「 To Actualize 」

To Actualize

Kao Narvna

At last, I’ve snared the accursed racoon within my live trap—those lying eyes and grit covered hands mimicking the humanity they desire. I peer between the links in the cage, the beast at slumber amongst its valuable furs, leading me to the thought of skinning rather than release despite the soiled nature of this pelt, his pelt.

I’ve never been fond of them—these repugnant masked bandits mocking the creatures they thieve from, with those wide eyes, thumbs, and a love for wealth; pining after what they cannot understand yet require to find fixes for their habits. Detestable, only have I caged this rat is for the intention festering over years of observation. Happy with his wretched lifestyle, bliss in idiocy complemented by kleptomania—though on the trial he lies, a claim to innocence through ignorance and incapability. Utter repugnancy, though it might be what lead me to purchase this live trap of mass proportions. More specifically, I bought the kennel myself, it’s the man who walked into a pre-established trap—alcohol is a bitch, one who sings the song of abuse, especially if accepted from a stranger.

I sit beside the steel now, watching the sorry excuse for manhood lay in ethanol scented rags matching his deserved reality quite perfectly. Torn dress shirt and dirt soiled pants—an irrefutable mess desired by none, though somehow, he manages to smile and live his imbecilic tale of imperfection.

Despite the newfound bruise on his cheek, I find that flawless skin deserving of more—perhaps a switch to bone, fire poker to the soul’s window, to ruin is to be released from this torturous hell in the eyes of man, myself. That charcoal dusted hair not needing of washes, I unlock the cage so I might adjust it—bangs sectioned between his eyes, it’s rather comic, though the way he manages to manifest these traits needs to be visible so I might feel angry forever more.

If I were a simple man, this satisfaction of entrapment would perhaps be enough. Writhing in pain and starved of blessed fruit, kept hydrated on piss or the acid rains corroding roofs. Gift to him the scraps of my meal, the long past due meats tinted emerald with age, bread of similar contamination to match. To snuff out that pitiful candle of life, a time-consuming blessing damned to lose its high—I’m not mad, merely pissed.

I’ll end him tonight, those perfect lips sharing ratio more golden than the one of similar name—splitting them with my heel, and orgasmic process so rarely experienced without a consenting partner, though I’d rather not ruin that idol of utter abhorrence this soon. When the day is done, I must have something to recognize this memorial achievement by—otherwise, the passion lays utterly wasted, without something for me to press my passions upon.

Yearning to see his skin in shreds, loins cubes and organs ground—I must keep my trophy intact, something to mount on my wall in a picture frame or stuffed bust when the night is long dead. I must keep my hatred alive, my creative muse, my artistic inspiration of negative incarnation—how I must keep him breathing and in turmoil, though with the racoon caged, perhaps I must sever his hands from his entirety to stop his thieving behaviour. He has stolen far too much of my time and happiness to go without sentence, though internment is too simple a gift for his likes.

Without that rooted emotional poison, I am nothing, and thus I require my source to retain breath so my words and art may breathe another day. Irrational, perhaps—no right-minded man would go to the length I must see their emotional direction caged and unconscious in their cellar. But no, my love—I am not mad, I assure you this.

What to do, what to do—I pace beside the stable I’ve cornered the addict within, the hollow sound of heel to hardwood an appropriate timekeeper to my mezzo-forte thoughts, those running at considerably uncomfortable paces. I worry that he may wake before my satisfaction comes, remedy only in the form of wiping his conscious once again through force or drink. His hands more dextrous that the mammal much compared to, more than capable of relieving the lock keeping him held in place. His voice, more than loud enough to penetrate these measly walls and cry to his women, his families, of his capture and abuse.

I can’t have that—no, no. I dare not leave gaps in my plot, to give myself away with such ease! It is my will to fret about, not his, never his. Such an unimportant mongrel loved by none, he should not have a fraction of a voice—and yet he cries so loud into the night as if alerting his own kind of the moon’s forthcoming.

I kneel before him, his captive box, removing the latch once more. I so carefully remove my tie, a shame she’ll die like this. Practically crawling into the bowels of my plot, I search the dimly lit air for his filthy hands, binding them at the wrists with incomprehensible and blind knots. With such weak arms, he should be restrained well enough, though a proper rope length could well ensue my success. Those pure and beauteous hands of mine would search his torso for his own necktie, loosely tracing the definition of abdomen and pectorals prior to settling on that broken silk. His tying job is poor enough to easily pull—not unlike a slipknot—for removal’s sake. A bundled sock can easily press above his scotch-soaked tongue, kept in place with that cloth’s binding around the cranium. Pre-emptively silencing him, for rodents tend to cry when presented with terror, do they not?

So very ugly, this handsome man—though as I touch and stare, squinting at discernible features and clothing folds in short proximity, removing myself from this entrapment, I cannot help but lose the rage once inflating my will. Such a peculiar emotional void would overcome as I look into a mirror hidden from all others—what is it that drives me to such lengths? Is there no gain other than pleasure at others’ expense?

There is no going back, that point had been crossed hours ago, with stubbornness in hand I must press onwards into the darkness of soiled palms. Once more I pace, his body a witness to my crime, my break of law—there may be no onlookers, none with the memory of my horrendous action. A shame, I must do what was originally intended for his body—though there will be no burial. The ethical decision of execution is one I thought to have decided, as judge and jury alike—though back upon my thoughts I consider the consequences in failure, those far worse than mere kidnapping.

Securing the metal gates once again, I tread silently towards my bedroom through silent air, rejecting the impulse to turn on the lights—I mustn’t alert any that I returned from the tavern, give away my position with the lost man. It’s not far, easily found through navigation of the walls. I’ve known this place well, dejectedly lying in the slums of a corrupt and collapsing world. Locating my nightstand through the void of light, feeling the walls and furniture piece by piece until the birch finish lay below my fingers. I’d open the drawer, placing my hands upon the cold metal mimicking the touch of death—I never thought I’d need it, such a weapon of destruction. They’re not designed or used for protection—though I might argue I’m protecting myself from future prosecutions. I’ve only shot this pistol once or twice, left her loaded and alone in a case of wood for many months in the assumption I may use it while under siege. I must bury her after the deed, having been illegally obtained through the underground.

This feels beyond wrong, though in reflection, torture for personal satisfaction was no better. I’ve left myself with no choice, for my hands have been placed upon him—my displeasure is private, though the barkeep has likely overheard my mutterings of unhappiness, the scattered inconsistency of my schemes.

Post my excessively cautious stumbling, I’ve returned to the hold—hardly sighted in assuring my tool retained the seeds of murder, those which I must sow. I kneel beside the interlocked bars, fingers toying with the gate’s latch—I lament myself for even considering this offence, to kill a man. Even this would not guarantee my successes, my freedom.

Liberation is something someone as undeserving and disgusting as I could only find in death—and thus I stare down the barrel myself. Such a coward I am, a fool—not properly thinking my acts of vengeance through, distraught in the idea of bringing that same act of malice onto my own body, to end it all. Some claim that suicide is one of the most cowardly acts a person can indulge in, as if life is more difficult—though I lean on the side of regarding it with bravery, plunging into the unknown with no method of return, having no definite belief or knowledge of what happens when the blood stops flowing to your brain. I’d like to think that it’s none other but darkness there to greet you with open arms, though many religious folks would like to disagree. I fear what I do not know, and yet I fear what it all too similar. As said most frequently—the duality of man is a peculiar thing, often hypocritical at that.

Iron kissing my forehead, I only consider the possibilities—trigger finger trembling, not even poised against the final switch quite yet. Pray, there’s another option—I could very well throw his body into the river, it’d take a few many days to be stumbled upon by a civilian. That’d be more than enough to clean up my tracks, claim I had adopted a dog for this suspicious cage of unknown usage. Yes, yes—that’s it, throw him overboard and mourn a companion, the polar opposite of what makes this abomination tick. Never keeping to promises, lacking the qualities they claim to hold, parading arrogance as if it were some type of twisted positive. Yes, that’s right—I can very well do what I had originally intended, create a ceasefire through killing off the only party that could possibly fire back!

Though with tremors in my firing hand, and weakness throughout my limbs, my probability of success is as low as they come. A fool I am forever considering that this would work in any fashion—such uncertainty is not fit for intellectuals of my regard, a pity that I have fallen from my pedestal of high accomplishment to be but a common criminal in the making! Incarceration won’t be kind to me, my skin so smooth, body so very light and fragile—I’ll be snapped before the first day concludes, a weak man bent to the will of others, a simple prison bitch. There must be other options, there always are—think, think—that’s what I’m best at. Thinking, never doing—my entire mind is hypothetical, never following through.

What could have possibly driven me here, to begin with? This man has committed no sin other than to exist and enjoy liquor as I do. Gamble as I would, speak riddles and nonsense as I would hold their head high as I would—and yet I so desperately wish to puncture each artery delivering his blood and vitality. No regard for his hygiene and appearance when in public space, no time for any man, woman and child. These descriptions ring all too clear to the criticisms of myself I’ve received for twenty years or more, a reality I hate to admit. I project self-loathing onto an entity as filthy, godless, and unclean as I—and with ignorance in my doing so. Yet he is no more than a liar, something not even I have stooped to thus far. I’m a man of my word, even if those words are very few in numbers.

I hate him, for I hate myself.

My resolution and will dissolved before sleep-deprived eyes, the metal warm and inviting. I remove it now, no longer peering down the hand of death. There is no purpose, no reason anymore, forevermore. This revelation of my depressions near brought me to tears, accepting my self-imposed reality of the image, that which I’ve ignored for so very long. This health of mine has been crumbling for quite some time, though I hadn’t anticipated this level of...something near psychosis to creep into my soul.

Another option there is indeed: to further become that which I wish to see crumble.

Placing my firearm aside with safety, I fumble to uncage the beast once again. Nay, not beast—innocent racoon, with those hands much like the creature that sees themselves within him, and those eyes wide with curiosity, reminiscent of days long past. Reaching in, I’d untie all that left his unconscious figure in bondage, relieving the form of soiled or ratter garments, in which to leave in moments to be, scattered across the hall. He’s not as light as I’d prefer, though rather easy to drag across the hardwood, body neatly tucked onto a bath towel, the same way I brought him into this confinement hours ago.

Such a pain, to blindly bring him down the hall, into the bedroom I’d tag as private in all circumstances. Things most embarrassing sit within the shelves of this room, though I’m without shame for this night alone—acting as that which is irrefutably horrendous in concept.

Onto the left side of the bed I’d shove him, nearly nude and now contaminating my well-made sheets. I feel rather guilty, placing him here, to begin with. Every moral code I’ve come to adopt would insist I throw him out the door instead, though it seems far less ethical than the solution I’ve just now construed. My hatred now lays heavy on myself, laying idly beside this man with eyes pinned to the damp ceiling above. Waiting, I sit, in search of void dreams—led astray with more guilt that I’d have had, if I actually slept with him, as opposed to faking the scene to protect my future.

Though shameful in every fashion, I kicked off some of my garments as well, for the sole sake of perfecting this illusion. I lean into the safety net of fallacies, the comfort of false reality constructed from fibs and believable settings. It’s comforting, somehow—this acceptance of my horrid nature, and with it, I might rest well for the first night of many.

            I wake to an obnoxious, exaggerated yawn belonging to none other than the soulless addict—discourse in my thoughts bringing both regret and pleasantry to the forefront of my focus. I wouldn't mind much, for there is no incarceration set in my wake, none foreseeable either. I’m still crisp in my executions, as long as they sit within my capabilities, though morality has fallen.

            “The barkeep slipped up, you fell. I took you here, you had a fever,” my first vocal lie came with such ease, prompted by the first questioning glance.

            He took me at face value, the insufferable fool—trust isn’t something to be so easily delivered. Though even I wouldn’t fight the fuzziness of hangovers, and any black-out drunk is bound to wake in more peculiar places.

            Like that he was off—an incomprehensible word or two muttered as he’d scramble for clothing, unquestioning of the location of a forgotten tie, the placement of towels and cages. Everything had returned to normalcy without violence or bloodshed, and it had indeed left me with a void once filled with passion. The door shut with its trademark, rust caused squeak—and I was alone for the thousandth day, staring blankly at the ceiling tiles caked in dust.

            I believe I’ve always been this way: depressed. Failing to cope in repeated cycles and episodes—drinking helps, anger assists even more. I’ll get a dog, fill the cage and void at once—learn to walk the streets in day, find myself another bar, perhaps a will to live on in my solitude, in the company of mutts not unlike myself.

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Copr. 2017 Kao Narvna

Revised 2019