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Dear Diary… Here it is April already. April 4th in fact, though it seems no different to me than any of the other preceding 86 days… days since I was last able to sleep. I know I ought to be dead by now… something about fatal familial insomnia. But I actually feel fine.
…
Just took a break to do 150 jumping jacks, just to prove I’m fine. I stopped when my downstairs neighbor thumped on the ceiling. Guess who I’ll be visiting in the wee small hours?
April 5: My neighbor won’t be thumping on the ceiling again. I eased like smoke through a crack in his door at 3:30 this morning. Let my Gurkha knife do what it does best. He’s really self-isolating now. It’ll be weeks before anybody misses that dipshit. Two hundred jumping jacks today!
April 8: I’ve been hiding out in the Safeway. Lots of places they never check. I would come out at night and help myself to as much fine food as I could eat. Salami, cheese, grapes, pears, doughnuts – I have simple tastes. Was thinking of staying longer but one of the managers came by unexpected. He’s in the freezer now, at the back. I expect they’ll find him in a day or two. Back home again. Another two hundred jumping jacks. I’m not missing sleeping at all, just the dreams.
April 9: Started my day with three hundred… yes, three hundred jumping jacks! The only thing is, being constantly awake means finding enough things to do for 24 hours a day. I now realize how much TV sucks. Have been reading and re-reading every book in my small library. Yesterday I read Bloodletters and Badmen and a book on forensics; so many forms of murder and mayhem, I feel like an amateur. It’s given me ideas, though. Been sharpening my Gurkha knife, over and over. I love it when skin offers no resistance to my blade.
April 10: I wonder if I could do everybody in this apartment block before anybody caught on? Three hundred jumping jacks… my cardiovascular is great!
April 12: Funny thing about that family. I actually felt remorseful. I’ve been re-reading my Bible, but it’s such a book of nonsense. Matthew 15, verses 18 & 19: “But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart and these defile them. For out of the heat come evil thoughts – murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” … Haha. I love the bathos in that list. Also, I realize how inferior this version is to King James. Anyway, my remorse is gone.
April 13: I’ve set myself a new goal, besides doing the apartment building, to get up to 1,000 jumping jacks. I did 350 today and was barely breathing hard. I’ve drawn up a map of the building. Four floors, eight apartments to a floor. Total 32, minus the three I’ve done and mine. So, 28 to go, chosen at random. What will I get to first? All 28 apartments, or 1,000 jumping jacks?
April 14: Didn’t go out last night. Felt unusually tired. Maybe I’ll do two tonight. So I just sat in my chair for three hours straight. No lights, no music, no TV. After a while I could hear my own heartbeat pounding and then I started seeing phantasmagorical images. If I was a cartoonist, I could do a very macabre Gothic novel. Selected two apartments for tonight's work.
April 15: Shit! That last guy really fought back. He wasn’t in bed asleep when I crept in, but just coming out of the bathroom. Tough mf-er, but no match in the end. Surprised we didn’t wake anybody, but these days nobody wants to know anybody else’s business. I think he cracked my tooth. Still managed 450 jumping jacks.
April 16: The police were here. I guess somebody was listening. They’ve been interviewing everybody and that has led them to seven other bodies. But not my first one, yet. I acted cool, even though I was sweating from my workout. 500 jumping jacks. I remember a live TV show once where some body builder was going to do 1,000 pushups during the broadcast. I can’t remember if he made it.
April 17: The police came back. More questions. I could see they were trying to trip me up, but I learned a long time ago that you have to keep your lies simple and tell them consistently. I guess they found a smudge of blood on my doorjamb. So I acted upset, like omigod was he coming to kill me next?! I think they bought it. I hope they did.
April 18: Those assholes! They’re back, with a search warrant. While I’m writing to you, Dear Diary, they’re tearing my apartment to pieces. They’ll never… shit, one of them stepped on the loose floorboard where I hide my...
April 21: Dear Diary, they’ve given me some notepaper to write this on. They questioned me for 48 hours straight. They couldn’t believe how unfazed and untired I was. Then they got the lab report back on my Gurkha knife and charged me with multiple counts of first degree murder… I laughed when they did and they gave me weird looks.
April 23: I’ve been arraigned. Trial starts tomorrow. Things happen so quickly in this new world.
April 24: They seem surprised that I was able to do the things I did. I told them fitness and speed helped as much as a sharp knife. Back in my cell. Managed 650 jumping jacks. It’s very boring here, nothing but a radio tuned to a talk station. I’d do the guards if I could.
April 25: Court cancelled. One of the judges is sick. I feel a little nauseated, too. No jumping jacks tonight.
April 26: Just heard the judge died. I feel fine, though. Did 750 jumping jacks to celebrate. They appointed a new judge. Trial resumes in a couple of days. Will try to do 800 tomorrow.
April 29: That was really quick. Guilty as charged say the judges – no juries nowadays. I asked if that meant they were going to give me a lethal injection. I was kind of looking forward to finally going to sleep again. No, they said: “We don’t execute women.”
And so to bed.
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