A MACABRE JOY
By Rayleigh
In the narrative in which I am about to tell, I would prefer the reader be
neither too pensive nor too negligent, for if they shift to one, the ideas which this narrative tells will most likely be twisted into some forgotten meaning of which there is none like—though the possibility of it turning into something of which there is many alike is equal to the former, with lucid aberration appearing rather obscurely. I pen before the world a series of events over the course of some twenty years, in which I was driven to mad insanity through means of my own identity. I would not the reader of this to interpret these events as fiction, for in truth they are facts proven throughout history by the independent minds of the persons which inhabit this world given through a more puzzling and yet more obvious means. In accordance with the famous saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the assimilation of this narrative differs between those who read it; thus I ask for the reader to take this into consideration upon finishing this narrative, which will horrify the less intelligent and terrify the more astute.
Starting from the time of my birth, I was noted for my benevolent, charitable
mind, which was respected above those who were more sinful than I; however, somewhere around the age of eight I began to lose my famous compassion in exchange for a more sinister and sadistic personality. On what appeared to be a normal school day for myself, while in class, I had made a calculation error and answered a question incorrectly, which caused my peers to laugh at me. Then, a sudden anger rose within my very being which would, as I believed for many a year later, condemn my soul forever. I impetuously struck out with my hand, hitting the girl which I fancied at the time, causing her to burst into tears and my week-long suspension from the school. This anger was the initiation of the sane madness which would ultimately lead to my understanding of my own mind—which, as I might add, can appear rather distant from the minds of others. Of course, this event was not the end of the demonic possessions of my being, as proven on an eve after the ensuing two years of my unforeseen action.
I—as stated before, on an eve following two years’ passing of my sudden burst of anger—, while in attendance to my father’s workplace’s annual gala, tripped on a cloth and fell to the ground. One of my father’s colleagues mocked me as my father helped me up, an act which angered me. A few hours later, I noticed that same man speaking to another of my father’s colleagues. Filled with hate from his mockery of me, I took a butcher’s knife from the kitchen and sliced my father’s colleague’s leg from the knee down. As to why I committed such an act I cannot tell, which only angered my father further: he was fired from his position due to this. He then fell into a depression for several years, heavily drinking liquors and often striking both my mother and myself, which did indeed cause me guilt; however, it caused me more anger than it caused me guilt. The anger which had condemned me; had caused me to forsake myself; had resulted in the suffering of so many then forced me to commit an act which I shall regret for the rest of my existence, if it can so be called that.
On a night several years following my assault on my father’s colleague, while my father lie in a drunken stupor, I retrieved a stake from his shed, where he stored an assortment of various tools and equipment. Taking the stake within my hands, I thrust it through my father’s heart, killing he who had caused my mother and I so much pain over the course of those years, watching as the metal rod dug deeper into his body, causing him to bleed excessively over the carpeted floor. As chance would have it, my mother then awoke at the sound caused from the stake going through my father and into the floor of our house, hastening to go to the source of the frightening sound; thus I burst through the front door of my former home and raced down the street until my legs could not bear the burden of being used so much. I collapsed next to a small restaurant in a pile of filth, fainting upon impact with the trash—it was at this moment that my wrath was lifted. It was at this moment that I felt the anger leave my unconscious body and descend into the homeland of the demon which had possessed me, seeming to nevermore trouble me again.
I was discovered by the owner of the restaurant, whom I told a false story of my parents disappearing from my sight, thus leading up to my fainting within the pile of filth. Taking me in as his son, he put me to work in that restaurant for four years, never again speaking of the night which I was supposed to have been separated from my parents, thus allowing me to live a somewhat normal life once more. However, while living with this man, I thought of the reasons for my evil actions—thought of causes for them. Within those four years, I had managed to decipher that I committed those acts simply because human nature demands that evil be done in order for one to understand himself: a moral which I expanded throughout the course of my life.
While walking down a road four years after the incident in which I murdered my father, I saw a shelter for the homeless standing near me and decided to give them help which I was not given when I was driven into poverty of the soul; of course, due to my wicked experiences, I gave them a fair compensation for enduring that which I endured: five hundred dollars. Where the money came from, the reader might ask? I was to deliver it to the bank for the owner of the restaurant, though I chose to use it in a more sincere and compassionate way. Upon my arrival back at the restaurant, I claimed that the money was stolen by a thief who ran off into a dark alley: the man sadly believed the tale; however, he did something which had not been done to me for four years: he struck me. Struck me with fury; with hatred; with anger at the fact that I had not gone after the thief, and laughed that I could not even defend myself from him. This angered me—yes, my first taste of anger in four years—, so I then stormed out of the restaurant, never going back to the place which I thought was so different yet turned out to be the same prison which would torment me further and further if I abided there.
I traveled for one year, living in a number of places which ranged from parks to the homes of people who were absent due to vacation or other reasons until I was taken in by an old widow for two years, in a wooden shack by a creek in a town a few dozen miles away from the one which I originally inhabited. To my discontent, she had me work in order to make her short time left in this world more comfortable for her: chopping wood for fires; walking into town to buy heavy loads of groceries; cooking meals she would always expect to be perfectly palatable to her person; and other things, which I do not wish to nor shall not care to explain. These tedious chores angered me—yes, angered me once more, driving my being into possession of the devil himself again—to the point at which I did something which I cannot atone for.
One day, while she had me chop wood for a fire, she repeatedly scolded me for “incorrectly chopping the wood”. This, along with the other labors she unfairly had me do to only her advantage, caused me to take the axe and strike her down in vehement wrath, chopping her body in two like the wood which she had me chop for so long. Hiding her corpse within the cellar of the shack, I continued living there for two more years, never being disturbed. However, there came a day when a policeman, noticing the disappearance of the old woman, stopped by the shack and rapped on the door, wanting to investigate the premises. Taking a fork in my hand(for it was dinnertime), I unbolted the door and stood adjacent to where the door would turn to face when opened. As the policeman opened the door, he walked in slowly, calling for someone to answer him. Silently sneaking behind him, I stabbed the fork within his throat, watching as the prongs opened several airways for the air and the blood in his body to escape, killing him in such an agonizing and slow way that I will remember the image for all eternity. I then concluded it was not safe to remain dwelling in the shack, thus taking my leave.
As before, I traveled for one year, living nomadically in several remote places. I, like in the years I lived with the restaurant owner, thought of my actions of such malicious nature. Determined that the reasons were beyond the reach of man, I continued thinking of it, as one who changes so much cannot be a man at all—but then, I suppose the true man could be the one who changes so often and the ones who stay the same are not men at all, but other beings. Deciding that I was lapsing between characteristics of evil and good in nature, I made up my mind to find a permanent home; to my luck, I had found an abandoned mansion on the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. I have lived there for the rest of my life, never communicating with a fellow person... except on one occasion.
While stealing food supplies from the nearest town’s local deli at midnight, as
I have done weekly for the five years I have stayed in the mansion, I was unexpectedly apprehended by the deli’s owner, who had stayed there later than usual in order to investigate the waning of his supplies. Taking me by the collar, he dragged me into the kitchen were he began to punish me for my thieveries by beating me to the brink of death. Once finished with me, as I lied on the ground panting and bleeding, with many of my bones broken, he did something that, in all the instances I committed an act of evil: he laughed. Laughed at my beaten and broken body; laughed at the tears which flowed from my eyes and the blood which poured from my mouth. This act, above all others in my entire life, angered me most. Despite the many injuries which I had acquired from that man, I stood up, took a cutting board from a nearby table, and beat the man which had beaten me, laughing as the board pounded against his skull, never allowing a hint of mercy to be released from my being. I continued laughing, laughing as that man had done to me, all the way back to the mansion I now call home.
I have written these events for the world before I die for reasons I may never comprehend. When I finish penning this narrative, I shall cast my body from the cliff the mansion rests on, falling into the sea below. I do this now, while I am not in a state of demonic possession, so that the evil which would take control of my being were I not going to terminate it does not do this very thing. I bid farewell to the world so that it may be rid of me—however, there is, quite simply, another perspective of this. What if my evils did the world good? What if they balanced it so that life can remain whole? However, this I shall not know unless I cast myself from the cliff, whether or not it will unbalance the scales of life, condemning it to a chaotic state of pure tranquility from which it may never recover. I laugh and I cry; I feel happiness and fear; I am in an oddly(to some) state of... macabre joy.
