by Chris Kelso
Armed with a thumbscrew compass, I followed fat Billy Akerman home after school one afternoon. He always took a shortcut across the campus grounds – the porker was keen to get home to his grandmothers gross pickled herring dinners. I imagined inscribing a perfect arc in his skull.
I see Billy Ackerman’s face on every mindless zombie I come across.
I remember too, it was trash day. Lines of refuse bins sat curbside, pregnant with garbage. I guess I liked this town, always have. Every lawn in Ryd is lush and always freshly-cut for summer.
Each house on my old avenue sat prettily opposite the verdant greens with their panels of white timber. I’d known most of my neighbours since I was a young kid, and liked most of them too. They were all real friendly folks and always assumed the best of people.
Outside my window were the sounds of the brawling water of Göta Kanal, the gentle idling of tourist boats, of happy people, inner calm, arsenic white sands on the horizon like a sudden stroke of snow on coloured canvas…
I took my compass out, splayed the legs apart like it were a switchblade and rammed the spike into the back of Billy Akerman’s skull. It stuck hard in his fat head. It never ceases to amaze me how brittle and soft the human body is!
Why, Kurt, you know how fragile you are?
Billy started crying and yanked the protractor out, looking at the bloody needle point with pale horror. I told him to be quiet, at first quietly then with more aggression, and, I admit, I started getting cold feet then. I remembered the bag of awesome cat’s-eye marbles and I punched him square in the nose, more with the limp of wrist than with my fist, but it made a satisfying *CRUNCH* and he fell to the floor like a bag of fucking cement. I don’t know where the strength came from – fear and adrenaline maybe, I dunno. My father wasn’t an athlete either, unless kicking the living shit out of my mother every night counted as a sport?
Birds gathered in a suspended configuration—the white cartel. I rolled Billy Akerman’s body down an embankment and watched his body drift down river.
I know I’m not normal. It’s not ‘normal’ to witness or commit unspeakable acts and be so impassive; to afford zero meaning to human life whatsoever. I know that’s not normal. I’m trying to get a cure though, I’m looking for help - isn’t that enough? That’s what this Anja Holmström experiment is for, I’m trying to understand my sickness. Once I know what’s missing, there’ll be no more unnecessary death. I’m trying to do the right thing.
Whatever is missing from my moral centre, I want to fill the void somehow. Is this how a modern god must feel? I could not shake the premonition. My god is a merciless god who hates all his creations equally. The dark throne above all those mountains of bone. A nitric bath awaits someone…
Something clings to my body like wet mud, it’s not shame.
I met up with this guy called Leon Lifvendahl, an ethnic Swede from Skäggetorp. He agreed to meet me in the lobby of the Frimurarhotellet.
He was a skinny character with no eyebrows, stood about 7 feet tall and wore a white tracksuit with red racing stripes down each side. His skin was hard-looking and cracked all over the surface like a loose scab. Leon’s eyes were guilt-stricken and soulless just like mine. Kind of like yours are too, Kurt.
Leon and I took the service elevator to the basement of the Frimurarhotellet. He promised me we were going to watch some snuff pornography. I wanted to see if I had any reaction to child murder as an adult. If it makes you feel any better, I really wanted to be sickened by it. Maybe I’ll turn a corner someday. I want to hate myself for killing Billy and Anja. That’s the whole point.
We walked through the ground floor parking level. The air smelled like linoleum and piss. Leon pulled out a bundle of master keys from his tracksuit pocket, located the correct fob and inserted it into the custodian janitor’s closet door.
‘Don’t worry. The janitor knows we’re here.’ – Leon reassured me. The cam-lock clicked and the door swung open. I noticed that it was packed with junk, stacks of cardboard boxes full of god-knows-what. Leon flicked on the lights and a figure became half-illuminated sitting at a desk in the corner of the room.
‘Esbjörn? It’s Leon. I got a customer.’
The figure stood up slowly, inched out of his shadowy cape. Esbjörn the janitor was a heavy set man of about 50 with curly yellow hair, Norwegian descended you could tell. His face had kind, soft features. Nothing like mine.
He would be classic fodder for Dunwoody and his cronies.
‘You got money?’
Leon butted in before I could talk.
‘He’s got an interest Esbjörn, a real interest….’
The Norwegian janitor and Leon shared a sinister smirk and I knew immediately what they’d concluded about me. They thought they’d finally found a fellow sicko and enthusiast. That wasn’t entirely true. I was there more for research, to investigate an aspect of my character that confused and baffled me. I am rarely ever titillated by violence or sex. At least repulsion would be a definable emotion.
I first met Leon online, on a forum for people who have depraved inner desires. I don’t necessarily fit into this category because I don’t have desires as such - maybe curiosities. I certainly never enjoyed death and sex, but I am ambivalent to them.
This void in me was the curiosity, not the depravity itself.
Esbjörn wheeled a portable TV on a stand over to his desk and told us to sit down. I saw three CCTV feeds with images of women and men being cut up and abused in torture chambers. I felt absolutely nothing.
Leon reached behind him and pulled out a tape from the rack, forwarded it to Esbjörn. The fat janitor put the video in the player and he leaned on his desk as if observing some great work of art.
The channel buzzed static for a few minutes before it cracked into life – a boy, naked, cuffed to a bed. I heard a chainsaw firing into life off-shot. The only noise more ear-piercing than his screams came from the insane seagulls perched on the railings outside. I watched the entire sordid display.
It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I caught my reflection in the convex mirror. I saw the horror of freedom and responsibility. I dream of that mirror every night.
I knew it was wrong, knew I was in the company of the worst people vomited into existence. But watching the horror of mutilation unfold, did I feel sympathy or disgust? No. Just a learned response. I hadn’t winced once. Even Leon watched through screwed up eyes towards the end. I felt a tear well in my ducts, scurry down my left cheek. I was not sad for the victim on the screen, I was sad for myself. Nothing.
The victim of numbness.
I move through life like a dismal flame, lath thin.
How did I end up here?
The truth of the matter is that I had always been much too nervous to ever go near Stockholm. It smells of bygone nightmares. There was an old factory. The owner, Mr Hell, was a crapulous old man who shot dogs and stole children. I heard the birds howling under the blisterbright sun, mocking me.
It's such a cliché' to say you're a sociopath who wishes they had a heart. Like the fucking tincan-man begging the wizard behind the curtain to fill a hole in his hollow chest with the absent organ.
People will say things in movies like, 'you want a heart? You don't know how lucky you are not to have one.' As if all you need are your wits about you to survive. I have a brain. I'm reasonably intelligent, but I know a brain will not bring me happiness. By all accounts happiness is the greatest thing in the world. Even Veronica Jogo in the nursing home tasted happiness at one point. Even Henrik Winslow smiles when someone mentions drums, and he’s got conduct disorder.
So I wasn't greatly affected by the snuff movie I watched in the janitor’s storeroom with Leon and Esbjörn but there are a few images that're burned onto my mind, a few scenes of such extreme violence that I’m fascinated to an extent by the lack of humanity involved. And to videotape it?
Is that the same as caring - the fact I can't stop thinking about the footage? I don't
think I can articulate any definable emotion or opinion one way or the other. I say that 'I know it’s wrong' but that's just what society has told me is wrong. What I should say is - ' I know The People think child murder is wrong'. I need to find the man who made that video, assuming he's still alive.
I wonder if he has ever been in love, ever been loved?
Remember, my sentimental friend, a heart is not judged by how much you love but by how much you are loved by others. Sappy bullshit.
The man with the chainsaw in the snuff movie, I remember his eyes so well - my own eyes. Your eyes maybe. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a killer? Until now of course. I sometimes wonder what people must see when they look into my eyes. Are they oblivious to my callous emptiness, or is the ugliness of my soul apparent to all who squint through their own reflection long enough?
How do people react to you?
Do they see your lack of depth?
I think the truth is that no one cares either way. People who make copious eye contact are doing so in accordance with some human interaction ritual. They aren't looking for anything, not really.
I've never killed a child with a chainsaw but if society caught onto my lack of emotional depth or empathy I'd be punished in the exact same severe fashion. Especially in this fucking city.
But the snuff movie star lives here. I am determined to find him. I'm fortunate that most people don't care enough to penetrate a stare that isn't their own. It's for the minority out there who CAN be bothered scratching the surface that I’m attending these acting classes.
I'm quiet and pale too. I don't have many hobbies or interests. The last thing I remember being passionate about were marbles.
Why does everyone else have memories except me?
I look at Henrik, tall as a set of traffic lights, and try to figure him out. Of course I know that will prove ultimately fruitless; to try and work out someone who has no ulterior motives or need to connect on an emotional level is impossible.
There is simply nothing to understand. The man has no content to speak of. He’s a robot - or an alien, whatever. As long as Henrik can starve himself of his murderous ‘curiosities’ he might be of use to us.
I don’t think there’s any threat he’ll decide to switch to Dunwoody’s side halfway through our journey. He could kill me in a second and I know I’ll have to bargain my way out of his hotel room. Henrik isn’t done talking.
‘I used to go to drama class every Tuesday night at the old community center. The lecturer there, he was okay, I think he was some ex-soap star whose character got killed off in a house fire. I don't think he ever got over losing that job - his career certainly never recovered. I hoped these classes would teach me how to act like a normal man. Maybe the fucking buzzards will leave me be if they see me pretending to be an upstanding citizen. Maybe not. That's all I want, to be normal, but I know that can't happen, so I'll have to settle for the illusion of normality, a facade that keeps me hidden from the dark watches of a suspicious night.’
‘Drama classes really helped?’
‘Not really. ‘Sven’ was a leathery tanned guy whose hair had gone this ancient shade of grey. He sat and told us about the Meissner technique, humming and hawing about this and that like some languid philosophical sloth. He did say one thing that stuck - the key to good acting is to 'live truthfully under imaginary circumstances'. If I can just work out how to live 'truthfully' I’m positive I can fit in man. I was always at a disadvantage to the rest of the students in my class because living truthfully was second nature to them.’
I notice the big Swede has no reflection on the cabinet mirror. A vampire? Although he wears shabby clothes, Henrik is lean and elegant, like a wealthy impresario or Scandinavian aristocrat.
I look at Anja. Her complexion shines with a blue cosmetic. Her body slotted neatly into the cast iron grooves of the tub.
I can tell Anja had worked at a bargain store or was involved in retail. She was on a zero-hour contract. Her life was a succession of depressing set-pieces, her soundtrack was the groaning sprockets of the boredom and misery factory. I’m sure she preferred death.
‘She looks like someone I know.’ – I say, observing the bloody mannequin resting beneath the murky depths.
‘We all see what we want to see, man.’
I shoot Henrik a scornful glare.
- What is that supposed to mean?
‘Are you suggesting I want to kill the love of my life?’
‘Everyone wants to kill their one true love. If humans have taught me anything it’s that. It’s the only permissible type of killing.’
What does he know, huh? He hasn’t even met Kad. I could never hurt her – never. Christ, I felt so bad when I thought I’d endangered her back at the Aerial Hotel that I exiled myself to The Schism! Does that sound like someone with a homicidal disposition to you?
Fuck you Henrik.
Fuck your supplies.
‘This is silly. You’re a murderer. I can’t talk to you. I can’t bargain with a murderer. And for the record, you know nothing about me or Kad.’
Henrik stands up, towering over Anja and I. I feel like my outburst may have damaged the chances of an alliance. I better calm down.
‘I haven’t killed for pleasure before Johnny, but I can sure kill for the sake of survival. If you tell anyone I’m here, I will kill you. I’ll kill your friend too. So play nice.’
I stand up and meet his chest at eyelevel.
- Sit down ‘Kurt’…
‘Listen, you don’t scare me…’
- Pfft, what a bald-faced lie.
‘I should scare you. I’m a killer mate, an honest to god killer. It’s who I am. I could kill you, easy peasy, and feel fine about it afterwards. You couldn’t kill someone in self-defence, could you Johnny boy?’ – Henrik’s voice has lowered to growl.
‘But you won’t kill me, will you? You won’t kill me because all you want is to feel something Henrik. If you kill me you’ll have proved nothing.’
‘Nice try, but one more body doesn’t make a difference, especially if he’s an ailing invalid like you. Hell, I killed Anja and I was dating her.’
- Get out of here you fucking idiot!
‘Keep your supplies Henrik. I’ll take another floor. I’ll leave you in peace. Just let me get back to Kad.’
‘You don’t want any of my supplies?’
‘No.’
- You fucking idiot. Kad will kill you if she finds out.
‘Henrik, please…’
‘Please what? Please don’t kill you?’ – He horselaughs and shows me a glimpse of the cruelty he masks so well from the rest of society.
‘I’m leaving and you’re going to let me leave.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Hey, if you really want to feel something Henrik, why not give yourself up to Dunwoody? I see more humanity and hope in the eyes of The People than I do anyone else around here who says otherwise.’
- I can’t believe those words just came out of my mouth.
‘Because I want to achieve it on my own terms, without accepting a new God into my heart. Anyway, Dunwoody is a false messiah if ever I seen one. I’ll chance it on my own.’ – Henrik puffs out his chest. I hear the beloved marbles chiming together in the pocket of his tracksuit.
‘Maybe. All I know is you know as much as I do and that isn’t much.’
I get up and go to leave the bathroom. As if it’ll be that easy to evacuate this situation? A long arm shoots across the horizon, blocks my exit. In the mirror I see my skin has changed, the pores seem enlarged, my flesh patterned with the deep streaks of accelerated aging. I noticed it earlier. I’m aging. If not aging, then I’m reaching an end-point of some description.
A conclusion
A climax
- A surrender?
A younger, pixelated replica observes from behind two-way crystal, waiting for his chance to pounce
Then a hand clenches a hunk of my hair from behind and yanks
it backwards until my neck cracks and my legs buckle. My back smashes into the iron bowl of the tub. The brass glove slips off and lands on the bathroom tiles with a heavy clunk.
Henrik brings out a thumbscrew compass.
- Fuck…
He opens the legs of the instrument, setting to a precise radius.
‘I need your glove Kurt. I’m building something here, can’t you see that? I have an entire floor of supplies that’ll last me for months. The People have got nothing on me. I’m sorry, I just can’t trust you humans. Fuck your utopia.’
The knot of bone on my wrist has a tender bruise gone the colour of black tupelo. I think it might be fractured too because whenever I go to touch the bone poking out at a wrong-angle, raw nerves flare up and tighten my sphincter. Henrik almost has me.
He throws back his hand with the compass in it, needle-point down-facing, and I prepare for the inevitable sharp pain of being gouged.
Billy Ackerman, Ailsa, the little kid in JAVVA LOTUS, they’re all victims of the city’s indifference. It denied them the opportunity to ever become anything other than a minor character.
And, of course, the very notion of a Utopia is a selfish one, the people who strive for its existence are ruthless and single-minded. Communism will always lead to totalitarianism, right? Henrik knows this, but I know it too.
My eyes are clenched so tight I can see shapes of light hurtling towards me. This is it. This is how I go, at the hands of a crazed, marble-obsessed Swedish serial killer. Then I feel a heavy weight tear through the air, smashing against the iron bath before landing in a bundle on the bathroom tiles. I open my eyes. Henrik is lying prostrate on the floor, a puddle of black tar leaching from an entry wound at the back of his skull. I look up. Kad is standing there holding a woodcarving mallet. She looks at Henrik’s slumped body and says -
