The early evening sun shone over the park, bathing the scene it’s golden radiance. There was no rain, no grey sky here now. Everyone there had forgotten that the whole day it had been raining, and that tomorrow it would most likely be raining again because the sun was out for a few minutes and they were there to enjoy it. Most of them were enjoying it, all except one person, who sat and looking into the shining trees and grinned at the antics of the squirrels with a look of rapt amazement at the abundance and genius of nature as they did. But as with every other look he had worn more frequently of the past few years, the eyes were hollow and the mouth screamed silently of the pain living inside his skull. No one noticed, of course. There were all to interested in the trees and the sun to notice him. And that suited him just fine, because one day the show would be on the other foot, and they would pray that the sun would come out.

He stood up, straightened his coat and picked up his brown leather briefcase. Nodding the to the old man sitting next to him he walked off, and the old man went back to feeding the greedy birds with scraps of old hamburger. The man walked away, and his lips moved slightly and silently as he rehearsed things inside his skull, things that would never see the light of day because he knew that if they ever did he would be arrested and executed without a second thought and probably without trial, because no jury in the land would let him off. How could they? He knew what they would say. They would call him an animal and the judge would no doubt think of something chillingly witty to say at the close, just before the last dead rang out and the gavel fell. He knew these things as well as he knew his own name, and the thin threads that held his mind in the web of the everyday strained at the silence.

He breathed pollution and heard more on the way home, trapped in a metal coffin with tens of other people who, while looking just like him were not. If they had been he would have been different again, always trying to break the mould, always trying but never succeeding. Such failure played on his mind a lot, and he looked out of the window of the coach, and saw on the side of the road a mans selling matches. It was a scene from every day, and he knew that he should have ignored it and looked back at his paper, but all of a sudden, from the very deepest part of himself, a rage erupted, and he wished that man dead. He wished to all the genies of all the lamps that that man should be slain by a car or pushed by a thoughtless passer-by into the road or even burnt to death with own matches. These things should happen, and the only person who would notice any difference would be that man on the coach, because he had looked at the match seller and seen him.

The serpent hiss of the doors opening shook the man form his thoughts and he walked off the bus, mumbling thanks to the driver who received hundreds of thanks every day, so many in fact that he had stopped hearing them for any kind of courtesy. Which was ok, he supposed, because it was a job and not a favour. He hated thanking people for anything, unless it was something that they didn’t have to do for him. Then his thanks where appreciated.

The deep blue of a clear early evening sky was just beginning to fade to black when he opened his door and walked into the stale air of his room. He immediately threw the window open and a cool breeze plated over his knuckles.

The harsh fluorescent light was what made him look haggard, he decided. It was the light and not himself that was to blame. Everything always looked a lot nicer by candle light. It was true. Why couldn’t people understand that? It is not always best to see every last imperfection in everyone. Most people can’t even bear to see one imperfection. Another symptom, he nodded, of the increasing invasion of perfect people into the home of people on TV, computer screens. You could go whole days without seeing anyone who hadn’t spent three hours in makeup to get the required look. If you did this, then when you saw someone who hadn’t, you’d would find then disgusting. He found that disgusting. He yanked the light out, bouncing the string switch back and forth against the dark mirror until his mind settled down again. The moonlight cast grey shadows inside his room, and he looked long and hard out of the window, on the world with no people in it. The feeling of the empty room at his back was getting worse, the feeling of claustrophobia brought on when he was always in the same place. Shaking his head he leapt intro bed and shut his eyes against the darkness, feeling them retreat into his skull.

He slept without dreams, and woke tot he same room. Already tired before he had even got out of bed, he rose and left. He might have eaten something, but it didn’t matter. The clamour was worse this morning. He heard everything, and wanted to hear nothing. Sat lunch time he went to the lakeside, to sit and look at the water. The only place on earth that people can’t stand and talk and be insipid. There was a ball. It rolled in fornt of him and was chased by a boy of about five. He stuck his foot out carefully and tripped the boy, sending him sprawling on the ground, a second before he started crying. A woman ran over, dusting the boy off and picking him up onto his feet. She cooed things that the man never heard, and rolled the ball away once more. Then she turned to the man and apologised.

‘That’s all right. Be thankful he didn’t drown.’

That got rid of her quickly. The whole episode had taken only a minute, but already the man wanted that again. If anyone had thought to ask him why he tripped the child he would have given them an honest answer. To see him cry. To see his mother worry. It was why he never watched TV unless there was a war on. You saw real people in wars, nothing like they are normally. He knew all about that. It was the same reason that he was always white at chess. It was the rider of the pale horse.

He killed three people that afternoon at work, but they didn’t know it. They would have known it even if he had gone though with it. He was glad to get away from them, away from their small, bland mind from there totally lustreless conversation.

He didn’t like pornography. Bestial, he thought it was. Nothing special, nothing worth getting worked up about one way or the other. He didn’t have a Oedipus complex. He didn’t wear women’s clothes. Which made him a lot more normal than many people he knew. But he knew that one thing made him different, but no different enough for it not to be thoroughly depressing to him to know.

There was a day when he would have gladly beaten someone brains out on the corner of a freezer in the local supermarket. He found himself actively wondering whether you could kill someone with a banana. These things didn’t surprise him, nor did they shock him. it didn’t matter. It was his own brain after all.

Every time he walked the streets there was silent roar inside telling him that everyone should shut up and let him think. Let him be, let him walk and work and die as he wanted to. But he did walk and work and be as they were, at least on the surface. He lived so deep in hatred that he had to absorb by a bizarre osmosis how to remain viable in the world. He lived the life he hated and there was no way to get out of it without killing himself, and that would defeat the object.

There came a day, a coincidence. He was sitting in the park again, eating an apple, carefully cutting chunks off it with a knife. That was why he had the knife, to eat his lunch with. He was careful with it, it was quite sharp. Someone sat down next to him, someone wearing personal headphones, there tinny music battering his fragile consciences. They were holding the front of the bench, face to the sky, eyes closed. The man dropped his apple core in the bin and then ever so carefully inserted the knife between the third and fourth knuckles of the left hand. It took quite a push. There was a moment then, the moment when he saw the pain clash with the realisation of what had happened, when he looked into the eyes of pain and found himself rejoicing. He walked away, and a trail of blood went in the opposite direction.

He sat in his dark room, the emotional cold turkey was setting in. There was nothing but darkness and bland things. No book had words to say, no music enough spirit. He fought the world every dsay but it never fought back. He was left raging to the sky, a mad Lear without a beard.

Everyone he saw had no idea, that was what really made him sick to his stomach. He could rip out a woman’s heart have it in his bag, and no one would know. And no one would care.

There was time when he was in the middle of the road when he was on the verge of tears. He wanted to shout scream and crash with fury against the impassive gates of the world but he didn’t.

The next time he was on the coach alone he waited until it stopped at one lights, and he walked up front. The driver said something about a yellow line. So the man seized the back of his head and smashed his brains out on the steering wheel. Then he had to use the dead man’s still warm had to open the door. The cool night air washed over him, extinguishing the rage. He howled a primeval wail, running away.

He didn’t watch the news any more. He didn’t go to work any more, either. There was nothing beyond his mind which stirred his interest. He refused to watch films, they were the worst. Acting. Everyone acted every day, why should he watch it now? He wanted something real. His brain didn’t make any connection, but he got hold of a video of the Nuremberg Rallies. Dedication and infatuation mixed with seemingly righteous indignation sated his heart for a while. Then he saw the stupidity for what it was. What had the Jews ever done? It wasn’t them, it was everyone. They weren’t special. Oh, God’s chosen. Of course. Where was that God when His Chosen were getting exterminated? They weren’t anything special.

He went into a toy store and bought a replica gun. He went in to a toy store and bought a replica gun. In a toy store.

Later.

‘Put the gun down!’

‘Are you angry with me? What have I done?’

‘Put the gun on the ground now and lie down!’

‘You sound angry to me. Are you angry? Or are you scared? Is your heart beating faster? Are you suddenly aware of your own mortality? Why now? WHY ARE YOU ONLY AWARE NOW?’

The man bought the gun up, and the policeman shot him, but he had never had to fire his gun before and he missed once. Afterwards he quit, saying he couldn’t handle the pressure.