three.
stifle.
(monday.)
(narrator - rob's thoughts are in parenthesis)
It's a nighttime ritual. It always made him sad, and angry, and opened up a pit in his stomach, but he knew that if he didn't do it that he'd lie awake
(watching the ceiling dissolve and the entire universe break apart into tiny grainy dots only to come together again and break up again lather rinse repeat)
all night, and generally be a mess the next morning.
He watched the news. The news was always full of images and stories of wars, and murder, and kidnappings, and
(darkness)
general cruel things that the human race did knowingly to one another. And he'd get angry, but he'd let it seethe, letting all the raw hatred and venom
(how could you do that to another person how could you you sick sadistic fuck i'd like to snap your neck with my bare hands and watch you burn in hell asshole)
evaporate within him. Perhaps he was afraid of this dark hatred that he, who hated hating with a passion, harbored. For in that respect, was his desire to kill killers any different
(hypocrite)
than the killer's desire to kill? Was life not life? Who was he to pass judgement, even when the judgement
(guilty)
seemed obvious? Rob didn't know. He could only bear witness. And after this ritual of bearing witness night after night, he ended it with a vigorous, solitary walk in the cold light of the moon, letting his rage dissipate and escape out his mouth with the wispy cloud of steam that was his breath.
As it was this night. He turned the TV off with a sharp 'click', kissed SoCo on the cheek
(i love you i love you you are my angel)
and strode out the door of their hotel room, and out of the hotel itself, and walked down the streets with his fists clenched, letting the black tendrils of fury at the atrocities of human nature
(megan dempsey age eight found dismembered in a swamp tonight main suspect is her babysitter of three years)
dissolve. So he could resume his life. It was almost if he died each night, consumed by
(what)
a thing he could not name but feared above all other things, including
(!!!!NO!!!!)
That Place, and the memories it brought forth.
He walked on, and walked on,
(let it out let it go thats right)
and soon felt better. He did not give money to the homeless he passed, but rather bought each a Double Whopper with the works from a nearby Burger King, and they all smiled gratefully at the handsome young man who had been so kind, when the rest of the world seemed to look away.
A person watched him from a shadow, harboring even viler intentions.
A figure followed silent, like the darkness, like a kidnapper's evil. No one was on the street but a stray rat when it wrenched an arm around Rob's neck, a hand over his mouth, the honed edge of a gleaming, freezing cold carving knife to his throat.
Don't move, don't scream, it said, or I will kill you, and then your darling SoCo.
(no)
Out of instinct, panic, he struggled. The figure jammed the knife in Rob's shoulder to the hilt, and while the martial artist gave but one cry in agony
(o god)
it siezed a bottle and kerchief from its coat, and soon had an ether-soaked cloth over Rob's mouth and nose.
The world
(someone please)
grew
(help)
black
(im going to die)
and
(soco i love you i love you i love)
silent.