State Of Mind

The Smell of Sins

March 2nd, 1998

He stands in the rain, bloody and bruised, watching as the crimson liquid intermingles with the precipitation and flows down the storm drain. The voices have finally calmed down, and his mind is clear. He collapses to his knees and sinks so low that his body blends in with the dark of night and any passerby would have to squint to see him. He tastes something salty in his mouth, and he decides absentmindedly that the taste pairs nicely with the smell of his sins.

After an eternity of watching his hands as the rain rids them of any trace of blood, he stands and begins to walk. He has no specific destination in mind, but in the back of his mind he recognizes the way to his apartment complex. Tonight the city is dead. It is cold and lifeless save for the occasional car zooming by. The tightly packed shops and office buildings and hotels and fancy restaurants are empty, the only occupied places are the seedy bars and exclusive clubs. He sees scarcely anyone walking down the sidewalk, which is odd for a late Saturday night in Houston.

It is a perfect night for murder.

He had most definitely taken advantage of the still rainy night and killed to calm the voices in his head. They demanded it, craved the blood, hungered for the screams as a homeless man might hunger for a four course meal. All day that had been tormenting him, taunting him with flashbacks of his father's lifeless face, his mother's sheer black casket, his brother's screams. Just thinking about it threw him headfirst into a blind rage that permeated every pore in his being.

When he was first diagnosed at fifteen, the young man was given pills for anxiety and pills for depression and a recommendation to an anger management class. For a while, his OCD was manageable and his depression only showed up on occasion, but then the voices started. The first time he heard them was at a Powerman 5000 concert; they told him to wash the X's off of his hands and buy a beer. One became two, became three, became nine and he was sick and getting his stomach pumped at a hospital.

It only got worse from there. Once, in the gym locker room at his school, they told him to attack a young man who had been harassing him for quite some time. So he did, and the boy was sent to the hospital with a broken wrist and two fractured ribs. Two years later his family was killed in a car accident which only he survived. By this time he was in his second year at the University of Texas and he had to take a year off because the rational part of his mind didn't trust himself to go out amongst people. It got worse and worse, until eventually three people had to visit the hospital in critical condition, including himself and a close friend.

He finally found a solution that to him seemed the only viable option. Every month he would take the life of any given person. Someone useless, he decided. Someone who wouldn't be missed. A thug or a homeless man.

Today had been the day. Just another day of another month, but to him it was the day. The day he calmed the voices and had another few weeks of calm before the whispers teased the edges of his sanity again.

This time had been different though. This time he actually felt something... What, he didn't know. All he knows now is that he wants to throw up and he just might before he reaches the steps of his apartment. He doesn't thankfully. His hands tremble as he unlocks the door and rushes inside before slamming it shut again.

His apartment is nothing like his mind. It is organized and neat and lovely. Modern furniture and devices all nicely arranged color coordinated like a showroom. He has no time to admire it, however, because he is scrambling towards the bathroom.

He is sick for hours before finally crawling into the shower and washing off the smell of his sins from his tired body.