Liquid Fix
Word Count: 1299
Lately Ive been very interested in the idea of killing a man with my bare hands. Really, my biggest impediment is in deciding who I might want to kill. Surely, killing someone with your bare hands is quite a terrible act, but surely, I should be able to find a person terrible enough to make my fucking wildest dreams come true. Who would I kill?
Jamiroquai, the douchebag in the fuzzy hat who comes and tries to get me to switch from cable to satellite tv every fucking 2 months. How the does his boss allow him to wear that thing? Every single time he spouts the exact same canned lines, as if hes never seen me before. Nobody would ever miss a nobody like that. I cant imagine a loser like that with a wife and kids. Maybe Ill kill him, x him out of the gene pool. This is how I do it: I ask him the same question I ask him every time he shows his no good face around my propertywhat are the advantages of Direct TV vs. Comcast? It is almost a weakness of mine, an addiction, listening to the droll speech of this incompetent goon. He gives me the same canned response that Ive heard probably a dozen times. I invite him in, as always, and the same progression of events take place, ending in me choking him from the rear and holding a wet rag to his face until he falls limp in my arms. Come on, you know exactly what is on the rag. I then experiment on his living unconscious body with water torture until his heart fails beating. The same thing over and over, its like virtual insanity. The weak dont deserve the same air that fills my trained and efficient lungs. Free my mind, sir Jamiroquai of endless loserdom.
My high school coach, Garythe type of guy who never really made it and because of it, lives a life of regret. Rotate faster! hed scream at us in some faux menacing tone while wearing some god-awful western hat. Coaxing us into frenzy from below as if the words of a rotund do-nothing prick were some sort of gospel. Gary taught me a lot of bad habits, and had I actually listened to him I would probably be in the same position hes in. I dont need to listen to anyone. I drown out every voice except the one in my head that propels me forward again and again downward into unknown territory. Youre probably thinking that Gary seems mostly harmless, and youre probably right. However, I cannot accept any power that this man has over me. He put stock in me, in a really weird vicarious sort of way, like I could fix what was wrong with him. When I put the plastic bag over his head he realizes the insignificance of the little world he has built around me, for a few fleeting seconds everything is fixed. Cowboy take me away.
Same Dong or whatever-the-shit his name is that owns the Vietnamese diner near my parents house. Motherfucker has been here 30 years and hes still pretending like hes fresh off the boat. Ive never told anyone that Same Dong knows perfect English, or how I found out about it. When I was in 2nd grade my dog Chester ran away. God-fucking-shit, he was a cool fucking dog. I cried and prayed every night before I went to bed, hoping he would come back. Three days later I was playing baseball in a park near Dongs residence. Outfield. Mike P. hit the ball probably farther than anyone else in the second grade ever had, but Im not quite sure about that as I never played baseball again. As youve probably gathered, the ball rolled inexplicably into Big Dongs yard, and as youve also probably gathered, on my trek to find the ball I looked into the window of his garage and saw Chester strung from the support beam with a bucket below him filled with his drained fluids, surrounded by a boy and a man. Dong was teaching his 8 year old son how to properly skin a dog. In perfect English. I could have drown in the tears I shed that day, just like Ill make Larger Dong drown in his own blood and piss. I hang him up upside down, half-dead, from a tree on my rather expansive property, and watch as his innards casually spill from his midsection into a pool in the dirt. I search the cavernous abyss that was his abdomen, and I reach deep down behind his ribs--whats that, did I just touch his tra la la? I find his weakly beating heart and squeeze it as hard as I can until I hear a distinct pop. As his eyes roll into the back of his head and he loses consciousness he comes to realize that I am in every way superior to him. Again and again and again he realizes before eventually falling from the tree to the earth, dead. Knowing him as well as I do, Im pretty sure he died a happy man. He was felled by a man more powerful than he. Ding ding Mr. dong, your time's up.
This is for all the baseball games I never got to play. This is for pretending my pet dog went missing, and then ruthlessly killing it in front of me while tears streamed down my face. This is for all the afternoons forced practicing and becoming proficient at my craft. Things lesser than you dont deserve to see the light of day, isnt that right, Mr. Dong? Im the fucking best. Im inordinately superior, and you do not fuck with your superiors, Mr. Dong. Today hes the one wholl die. Today of all days its really gotta count.
After the killing, Im gone. This is like drugs, probably. My mind is blank. Im telling you right now that I just don't give a fuck. Nothing. I look up and see clear blue skies. Im not in control anymore. Im open for whatever-the-hell. Whatever limitless possibilities lie at the bottom of the ledge Im looking over. Its a pretty big fall but Ive been lower. Everything is clear now. I feel perfect, like my body is utilizing the oxygen/nitrogen mixture intake of my lungs to perfect efficiency. Now its blue skies or the murky depths.
Falling, falling, falling. I hit. Am I dead? This pavement feels like gelatin. Wet. My body sinks completely in and as the last inch of my toes exit the domain of air, I feel a distinct and perfect ripple dance across the surface, followed by a piercing cacophony of human-like, guttural sound. The world unknowingly applauds death. My death, or Mr. Dong's, Im not really sure. Im not even sure if theres a difference.
In the depths I am shielded. From this dark womb I am reborn. I emerge to the surface once again, and re-enter the world of men, fatherless in the world of fathers, the same way Ive done so over and over and over again from before I could remember. Killing to forget. Despite what people might believe from their view of the act that took place today, I dont do it for notoriety. I dont do it for the history books. I dont do it for money. I do it because I have to do it.
Im a professional diver and today Ive reached gold.
I'm kind of tempted as well. Especially with all the flashing that can be going on at the same time.