one moment, lost control of their emotions. No case unsolved, no murderer left unjudged for their so subtle emotional rage.
Now we just hope to find hair, blood, skin. In a world ruled by logic the man with no emotion can live as king.
And when it came down to it, this will be just another man. Someone desperate to snatch onto some sort of power, some belief that he's made a difference. Or maybe not.
But is this what we were always destined to become? Jumping from one breed of monster to the next...
The wind on Conners' face just made it feel numb.
If only we did have some way to snatch power, to pull back control in this spiralling world in which we lived, then perhaps we could make sense of all we could ever label insanity.
Because these killers aren't insane. They're not random, motiveless. They're nothing more than human, pulling back the only reason left in a ship of fools until they become nothing but completely self-knowing. They become the deep purest animal that we've always been. The truth will kill us all.
And if there was any real power in this world, fair those who call to arms and lay waste to so many lives for war, then it would lie only in the minds of the crazy, the lost and insane.
We are monsters. In ourselves, our desires. Our selfishness, with or without fear, is all we will ever be. The truth is, we just don't care.
If we are so doomed to leech all we could ever feel from anything we can attach ourselves to, then the knowledge of this can only ever drive you insane.
Conners heart beat faster, as the ants became bigger.
He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Conners felt like dropping a table out of his window, watching as it plummeted, decreasing in size and spinning out of control until it finally and silently smashed on the pavement, causing all the little ants to gather around it, perhaps even killing a few of them.
Oh and what for their family and their loves and their lives... Another stupid death on another stupid day.
But then.. with a sigh, Conners rejected himself to his leather chair. He liked the table anyway.
He took a moment to try and apprieciate the chair. It had cost a lot, a lot more than what he could currently afford. It was a good chair, still had the smell of leather to it, if not memories of sex, drugs, and a tired ass carved into it's body. No drugs now, just the bottles. Beautiful brown paper bags, like every anti-hero needs.
Conners looked to the mirror image of his name, painted on the door. Oh sweet dreams of adventure, of love and heroicism. Women in red dresses, wanting their husbands caught, their pearls returned. All the things that really mattered, all the broken marriages and all the comfort in the world.
Like every man before him and every man since, Conners thought to himself, he felt dead. Completely, emotionally dead. He didn't want a woman's arms around him, nor some w***e to kiss and bang over the desk. Nothing but a deafening numbness. Conners opened the bottle, and took a swig through his teeth.
Yeah, anti-hero, that's it. The guys you never hear about because they just don't care to speak. Sure, you get all those war heroes, look what they did. They carried a man to safety, well done sir, well done.
No, they aren't the real heroes. They were the possible heroes. The guys who gambled the sacrifice, not the ones that made it. They gambled over dying, to save a friend's life.
Conners looked out over the city again. The real heroes, they're the ones who choose to make the sacrifices. To have to live with the fact they've given up something that to them, was life itself. And why?
Why not.
There was a beautiful symmetry to the skyline. It was as if the whole world was waking from the calmest sleep.
And like nothing before and maybe nothing that would ever come again, Conners felt peace within himself. No, maybe he had felt like this, some time ago. Some time long ago.
Conners swore at the world and tasted the bottle again. Heroes didn't need comfort. They didn't do drugs, didn't need someone to hold them, no. They never got paranoid. They never thought of what would happen if you failed, if your plans went wrong.
There was a knock at the door. Conners placed a bet with himself that some old hag had been found dead.
A man and a woman, both tearful, in pain. Conners looked at them, up and down. Whatever happened, they hadn't done it.
"You're a private detective.. yes..?" The woman asked, snuffled and stuffed up. Her hair was a mess.
Conners replied, biting his tongue before explaining his charges and guarantees. Perhaps he still cared after all.
"Somebody killed our children."
And that was about it.
-------------
He was right, the parents hadn't done it.
When people die, it's usually one of three things.
One, money. Two, power. Three, sex.
These kids weren't killed for sex. They were both girls, they'd been smashed to pieces, and literally pieces, but if you wanted these girls for sex, you wouldn't smash them up before, and you definitely wouldn't smash them up after, you'd just strangle them or stab them.
And unless they were someone elses kids, which seemed highly doubtful at the moment, number two was pretty much ruled out as well.
And nobody stole candy from babies anymore, there's the old and tired for that.
Conners looked at the mess of the bodies. He had only just realised that the police were in with him, clearing up the bits.
"Lovely city ain't it Conners?" The police detective asked. His name was John. He was a hero. "What'd you think, some paedophile covering up his deeds?"
"Do you think you'd be able to smash up some kids after coming?" Conners asked, trying to memorise the room.
"Maybe he couldn't get it in and got frustrated!" Some cop jeered. Some others laughed.
You didn't need a motive in a place like this. You don't need a reason at all.
-------------
Forensics came back saying they couldn't pin down what the weapon was. It was dull, but with sharp attachments, like someone had stuck razor blades into a cricket bat.
Nobody makes a weapon to kill someone specifically. They want to kill them, then just find whatever's easiest, closest. It takes a cold imagination to make a weapon, like it didn't matter who you killed.
The phone rang. It was John.
"We're tracking down stuff on the parents, trying to see what they've been up to, you got anything?"
"Haven't checked." Conners replied. "Sorry."
"Okey man, I'll get back to you on that..."
Heroes didn't need comfort.
Conners lit his cigarette.
--------------
No matter what you do in this life, no matter who you follow, admire, desire, you'll always be a slave to yourself. And no matter how much you hide from it, you will always be a monster.
There is no man that, when faced with complete anger, could stop himself from killing someone. No man who would not lose control and rape someone when so frustrated. No man who would not pull down anyone around him just to save his own skin.
Unless he was dead already. Unless he had abandoned all emotion, all love, happiness, fear and pain. All those things you can't control.
Two boys and a baby girl, dead. The baby was taken out of the cot. Conners guessed because the murderer couldn't get a clean shot with the bat.
Once more, the parents were seemingly dying. Crying every last tear of emotion.
"Our man on the prowl." John said. Maybe none of this was real to him. Maybe heroes did live in some fantastic world all of their own mind, where no normal man could ever kill them. Some superpower.
You didn't have to shoot someone to kill them. They die, sure, just like the war heroes, the guys who take the gamble on the bullet. If you want to kill someone, you rip away their lives.
In a city of broken marriages of dead men to dead women, the only reason half of them are still married is because they don't want to shout and let their kids hear what's going on.
And so, just like everyone else, they die too. Emotions just wither away. Love that maybe was once there, and could have been with someone else, dies.
Eventually people start living for just one thing. Television, sex, money, power, their children, their grandchildren.
Then, you can just pull the plug, and you create a different type of monster. Not one that cannot control what they feel, but one that cannot feel at all. A zombie.
And you'd think, Conners thought to himself, out of everyone, that John would be paranoid. That he'd lock his kids windows and let them suffer in the heat at night.
Conners put the phone down.
--------
John hadn't spoke a word. The cops were silent, cautious, maybe even sad. Maybe some people would never feel unless you fired a gun in their face anyway, and then, naturally, it'd be too late anyway. Almost ironic.
The Detective had CCTV outside his house. Cameras that the man didn't notice.
There was no pattern to these murders. They were all around the same area, the East side, the rich side.
The figure in the video was hunched and tall, and his face well concealed. He held a cricket bat by his leg, until he reached up to open the window after peering in. He dragged himself through, bat and all. You can't see what happened inside. The video was almost useless.
Maybe, just maybe, when you couldn't feel anymore, when you gave everything up just for one thing to keep you alive, you just became a leech. A vampire, sucking all the life you could, all the emotion you can find. Why parents look after their children, why they protect them, because it's the only life they have left. Why television becomes so important, so they can pretend all those emotions are theirs.
"Get out. GET OUT OF HERE, I WANT YOU ALL OUT!"
John stood, his wife tearful, holding and pulling his arm back. He wriggled away and threw an ashtray at an officer.
"Yes, sir, we're going." Another officer said, who glanced to the one who dodged the ashtray.
And John sat down, with his wife. The woman that used to be the mother of his daughter.
------------------
Poriot was a hero. Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes. They never had to deal with a serial killer, because he'd always get caught. He'd make that mistake, and the glaringly obvious motive would spring out, and before you know it they're all in the sitting room together, casting gasps to the monster in the corner who, for that one moment, lost control of their emotions. No case unsolved, no murderer left unjudged for their so subtle emotional rage.
Now we just hope to find hair, blood, skin. In a world ruled by logic the man with no emotion can live as king.
And when it came down to it, this will be just another man. Someone desperate to snatch onto some sort of power, some belief that he's made a difference. Or maybe not.
But is this what we were always destined to become? Jumping from one breed of monster to the next...
The wind on Conners' face just made it feel numb.
If only we did have some way to snatch power, to pull back control in this spiralling world in which we lived, then perhaps we could make sense of all we could ever label insanity.
Because these killers aren't insane. They're not random, motiveless. They're nothing more than human, pulling back the only reason left in a ship of fools until they become nothing but completely self-knowing. They become the deep purest animal that we've always been. The truth will kill us all.
And if there was any real power in this world, fair those who call to arms and lay waste to so many lives for war, then it would lie only in the minds of the crazy, the lost and insane.
We are monsters. In ourselves, our desires. Our selfishness, with or without fear, is all we will ever be. The truth is, we just don't care.
If we are so doomed to leech all we could ever feel from anything we can attach ourselves to, then the knowledge of this can only ever drive you insane.
Conners heart beat faster, as the ants became bigger.
He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you. - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Dark and emotionally bitter but wonderful in it's own way.
I'm glad to note that I was not the only one who got to the end and missed the reference to the ants in the beginning :)
I'm glad to note that I was not the only one who got to the end and missed the reference to the ants in the beginning :)
That was stunning. Brilliant atmosphere throughout, written so well... and the end was lovely. Nice one, Grix.
You're a top write dude.
I really like the first line too.
I really like the first line too.
Amazing. Bleak, but amazing!
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Thanks :) I wrote this out completely in about an hour and a half, I was in a complete trance, drugged up on music. I love being in that state, things are so easy to do.
Fantastic - the ending is perfection as it is.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't scroll down the page seeing how much more there was to read. Just swept along by the words.
Winnar.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't scroll down the page seeing how much more there was to read. Just swept along by the words.
Winnar.
Great. I didn't quite get the ending, until you mentioned it.
I always think that a sign of good writing is the philosophical strength and depth behind/within the words, and this had that in spades.
The image of the hunched figure armed with a razorbladed cricket bat was cool, and there is some great lines in there too, capped off nicely with the famous Nietzsche quote. Excellent.
I always think that a sign of good writing is the philosophical strength and depth behind/within the words, and this had that in spades.
The image of the hunched figure armed with a razorbladed cricket bat was cool, and there is some great lines in there too, capped off nicely with the famous Nietzsche quote. Excellent.
Didn't get the jumping bit until I re-read the ending... Still, subtle, which is a huge thumbs up...
Yeah it was a nice link from the beginning to the end. Overall a great piece and quite different to the other stories, even though it is still exploring emotion.
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