Daniel Schenck
The Fall of Eden
English 101
It was an overcast day; it was always overcast in Endsville, and Gary always relished the chance to get soaked to the bone, which was shockingly infrequent. Gary observed that the sky was always black, and distended; swollen and contracting like a powerful woman long in labor, always just on the verge of birthing a god, but it seldom actually rained. On the rare occasions it did rain, the city quieted, people pressed their eyes to the window, and witnessed the dry landscape greedily absorb the long awaited precipitation. No one ever acually went out in the rain. Except for Gary. He’d walk the streets alone, letting the rain chill him, and he ignored the eyes that stared at him gauntly- eyes that could never understand the urge to let the planet bathe them- and he would just wander.
Gary carried a well worn satchel, and on this particular day his satchel was pregnant with an arsonist’s toolkit; 3 cans of lighter fluid, some rags, some matches, lighters, and some heavy leather gloves, blackened from previous exploits. He already knew his targets, and decided that delaying any further would serve no purpose, so he adopted a more brisk and purposeful pace as he made his way down a path which, until now, he had mostly just ignored. but now he proceeded apace to an old victorian house. A house which had haunted his dreams for so long. A house that was home to the greatest evil in Endsville. For so many years he had contemplated this moment; wandering through the streets, in the rain, in the shine, he knew what had to be done. For so long he wondered how he could do it without getting caught, but he had come to a realization that his fate didn’t matter one bit. He donned his blackened gloves, and removed a can of lighter fluid from his satchel, and he soaked the front porch with it, and then he removed a match. He struck the match, and he tossed it onto the toxic puddle. The flames jumped up like eager demons escaping from hell, and the enclosure of the porch kept the rain at bay for the most part. He passed through the flames, and through the front door. He emptied the lighter fluid, leaving long streaks of flammable piss, and then he opened the second can. He soaked the furniture, the curtains, and he touched up the floor. The roar of flames was building on the porch already, but he still had some time. Gary decided that he didn’t have time to be thorough as he wanted, so he proceeded up a winding staircase, emptying the second bottle of lighter fluid. Two German expressions phased through his mind as he proceeded, Schadenfreude: Gloating, revelry in the failure and pain of others. Unruhe: Unrest. He felt both emotions climax as he drenched everything.
As he reached the second floor, he opened his third and final can of lighter fluid, but he squirted it sparingly; this can had a special purpose. He found the bedroom at the end of the hall. The bedroom where his girlfriend had been raped years ago. The Mayor’s son slept inside. His father’s position and connections had sheltered him from scrutiny, but his girlfriend wasn’t so fortunate. She was ridiculed, she was attacked, and alienated. On that night, the mayor’s son effectively murdered. She hung herself in the bathroom only a month later. Gary’s lips curled in a vicious smile as he brandished his lighter fluid and a pack of matches.
He slipped into the bedroom, quieter than the shadow of death, still unable to remember the purpose of the rags in his satchel. Wondering how they even got there; he had been inebriated while he was preparing. Perhaps he had considered a molotov cocktail, but if that was the case, he forgot the requisite glass bottles. Gary surveyed the room, he found the Mayor’s disgusting progeny lying in a bed practically made of money. The sound of the lighter fluid being opened woe the sleeping target. Such a small sound. But his target was entirely paralyzed, his eyes glassy, and they saw no resistance. Gary addressed him with a subdued manic tension, “I see you have no fight left. I hope you get to experience half of the pain I’ve felt, I hope you experience at least a millionth of the pain you caused my love.” the mayor’s son watched him, and his lack of resistance was unnerving to Gary; he had not ever expected such an easy time going into this. Gary unleashed the full contents of the can of lighter fluid onto his target, who sat idly, limply, absorbing it all. It was almost as if Gary were simply marking his territory. And then he struck a match. It was not long before his target was screaming at the top of his lungs, writhing around his bed in pure agony, engulfed in a giant ball of fire, and his bed caught after that. The fire spread to lighter fluid on the floor, and spread out the door, and down the stairs, and the fire met the other fire that had been creeping in through the porch, meeting it half way. Gary made his way out of the house, and it had stopped raining. His clothes were singed, and he removed the gloves. Sirens were heard all throughout Endsville, and Gary thought about the now charring corpse he’d left behind. His love was no less raped, and dead, and Gary knew full well that his actions hadn’t brought anyone any real justice. This was a selfish act, and it felt good. A line from a movie occurred to him, something like “every victim meets his killer halfway….. a deer doesn’t know why it’s a deer, a wolf doesn’t know why it’s a wolf, god just made them that way.” He pondered whether or not Mickey Knox and Wayne Gale’s exchange had on the current situation. He was sure there was some, but it was nebulous.
Gary walked for a while, not panicked or stressed or anxious. The cops found him, beat him and arrested him. They brought him to the station and locked him in a holding cell full of graffiti. A right of passage for each future convict, to leave their mark before they were shipped upstream. A lof of the language was profane, with affectations to the effect of “I fucked officer Jon’s mother last night, and she squealed like the pig that she raised,” though of course, the actual wording used was significantly less coherent. Gary laid down, bruised and beaten on a threadbare cot. He regretted nothing, except that he didn’t stay to watch the pig burn. He scanned the walls now, almost amusedly, mostly rambling, and uneducated sentiments. They were all victims just as much as they were villains. Gary reflected that the real sadist’s sat behind desks much more likely than they sat behind bars. His eyes stumbled upon something quite profound, and remarkably untouched by other bouts of graffiti, as they were so often wont to overlap. What he found was this: Adam and Eve were victims of circumstance. An all knowing god is not surprised by the tresspasses of insects. Gary wondered what this could possibly mean, as he noticed a shabby apple drawn beneath this epitaph. Gary reached in his pocket, and found a rag stuffed in there. He still had no idea what they were all for, and even less of how this lone rag arrived in his hand. Gary slept.
