Anthology Complex

by M. B. Julien

  His eyes are wide open now because the light woke him up and revealed me to him, just like it revealed him to me. I'm standing there staring at him, and he staring at me. I feel in my heart that I have to kill him. End his life. But when I look at his big eyes I feel as if I can't. Like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back in the process of killing this man.

  Finally I decide that I'm not going to kill him. I start to think, I know that I won't kill him so what can I do now? Can I just let him go? Repercussions. I think for a while, and then I start to talk to him. I tell him that I can't bring myself to kill him, and that I want to make a deal. That if I let him go, he has to believe this never happened.

  I tell him that if he tells a soul, I will haunt him and his family for the rest of his life. And then after he dies, I will continue to haunt anyone who is close to him and still living. I untie him, remove the tape and he is gone. The chair is empty. I sit on the chair and it hits me, I have to realize that I can't kill another person. I ask myself why? Why is it so hard? Stab, stab, stab, that's all it takes.

  After a while of thinking, I figure it out. Why I couldn't kill him. I needed to start smaller. I needed to start with ants, and rats, and squirrels, and dogs, and cats, and horses, and elephants, and then people. It was a perfect and logical assumption. So that is exactly what I do. I find an ant pile and I kick it.

  Soon after ants come roaring out of it. So many ants, so much to kill. I think to myself, step on that ant right there. Thought. And then I actually do it. Action. Step on that ant there. It's dead. Step on that one, too. It's dead. All of a sudden it becomes a game, and I'm winning; kill as many ants as you can.

  Now I'm stepping on more than one ant at a time, smearing their black skin against the pavement. I start to laugh in my head. Kill that ant. Dead. Kill those ants. Dead. I set up a rat trap, premeditated murder. I'm getting better at this game. The rat is caught. I think, think, think to myself I should hit it with a bat. I get, get, get a bat and I stain its internal liquids against the concrete floor.

  Then I start thinking, I should step it up a notch, and start digging up the graves of the dead and pretend to kill them, as if they were still alive. I think to myself, "maybe it's not homicide," but it's one step closer, and then I wake up. Maybe to determine if someone is insane, they need both the thoughts and the actions.

  So many people are in love. Love is so common in so many lives, so much that it seems as if it is indefinable. So much that it seems too complex to ever really be understandable, or even be explained. But the fact of the matter is that love is simply just another emotional feeling. Like rage, like pride, love is simply a feeling. Love is a feeling just like the feeling you get after you kill something.

  The same way a person searches for love, a person can search for that feeling you get after you've ended a life. Of course, that mysterious feeling is not common, like love, but both of these feelings are more than they appear to be when perceived by human beings. There are so many circumstances surrounding love, so many webs that love can be simple and complex at the same time.

  I'm wide awake still laying in bed, and I look to my right and I see my composition notebook laying there as well with a pen on it. I keep it next to me so I can immediately write down the dream I have. I stare at this notebook, and I think to myself, this is my companion. I think to myself, it's sad, but I accept it. I take it, I open it and I start writing the dream down. "I'm carrying something heavy."

  Chapter 8:

  THE DOUBLE HELIX

  Three years ago, I had this nightmare. I take off my happy theater mask and I look into his eyes. I start to look around and from my surroundings I can tell he's a politician. Eventually I can tell he's the mayor of a city. Eventually I can tell he's the mayor of New York City. I guess I already knew these things because they were part of the reason I was here. My partner asks me why I took off my mask and I tell him it's because I want him to see my face. I look into the eyes of the painting again. This is a painting of the mayor of New York City.

  After a minute or two, we hear talking and footsteps, so my partner and I hide the best way we know how. The mayor walks into his office alone and he turns on the light, and then sits down in his seat. The seat of the mayor of New York City. I get out of my hiding spot and walk towards him, gun pointing at those eyes, and the entire time he is shouting with his arms in the air. My partner now gets out. I cock the shotgun and I aim. Then I shoot.

  His painting of himself is ruined now, covered in blood. Who hangs a painting of themselves in their own room? The front door kicks open and shots are fired. My partner goes down, but not before he gets a few shots of his own in.

  I take cover, and I see my partner laying on his back about four meters away from me. My heart is pounding. I don't know if it's because I just killed a powerful man or if it's because a close friend of mine is in danger. The pounding gets louder and louder until it finally wakes me up.

  What does it take to truly change the way the world works? Do certain people have to die? Do certain people have to live? Someone said that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I could also kill the next mayor of New York City, and then the one after that and the one after that, but even though the people in this seat change, the seat itself never changes. The people change, but the seat stays the same. So the world and the way it works stays the same. Sometimes what seems like true change is actually just the process of repetition. The process of repetition.

  A king named Solomon said that there is nothing new under the Sun, and this is probably true. Every day we wake up, we go through our day, and then we go to sleep, until we wake up the next day to do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. Every day the Sun comes up, and then the Sun goes down. We are born, we have children, and then we die. Our children our born, and they have their own children, and then they die. Our children's children are born, and they have children, and then they die. A way to keep our species alive in a never-changing world.

  These thoughts reflect the image of the double helix; the name of the structure or form our DNA takes. Two perfect spirals that continually repeat themselves. Because DNA is almost the road map to life, it is sort of poetic that it would take the form of a repeating structure. The same repeating structure that is symbolic to the lives we live.

  The same repeating structure that is symbolic to a world that will probably never change. A world that can't change. Maybe a world that doesn't need to be changed.

  There is a story of a group of humans who could only live for six hours. In most cases these humans would only live to see a world with light or a world with darkness, but there were some lucky humans who saw the change from day to night, or from night to day, but they didn't know what was happening. Unfortunately, before they could understand and document these changes and what was happening, they would die.

  After a while, along came a human who could live for an entire week. This human saw changes from day to night and from night to day multiple times, and this human told the other humans that could only live for six hours that he or she could tell what was going to happen next.

  So this human would tell the the other humans that soon there would be light, and while some humans died before then, the lucky ones saw this change and thought that this human who predicted this change was some sort of higher being, but eventually that human's week was over and he or she died.

  After a while, along came a human who could live for years. This human experienced all the different seasons. This human understood the seasonal changes and the changes from day to night and night to day, and he or she documented and explained them.

  Eventually this human told the other humans, who at the time could only live for a few months, that he or she could tell them what to prepare for next. So this human tells the other humans that snow and great cold is coming, and the ones who were lucky enough to last to see this change thought that this human was some sort of higher being.

  Eventually this human di
ed after living for so many years. After a very, very long time, along came a human who could live forever. After reading the documents and recordings of previous humans, he or she realized that every thing just repeats itself, even on the grandest scale. He or she saw the end, and then watched as the beginning started again. In this beginning, the human watched as these people who could only live for six hours were born, and then died.

  Chapter 9:

  THERAPEUTIC SILENCE

  It's been a little over a week since Joe has been in a coma. By now I thought that he would have been out of it, but he's not. The people that work at the hospital tell me that he only has a few relatives, and that they can't reach most of them. The ones that they actually do get a hold of don't want to visit, either because they live too far away or they aren't that close to Joe. In the end I guess he is stuck with me.

  I'm on my way out to go visit him, this will probably be my last visit. I hope it's my last visit. I hope he wakes up soon and returns to business as usual. I walk through the front door of my apartment building and I see the woman who just moved in kneeling on the ground. She's gardening.

  She looks up at me and smiles, and that's when I immediately remember a dream I had of her a couple of nights ago. In the dream she is helping me with something, but I can't remember what. It's unfortunate that I can't remember some dreams that I have as well as others. Sometimes I wake up knowing I just had a dream, but I can't remember the dream for the life of me.

  I'm standing there, looking at her with a weird expression on my face and trying to remember this dream, then her smile begins to slowly fade. She asks me if I'm okay, and I tell her I was fine. I tell her it was weird to see her gardening because I had never seen anyone ever garden around an apartment building. I always thought that was done usually around houses or nice places. She gets up and she says to me, "Your home is your home." And slowly the smile grows back onto her face, and once again I can't do anything but smile back at her.

  She's wearing a pair of jeans so I can't see her fake leg, but for a small amount of time I can't stop thinking about it. I didn't dare ask about it. She then starts to talk about how she didn't really introduce herself when I helped her move the television, and she tells me her name is Lynne. She tells me her kids' names are Sarah and David. A lovely family.

  I asked her what kind of flowers she was planting, and she told me they were going to be zinnias. She told me it was going to be a shade garden. I didn't really know what she was talking about but I would find out when she was finished. A little while after talking, I see a woman walking her dog. She's walks in our direction as if she is going to enter our apartment building.

  Lynne sees the lady a little after I do and she tells me it's her sister, Claire. Claire was coming over for dinner. Lynne introduces me to Claire, and then invites me over for dinner as well, but I tell her I have to meet a friend. Now across the street there is a man walking his dog. This man's dog and Claire's dog start barking at each other. Bark, bark, bark, it gets so annoying.

  It starts to remind me of that terrible ringing sound. The phone ringing, ringing, ringing. Sometimes the ringing drives you so nuts you want to just break the phone and live the rest of your life in solitude. Bark, bark, bark. Now I want to kill the dogs. Stop barking. Lynne says goodbye to me, and she goes inside the building with Claire and her dog. The barking stops. I look at Lynne's work in progress and then leave.

  The entire way to the hospital, on that dirty bus, I can't help but think if animals have souls. A lot of people say the difference between people and animals is that a person knows the difference between right and wrong. That people have a working moral compass. That people have a certain unexplainable bond with other life forms. But what about the dog that lays there next to its dead master, laying there with those eyes that want to cry. Laying there sad, and when it sees the person who killed its master, it begins to bark uncontrollably.

  What about the goat and the horse that reside on the same farm who begin to go every where with each other, and begin to care for each other, so much that when one is sick the other stays by its side. What about the humans who hunt other humans. The sociopaths who kill for fun, for sport. The serial killers who show no remorse. What about the humans who strive to benefit financially off of wars that are unnecessary. Do they have any more of a soul than that dog, or that goat, or that horse?

  I get to the hospital, and then to Joe's room and I sit on the chair. I think to myself, what's the point of this. It's not therapeutic for Joe. It does nothing for me. But still I sit, hoping that he will wake up so I don't have to come back here. I guess the only real reason I do it is because no one else has come to visit him.

  How would it look if a man was never visited by anyone throughout the entire duration of his hospitalization. At least when he wakes up, if he wakes up, he will owe me.

  After a while I begin to remember the dream that I couldn't remember. Something happened to me and I went to Lynne for advice. She was able to comfort me, to help me with this problem I had. This internal struggle that keeps me prisoner. It was this strong woman in a tiny body. This woman who tells jokes and gives life to plants even thought a part of her has been taken away, she guides me through this dark hallway with her slight limp and her bright yellow dress.

  Chapter 10:

  A GENETIC PEACE

  Last evening, I had a dream. There's so much sand, and the Sun is so hot. So yellow. I'm walking through this desert, leaving behind a life I once led. Leaving behind people, leaving behind lifestyles and leaving behind addictions, maybe trying to find some form of peace somewhere overseas. I keep walking and walking until I see this big white house in the distance. A house that has no business being way out here in the desert.

  I walk closer and I see a child digging behind the house. I go up to him and I look into the hole in the ground, it's a grave. He tells me he's burying his brother. His brother that looks as if he died of starvation.

  Sometimes I wonder if people who die of starvation have that really horrible of a death. In order to feel hungry your brain has to tell you, it has to send messages back and forth and such, telling you it needs more food to be able to function properly. I would think that in order to send those messages, it takes energy, and to get energy you will need to eat or drink.

  So if you are sitting there starving with no food to eat and no water to drink, will your brain eventually stop sending those messages because it has no energy to do so? If that's the case, you will stop feeling hungry, and then you will just die.

  I'm watching this child bury his brother, and from around the corner I see an old man walking towards me. When he gets to me, he asks for water. Water for him and his family. I take off my backpack and I look inside, bottles of water. Bottles of water and and loaves of bread. I look at the dead child in the sand grave, and I hand the man the contents of my backpack.

  After, I take another look at the child in the sand grave. A closer look, and I realize that some of the sand is turning red, turning into blood. I assume they killed the child for a good reason, maybe he was dying from a disease with the help of malnutrition. They did the wrong thing for the right reason.

  When a homicide is committed, a crime scene is set, but there is no crime scene set on a battlefield. All you can do is step over the body and go on. So that's what I did. I gave the family all of my food and water and I walked on. I continued to walk, searching for a peaceful place.

  Eventually I got to a city, but it was so loud. People were talking so loudly, sometimes yelling at each other. It was too loud. Their voices were ringing. Their voices were barking. Eventually I was so annoyed by it that I woke up, and that's when I realized that people were arguing outside.

  I go to the window and I see four people, Lynne, Claire, Mary and some man standing next to Mary. And then I see a man sitting in a tow truck in the distance. Mary is yelling at the top of her lungs at Lynne, and Lynne is yelling back. I hated to see Lynne get yelled at, but I hated
to see her yell at someone even more. She was such a calm person. Such a nice person.

  At first I decided to not get involved, to just watch from up here, but then the man standing next to Mary started to yell at Lynne. I grab a post-it note and a pen and I jot down the words "the sand grave" on it so I can remember the dream I just had, and then I go down there and I ask what the problem is. Mary turns to me and tells me that Claire parked in her parking space. I guess she was over for dinner again. Where's that stupid dog. Why would people cut each other's throats over a parking space.

  It becomes obvious that Mary is so angry not because of the parking space, but because something has been bothering her. Maybe a relative died. Or maybe she is beginning to realize that being at the top of your class doesn't mean as much as she thinks it does. That you could still end up being a failure, and maybe even have a side of insanity along with it. Now she's taking her anger out on Lynne.

  Lynne, she has no problem with moving the car but Mary is being so hysterical that Lynne feels she is being disrespected, and what was a small fixable problem now becomes unsolvable. Claire doesn't really have much to say, and the tow truck driver is just waiting for Lynne to move so he can tow the car if Claire doesn't move it.