Hollow

1 / Meeting Pandora

The knife sliced the night with a butter, and flesh, melting fire.

It didn't feel like I'd imagined. Or sound. I wanted more. Something tangible. A sensual trophy.

Maybe next time.

I walked away feeling what I can only describe as dejected. No, that's not quite right. Not just dejected. Disappointed. A little bored, maybe.

Why do we do things? Because we must? Because we can? Because, if you ask any teenager, 'I don't know?' Or, just because? I crossed the road because, unlike the hedgehog who wanted to see his flat mate, I needed to. I ate the milk chocolate Hob-Nob biscuit because I wanted to. I killed her just because.

No, there's always a reason, isn't there? 'Just because' doesn't cut it. It's a cop out. Maybe the reason is something elusive. Something you can't put into words, but it's still there. So, I slid the knife across her throat, because I wanted to know if I could. If I'd like it or if I'd be disgusted and horrified. I'd taken a life. I'd been covered in blood. She'd farted in fright just before she fell.

I expected her death to be graceful. She would slide to the floor as her soul hissed at me, drifting to the hereafter but wishing it could linger within its body to protect it from anything else I might inflict upon her. I hadn't planned on doing anything to the woman either before or after I killed her. I am not a rapist and nor am I a necrophiliac. I'm not deranged or a monster, just curious. Grace had abandoned her, though. She farted, gurgled and dropped.

She was pretty. Extremely so. I thought she deserved more than that. Not that beauty gave her the right to anything more than she had, but it just seemed fitting that she should have been more elegant in dying. So, I also felt cheated. Perhaps it was deliberate. She refused to give me what I wanted in defiance for me murdering her. In that case, maybe I deserved it.

Murder. I suppose that's what it was, though it didn't feel like it. it just felt as if I was trying something out. I was ticking something off a bucket list that I didn't realise I had. Northern Lights? Done. Valley of the Kings? Yup. Skydiving? Pretty much, though it was indoor because of a niggling, shitty little heart defect. Still, I can tick it off.

Murder? Sorted.

Except, it wasn't what I wanted. It was like the stencil of a tattoo, applied to the skin before the artist picks up their needles. It was waiting to be filled in. Waiting for the pain to make it real rather than a hint of what it could be.

So, perhaps next time I might be fulfilled.

I did quite like it. I can't say I enjoyed it because it left a gap in my expectations, but it wasn't an unpleasant experience. Unless you were the woman, of course. I doubt it was one of the best moments of her life. Although I did see her in a play recently at the local Theatre. It was meant to be a raunchy Roman comedy and was talky and political. The funniest thing was when the man in front of me, who was complaining loudly, accidentally spilled his red wine over his white jumper. She wasn't particularly good, so I suppose you could say she died in that.

So at least this time it was less painful. For her, anyway.

It was coincidence that I'd already met her. Part of me wanted to check the cast list of the play to find out who she was, but then I'd know her. Then there'd be a connection. I didn't want that. Her name didn't matter. She was serving a purpose. It wasn't her fault that it didn't quite work out. She could hardly come back to life to let me kill her again, and again and again, to get it right. Perhaps it was the fact that I'd recognised her that reduced the effect.

I wasn't sorry. Why should I be? She was a bad actress in a cheap play. She lived above a massage parlour that was, in reality, a brothel. She had better – and more - teeth than any of the 'ladies' that frequented the shady establishment, and she should have worked harder to achieve her potential. I was saving her and she repaid me by diminishing her death. She fell. She broke wind.

No, she couldn't help it.

I walked away, trying to put my disappointment to one side and telling myself that she wasn't to blame. Things just happen. Just because.

But, maybe she was saving that fart for me.

I threw the knife away, into the river she'd been walking over. I wasn't exactly disposing of evidence, it had simply served its purpose, much like her. I didn't need it anymore. For the next one, I'd use something else. I'd seen enough episodes of Criminal Minds and other such shows to know you can murder someone with practically anything.

If I was planning on killing again, which it seemed clear I was, I supposed that made me some sort of serial killer. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. There was a distinct flavour of trepidation, but it was tinged with the taste of excitement. I wanted to play it down and just treat it as an experiment, one that needed trying again. But it was thrilling!

But, remain calm. I had to remain calm. If I didn't, I'd be caught.

On almost all the police shows and films, the killer had an M.O. A Modus Operandi that tied them to each crime scene. They'd always sew the eyes shut because their parents made them watch while having sex. They'd sit them at the dinner table because family was everything and they were brought up with nothing. It was a pattern. A badge. A great neon sign hanging, Damocles-like, over their head. Here I am! This is me!

And, so, they were caught. Hunted down and shot or locked up for the rest of their lives.

Why do that? Why embed a clue into your work? Unless you wanted to be caught, I supposed. Some did. Some enjoyed the chase and the knowledge that they're outwitting all those smart, donut loving police officers, until they're not and they're caught. Some wanted to be caught because then the world knew who they are and could celebrate, in the form of notoriety and media coverage, what they've done.

I didn't want that. I didn't want to be caught and I didn't want my face and name to be splashed over the news and Facebook or have memes made from photos of my incarceration. I wasn't a glory hound. I didn't seek out infamy.

Would that give me an advantage? There would be nothing ritualistic or repetitive about the deaths I caused, apart from the deaths I caused.

Oh, I was getting ahead of myself. I was using the plural. Deaths. I knew there'd be another one, but that might be the One. That might give me everything I needed. It could be graceful and meaningful and sad and poignant. And I could stop right there and go on with my job and family and life, with the little hole within me filled in.

The hole would become whole.