And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Genesis 22:7
Another killing.
Another butchered heap of human meat laid out, splattered about the room. If I may say so myself, I get a heady jolt every time I capture a moment such as this; a quiet creeps over the soul, hidden deep within its prison, a cold quick reminder of its own existence, the calm in the room (or alley, or automobile, if you prefer) much, much louder than the psychodrama that had just occurred. I pause, and I gaze upon my handiwork, and I tell that isolated fragment enslaved deep inside, this is us, we did this. No other has claimed this moment for our own. No one else ripped a deeper valley into this woman's face, her smile so much wider now. Responsibility for this so-important moment, the weight of the burden lying across my tensed back, threatening to snap it as it cools wet electric ecstasy. I survey it all, the passion, the struggle, the final submission to my pure will, and I find it good.
Here we have, at this very moment, a nobody existing in a world of somebody's (forgive me, Mr. Manson), a flailing speck of waste that is this pointless existence, floating about this cesspool cosmos, taking up precious space, spoiling resources, just like every other turd in the commode, except this one has happened to have crawled out from the muck primordial, raising from amongst worthless debris, amidst peer group and institution, oppressors and ones I have oppressed, and I say out loud for the sewer to hear and understand, it is I who shapes this destiny called my own, and no other!
Every fleeting death is a testament, albeit with my own personal handiwork, my sermon upon the Glory of the Human Will.
If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the Lord.
Leviticus 3:7
I did not slaughter this woman, named by a complacent world Maria Watkins, I did not end her life in vain; not for sport, or passing fancy. No, I see not my creative talents as the blind succumbing to homicidal lusts, the mowing down of unlucky passers-by in a random fashion. She became more important in death as my expression of the spirit than any other claim for vanity or vitality in this wretched little world. Sadly, I find it unlikely that she will even be missed, as a friend, a confidant, a lover. Not a crucial role in her repertoire of performances, her fate was resigned to labor in this production, my recreation of the pursuit of prey, the overwhelmed victimization in my playing so cruelly of the predator.
Maybe it was all that Nietschze that I took in whilst zonked on acid during those formative teenage years, as my peers struggled to grasp some social skills, and get laid in the process. I was too busy trying to become a Superman.
But I digress, especially with such a beautiful landscape surrounding me, every detail yearning to be explored.
What overwhelmed me most about my Maria was the overbearing stench of average-ness that festered about her. She seemed so normal as she passively placed groceries in her cart at the local supermarket. A loaf of white bread, medium sized-eggs in a red carton, so robotic in her selections. I picked her out of the throng because she was alone, which struck me as odd; for what would Jane Society be doing here by herself, a busy Saturday afternoon? Women such as her always had a spinning brood gathered at her feet; at least one or two little beasts clogging the aisles. This intrigued me, so I kept my eye on her throughout the store, up through the dairy aisle (where she selected a quart of two percent), down past the deli. She finally got in line, and I followed through two aisles down, both rows pacing together.
Once in the parking lot, I followed her to her apartment complex. Nice, clean units. One building as faceless as the next, dog shit in piles dotting the small yellow patch of grass in the front. She went inside, carrying her bags. I waited outside in my van for a while, regulating my breathing pattern, focusing upon my upcoming performance. I plotted each dance step as the hairs on the back of my neck arched on end. I could taste this outcome. She would be mine so very soon, my possession, my Sermon on the Mount. She never would have noticed me sitting out here. She never would know of my true intentions, until it was too late. Oblivious, just like the rest of you are.
They build these apartments so shoddily these days. All I had to do was throw my weight against the frame, not even my full strength, as it cracked open under me. Poor Maria. She was so surprised to see me, st anding in her doorway, singing praises of the Lord: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Her eyes broke from the stare-down we shared down to the implement of death pressed between my fingers. It was then when she realized she was just as important as I was at this moment, in this living breathing passion play that throbbed like a pulse in the air.
The smoke detector went off in the kitchen as I murdered her, her afternoon's lunch preparation interrupted by my unexpected visit, the frying pan smoking heavy and black, spilling onto the stovetop. They must set those detectors to a special frequency that just fucking kills your eardrums, scientifically approved. It certainly snapped me out of the middle of my working, Maria at my feet, pulling at my ankles lamely. The exhaust fan sucked up the fumes and the beeping finally stopped as I fanned the device with a newspaper. She had been making a hamburger, frying it with mushrooms and thick slices of onion. I dumped the mess into the sink, the handle burning my palm. God forbid if the firemen were to show up right then, answering their siren call, finding what I've made before I was done. God forbid. ,p> I walked back into her living room and poked at her carcass with my boot. All those razor slashes on her face and throat finally drained her. She was still twitching a little when I had went to turn off the alarm. Not any more. She was gone.
The carpet around her greedily sucked up her pooling blood in a rapid absorption, making the beige darken into a more absolute brown. It's these minute details apparent in my art, the performance and description, that engross me.
Another aspect of my fascination is the curious natural human instinct to throw one's hands up to deflect an attack. How ridiculous! This defense fails horribly when the victim is being stabbed, hacked at or cut with any sharp implement. How the hands get sacrificed for those soft, delicate parts, the sweet white throat, the eyeballs sleeping soundly in sockets, the tongue, the throat. The hands are the first casualties in this battle, a losing one for the corporeal side. A seeming lifetime ago, in the process of mangling a hotel cleaning lady with a meat cleaver I had split her hand down the middle with a fierce downward swing as I had her pinned between the bed and the wall. It ripped right down her outstretched right palm, the cleaver making its path between her middle and ring finger, stopping its brief voyage halfway down (or up) her forearm. The sight of her obliterated limb caused her to convulse into a brutal, unrestrained seizure. She was easy work for me after that, as she squirmed in her state until I parted her spinal cord. She stopped dancing then. I don't think she even realized I was hacking her into dog food. I guess that's the beauty of shock--your mind has enough sense to make yourself leave the premises for awhile, to suspend belief as the change occurs.
But Miss Maria, my little creature was not lucky enough to spasm out away from me violating her with my razor. She endured my libertine desires at full consciousness, fighting all the way. Still, it had been almost too easy, plucking this particular flower.
I bent over her and looked into her bloody face, gazed into her one good eye.
"'And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!'" She looked so calm; it's amazing how many years death takes off a withered human face. I kissed her on the lips, tasting her life passed on, and began the ritual.
