The clock has been ticking for a long time, Dr. Lecter. ...Why don't you draw me a clock?
{{~}}
Will Graham lies on his back, occupying his prison cot. His eyes are open and fixed on the stone ceiling above him. Deep sleep, a nap, a snooze, what are those? He has too much on his mind to do any of those. Too many nightmares.
Too much to connect and too much to lose.
You be the man on the phone.
His hands ball into fists, nails make marks in his palms. This prison cell is not where he belongs. Murderers belong in prison cells, not the people who catch them.
Dr. Lecter put me here, he thinks. I'm in his place. I'm…filling in for him.
At the last moment, Will had put the pieces together, until he was stopped by the FBI's Jack Crawford. Shot in the shoulder, then treated in the hospital. Now treated like a murderer.
Curiosity drove the cat to poison the mouse, but not enough to let him die. Only enough to see him… slowly suffer.
The tenacious stare penetrates the ceiling, as he gives in to the significant desire of letting the pendulum swing.
No recreation of a crime, no killer to empathize with, not this time.
He indulges in the vivid imagination that God has so generally bestowed upon him.
Will stays away from murdering anyone since the infamous case of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Will went too far into Hobb's mind, but was it all his fault?
Psychologically, Will can occupy a whole graveyard with his relentless mind slaughters. It is, or rather was, his job.
He sees himself digging a new resting place in his chimerical graveyard of becoming, for just a moment of his time, until he shuts his eyes to do what he only can dream about.
This is my design.
He sees the pendulum as it oscillates back and forth, then opens his eyes. He's sitting in the chair closest to the door in Dr. Lecter's waiting room.
Sitting with patience in the waiting room, I consider my plan of action.
Will thinks to himself in the way he did for his job, when analyzing the steps a murderer took to complete their crime. Now he is plotting, pointing out every detail in his head of a desired fantasy, and it is set up to play out exactly how he wants it to. He pauses in the chair for a few moments and lets the pendulum sway again. The noise of his heartbeat fills the silent air, as if background noise for going to sleep.
I get to my feet and walk to the door. I open it with roughness and it slams into the back of the wall. I see Dr. Lecter look up from his tablet, but I don't stop to say hello or chat. I did not come with a murder weapon because I know I can find one here.
Hannibal gathers his notes into a neat pile and speaks to Will as he frantically walks around the room, giving off the idea that his "mental illness" is acting up.
"You aren't supposed to be here," Hannibal says, retaining an incredible amount of composure in his tone. "You aren't yourself."
I ignore his attempted words of distraction and find a scalpel on his drawing table. With a quick movement I take it and hide it in my sleeve so it goes unnoticed, and resume pacing wildly around the room. I want him to think I'm panicking, I want him to think I need his help.
"Will. …Will, do you remember where you are?"
I sit down on the cushioned bench in the center of the rug, facing Dr. Lecter's desk. I shake and struggle to stay still as I begin to fake what would seem like a seizure.
"Repeat after me," Hannibal stands and walks around the other side of his desk to Will, and crouches down in front of him. He touches his face and stretches his eyelids to check for a seizure. "Your name is-"
Will retrieves the scalpel from his sleeve and begins his work.
The scalpel moves into my hand and with a quick movement of my wrist, and I use it to cut into Dr. Lecter's chest. I make sure it's in an area where the wound can't possibly kill him, no matter how deep I push down or how long I hold it there.
Hannibal's mouth opens in distress and stays open as Will continues holding the scalpel at an angle in his chest.
"My name is Will Graham." Will twists the scalpel but refrains from digging it deeper into his chest. Dr. Lecter slips to the floor and Will kneels over him. He continues to dislocate Hannibal's shoulder as he presses on it, so he remains on the ground.
I rip open the waistcoat and leave his white buttoned up shirt on, so I can see the blood stain through it. His mouth hangs open as he witnesses me rip through his shirt and skin. The pain is too much to do anything else.
This is my design.
"It's 9:48," Will says, and begins to move the scalpel along a curved path. "And I'm in Baltimore, Maryland."
Will leans in to Hannibal's face as he notices him struggle. He whispers, his body shaking violently as he speaks, "Why don't you draw me a clock, Dr. Lecter?"
Hannibal attempts to fight against Will's grip on his shoulder, but he pushes on his chest with the scalpel and Dr. Lecter's strength relinquishes. He spits blood out onto Will's shirt and face instead of making out words to say.
"A little indisposed at the moment?" Will asks him rhetorically. "No big deal," Will rips the white shirt open and begins to cut a circled shape out of his skin with the scalpel. I'll draw a clock for you."
He completes a quarter of the circle on Hannibal's chest, trying to make it as perfect as possible.
A very light cut into the skin, not enough to lose too much blood, just enough to leave a scar.
When the grip on his shoulder fades for just a moment, Hannibal pushes Will back and he falls onto the floor, the scalpel toppling away from his grasp.
He is incessant. He will never give up without a fight and he knows I know that.
Will looks around hysterically for the scalpel. He finds the object soaking in the blood it carries, a puddle now sinking into the carpet beneath it. Will grabs it and gets to his feet as Hannibal does, who is covered in his own blood. It trickles down his chest and drips to the floor and leaves stains that will be very hard to get out.
"Will, this isn't-"
"SHUT UP!"
He can wind me with his words and contaminate me. Now it's my turn.
Will stands with the scalpel pointed out front. Hannibal has a hand on his dislocated shoulder, and Will can see his eyes roam around his office for a weapon.
"Look at me," Will commands. Hannibal turns his direction to Will. He's competing for breath and leaning against his desk.
"You set my brain on fire, Dr. Lecter."
"I only accelerated your imagination," Hannibal rasps, retaining eye contact. Will's nostrils fume with anger as he frowns at Hannibal.
The confusion that accompanies Dr. Lecter's words makes me angry, and confused. He was supposed to stabilize me, but instead he let everything remain unfixed and even become unhealthy. For this I can't just let him get away without, at the least, lending my opinion.
"You were supposed to be my paddle."
The scalpel trembles in Will's hand and beads of Hannibal's blood fall from the tip to the floor. Will tries to steady himself from his overwhelming trembling but isn't successful, and takes a gradual step towards Dr. Lecter. In a state of histeria, Will begins to yell.
"Instead you sank the boat!"
Dr. Lecter looks like he is thinking, like he is dissecting his brain for the right thing to say. Something that will drive me further and further into my own madness. He will not find anything good enough.
"I don't know how many people you killed," Will says, switching the position of the scalpel in his hand. "But I am sure," he begins to speak with an air of reassurance, his eyes closed and his entire body shaking sadistically. "That they all appreciate what I'm about to do."
I lunge forward and hit Dr. Lecter hard enough so that he falls to the floor. With agile movements I crouch over him and repeatedly stab at his lower chest and stomach, too blind with hate to finish the clock I had begun earlier. I hear the sound of my heartbeat in the back of my head, and with every stab I make in his chest, it pumps louder and louder.
"This is for all the times you were curious," Will says behind gritted teeth, letting each time he drives the object into Dr. Lecter's skin draw blood. "For all the times you wondered what I would do. Well now I guess you know."
Clinging to life, Dr. Lecter looks to me as I stand up over his body. His expression is not hatred or a look of hopefully attained repentance, as much as I would like it to be. His expression remains calm and looks as if he expected something like this.
Will looks over his shoulder at the door. His eyes go from there to the small nightstand next to it, which holds the small statue of a kind of deer on it. Will steps over Dr. Lecter's body and approaches the statue.
"This should have been my first clue," he says, stroking the small statue with his bloody hands. He throws the scalpel on the floor and picks up the statue and it's heavy, but he carries it across the room to place it on Hannibal's desk. "I would have loved to kill you like Cassie Boyle," Will explains, leaving his left hand on the statue as he looks down at Hannibal. "But I know how horrible terrible you feel when someone steals your identity."
I look closely into his eyes and see there is a sense of serenity to them. He knows what I am about to do and it makes him satisfied. I have become just what he wants, and in his last moments he may indulge in it. I pick up the statue and turn it upside down, antlers first. I hold it about a foot above Dr. Lecter's neck and keep it in that position for just enough time to say goodbye. The sound of my heart beat covers the sound of his ghastly breathing, the sound of blood from my clothes dripping to the floor.
"Good-bye, Dr. Lecter. Say hello to Abigail Hobbs for me."
I don't hesitate to bring the statue down onto his neck. Blood stains my clothes and face as I force the antlers down into his neck. I feel his arteries inside burst from the impale and blood jets out of his neck like fountains, spraying my chest and the desk next to his failing body. The head of the deer begins to press against his neck, as the antlers have nearly made their way through, and I hear the trachea crush. I look up from the mess of blood and muscle, and look into Dr. Lecter's face. He has stopped working, except for his eyes, which are fixed on me. I hear the statue hit the spinal chord in the back of the neck and see his eyes roll to the ceiling, dead.
Will stops pushing the statue down and and he attempts to lift it, but it's stuck. He tugs it loose after a few tries and it jerks back in his hands unexpectedly. The bloody aftermath flies into Will's face as he pulls the statue away from Dr. Lecter's crushed neck. He throws the statue next to Hannibal's dead body as he recoils from the mess.
There is blood spread; covering everything around him. The desk, the carpet, the floor. Will's shirt, pants and face are drenched with blood and bits of cartilage, and his hands are a deep crimson. The trachea is broken in half, flattened into one tall, slim white and red mess. Cartilage is flattened across the floor and sits in puddles of blood. He spots the larynx, hanging from the new opening in his throat. Will stands up and steps away from Dr. Lecter's body and surveys it from above.
I look carefully at the blood and make no attempt to remove any from my hands or clothes. I want everyone to know that this was me.
Will walks over to Dr. Lecter's piano and begins to play Bach's Goldberg Variations, leaving fingerprint upon fingerprint of evidence on the ivory keys. Will plays the song with precision and once he finishes it, he picks the scalpel off the ground and puts it on Dr. Lecter's chest, and gazes down at his butchered form.
I feel...a sense of helplessness. This man shaped me into my becoming, he was...my teacher. Dr. Lecter wanted to alienate me from myself, he wanted to bring out the side in me that he saw in himself.
"Have I become you?" Will asks in a disoriented tone, his eyes focusing in and out on the body, the details and the big picture changing focus through his eyes.
I leave. I have left my mark, and I have left my legacy.
This is my design.
? My Design ?
Will opens his eyes but he is not back yet. The beat of his heart still carries on strong in the background.
In his mental graveyard for just a few sweet moments; Will finishes his new grave, although it won't be occupied. He wants them to find Lecter's body in his office, murdered on his own turf. He wants them to know that he did it. He smiles to himself as he looks into his beautifully crafted grave.
When he feels satisfied, he turns around and steps, but loses his balance. He falls to the ground and his back hits the floor of the grave.
A startled awakening from letting himself get so lost in his head, Will is sweating through his shirt.
He jolts up on his bed and looks around; everything is black. Night, maybe early morning.
I fear not knowing who I am.
Will lays back down on his bed and stares at the darkness, stares down his future. With no sleep to catch and definitely no good dreams to look forward to, he closes his eyes again.
Let's do that again.
Let the pendulum swing.