Higher State

I wanted to kill him.

Not all of the time. Not much of the time at all. This was not an obsession of mine, more a temptation. Like chocolate, a second helping of my mother’s lasagne or that car that’s been buffed to the most seductive of sheens and placed under clever lighting. You want it, but vying with that want is a knowledge of how it’s bad for you and that things won’t work out the way you want them to just because you want them to work out that way. That isn’t how it works. The world turns and reality has its way. Why? Because it’s bigger than all of us put together and that can only be a good thing. We need something bigger than us or we’d get some really bad ideas and there would be nothing to stop us from doing something about those ideas of ours. 

All the same, I wanted him dead.

But then I thought about what was needed. 

At first it was as simple as the practicalities of his death. Making someone dead is a conspicuous act, after all, there’s no denying that someone is dead and so there would be consequences. I’d have gone to prison for that man. Prison was no deterrent on that front, but I would be depriving what remained of my family of a father. I’d be abandoning them, and I just couldn’t do that.

I thought some more about that and I revisited that thought of I’d go to prison for that man. It twisted my mind some to think that I’d be doing it for him. That he’d get what he wanted. And that was before I saw in my mind’s eye his malicious smirk and cold eyes, egging me on, urging me to go through with it.

Do it!

Somehow, he’d appropriated my temptation and made it his. He’d grabbed another piece of me and exerted control. This surprise should never have been a surprise. This was what he did. This was what he was.

He killed my daughter. He crushed her spirit and ended the baby I brought into the world and cared for my whole life. I was supposed to protect her, and I didn’t. He did it under my nose and when it became obvious what he was about, it was too late.

He denied it all. That was always going to be the case. He lied. Just like he always has. He charmed and manipulated and had everyone dancing to his tune. Then he turned the spotlight on me. He played the victim and spoon fed the police and family and friend convincing words that made it look like I was being unreasonable. He plied his poisonous trade and then added the coup de gras. Asking why I would be like that. Unless… Unless I had something to hide.

Me!

I’m her father!

I’d never hurt a hair on her head. 

In the end, there wasn’t enough evidence. For someone so blasé, limited and obvious, boy, is he clever! There’s a feral knowing about him. I suppose his lack of humanity frees him in some way and allows him to observe us dispassionately. He isn’t invested in the way we are. He doesn’t care about anyone. Not even himself.

We are all walking dichotomies, stalking around looking for our next argument. Our inherent differences are there to create momentum. An eternal dialogue that urges us to think and engage so we can learn about the world and also about ourselves. Learn how to be and what use we might make of the limited time afforded us. 

He exploits that, joins in the argument and claws it wide open dragging us into a place of fantasy. Taking us into his dark lair where he hides from reality.

No, killing him would only play into his hands. 

I tell myself this, and yet the casual pulse of temptation has remained.

I wouldn’t say that the temptation to kill him haunted me, but he did. What he did certainly did. He blighted our lives and his shadow is ever present in our world. No one tells you about the monsters in our midst and how many of them walk amongst us. It’s not werewolves or mummies that we should be afraid of, it’s these day walking vampires.

We should do something about these creatures, but we don’t. No one is interested. No one cares. Only the people who have suffered at the hands of such a monster understand. Why would anyone else put themselves in that terrible position and godawful state in order to try to understand. Even then it makes no sense. But that’s the point. The destruction of order. The annihilation of decent people and what they build in order to live good lives.

Every now and then I would indulge the notion of the temptation. I had an urge to do something. Remaining dignified required a passivity which never sat right with me. I saw it as weakness and a form of acceptance of him and his dark creed.

I couldn’t let him win his terrible game.

And yet I was caught in his trap. Killing him would play right into his hands. Then there was question of whether I could actually do it. I’ve never killed before. Not really. I don’t think wasps count. The prospect of bottling it. The potential to fail and for him to witness that failure. That was too much. 

It seemed to me that whatever the outcome, he would win. And this would provide proof of his superiority over mere people. Anything I did would be because he was a god and I was helpless to do anything other than succumb to his will.

But I knew this was a lie. And I knew I was better than that. That I was better than him. All the same, it took me some while to disengage on his terms and use my advantages. I had my humanity. I cared and I could out think him. I could leverage all that was good about myself and those around me and out manoeuvre that creature. He may have walked in daylight, but he was a creature of darkness and that made him weak. All I had to do was exploit his weakness.

I found myself thinking about his darkness and the light that we all carry within us. There are a number of ways to kill a vampire. One of them is to drag the foul monster into the light and watch it burn. Expose it to the truth of its existence.

The truth of his existence was that he took my daughter’s life in every way imaginable. He dismantled her and used her up. There are many ways to kill someone. Isolating them and removing them from everything that counts is the most terrible of deaths. She died alone and he watched her die over an age. His levels of cruelty and callousness left me in no doubt that he was already in hell, filled with the ever growing fires of pain and hatred. But it was never a consolation that there was nothing I could do to him to hurt him more than he was already hurting. 

The temptation to do something remained however I looked at it and whatever I did. Only, I’d been slow and lazy in focusing on killing him. There had to be another way. My own pain blinded me to it for quite some time.

One day a thought popped into my head. I’d prayed and prayed for help in this matter and eventually, the Universe received one of those prayers and looked upon my offerings and servitude favourably.

That one thought was the seed that was needed. Knowing that I was no longer on my own, I remained open and allowed myself to be guided. Sitting in front of a search engine I ploughed through link after link going on a flight of random fancy familiar to many, when I alighted at a page that advertised the services of a Thought Engine. 

The notion of using a Thought Engine tickled me. I hadn’t found what I thought I was looking for, but then it occurred to me that I had found something better, and so I asked the Thought Engine for help. I asked it about the best drug I could use to attain my goal.

It turned out that there were a few drugs that might fit the bill. Almost hitting the mark. That wasn’t good enough. I had one shot at this and one shot only. The tolerances were slim. I stared at the screen, my body thrumming with the need to succeed. I had to win this one. It was no longer about stopping him. That would be too easy. It was about prevailing. It was about proving that humanity and the love that underwrites humanity were better than the cold darkness of existence that that man had chosen and then inflicted upon my poor, vulnerable and beautiful daughter. That our flaws, foibles and failings were what made us who we were, not only worthwhile but with the potential for greatness and beauty.

Artificial intelligence was supposed to be smart. Maybe too smart for its own good, but right now it seemed to me that it was limited by what I asked of it. I was the limiting factor, my thoughts and my imagination. I decided to ask for its help. It made me feel like a child asking an uncle if he could fix the chain on my bike. I should have been able to do it for myself, but then, we’re always better for reaching out and making valid connections. I’d rather have been asking my uncle or his living, breathing peer, but needs must and the devil had been driving for far too long already.

Could you make a drug suitable for this need?

I pressed send and everything changed. The simplest of acts that became the first grain of sand to fall from the inverted hourglass.

He wasn’t surprised to see me at his door. Or he was, but did not deign to display his being on the back foot. He would be calculating and redressing the balance. Considering his vast array of weaponry so that he could select tools that cut deeply into my emotions and bent me to his will. I’ve often wondered whether we feel those cuts and what it is that compels us to disregard their coming into existence. Are we seduced and numbed? Glamoured by the vampire so they can take their meal with only level of resistance that entertains them?

I was not invited over the threshold of this monster’s lair, but I didn’t need to be. This was a boundary that I could choose to go beyond. That made me smile in the face of the creature who had no boundaries and was only held back by two things, the risk of being caught and the fear of being exposed for what he really was.

Well, I was here to do exactly that. Soon enough, the mask would be torn off forever.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked as though I were a friend or acquaintance paying him a social visit.

“Oh, the pleasure’s all mine,” I replied calmly. 

I was glad of that calm. I’d told myself that I’d been through enough already and that I should fight any urge or temptation to react to him. I’d given him too much. Now it was my turn to take, but in the sweetest of ways.

He turned his back on me. He’d done it often enough. This time I made him pay. I had the syringe to hand and in short order the needle bit into the soft flesh of his neck and I plunged the liquid forth.

He turned back toward me. His eyes wide with incomprehension. There was reward in that alone, but this was not the final act. Not by a long chalk. I could have caught him as the drug had its way with him. Instead I stepped away from his now vulnerable form and allowed gravity to do its worst. He fell heavily and for an awful moment I thought I might be robbed of my victory over this feral and out of control beast.

After my work was done, I awaited his awakening. A cool serenity caressed me as I sat there and watched over his slumbering form. I had given in to the temptation that had nudged away at me for an age, but had done so on my own terms and I found those terms to be good. There was nothing that could bring my daughter back, but this fixed a problem that had continued to exist in the world. 

This was a good start.

He opened his eyes and I saw the bloom of fear in them. Not the fear he’d lived with for most of his life. A fear driven by shame and inadequacy. This fear was new to him and seeing it left me up on the deal already.

“What have you done?” he asked as he came back to himself.

I smiled, “I wanted you to understand. And now you will.”

“No!” he gasped.

I nodded slowly and deliberately. I’d chosen my words carefully. His revenge on the world via my sweet, innocent daughter was a twisted bid of making her understand. Understand his pain and the dark world he’d chosen instead of living in the real world.

He looked about him and struggled against his bonds, quickly establishing the futility of his situation. He looked at me with disdain and hatred, unable to accept that the fly had trapped the spider.

I lifted my phone and waggled it at him, “time to activate your enhancement.”

“Enhancement? What are you talking about?” he didn’t take his eyes off me. He had established that I was dangerous. Right now, I was the dangerous one and he couldn’t do anything about it. A little taste of his own medicine.

“The app is called Reality,” I told him, “and it’s a real eye opener. You see, I went looking for a drug that might take you to a higher state of consciousness. I wanted to alter your mind so that you would be aware. Not the twisted and broken brand of self-awareness you chose to enmesh yourself in, but something far better.” I smiled and added, “something true.”

“You’re mad!” he hissed at me.

“No, you’re the one who is mad, but I think I might have found a fix for that. A wonderful fix so that you will never harm another living being ever again.” I looked at him with something like curiosity, I had a sudden thought, “anything you wish to say before you join all of us fallible and inferior people in this joyful slog we call life?”

“Screw you!” he shouted, struggling hopelessly against his bonds.

I shrugged, “fair enough.” I raised my index finger to the screen of my phone, “time for the patient to take his medicine.”

I pressed the screen and the Thought Engine’s creation came alive within him. And as it began to fix him I sawthe change. There again was that blossoming fear and then came the understanding.

Now, I have to tell you the truth of it. I honestly did hope for this man’s redemption. I have always believed in the inherent goodness in people. Our capacity to see the light and embrace the love within. I was well aware that we have two sides and therefore there were two potential outcomes. The simple fact of the matter was that he was too far gone to come back to himself and so, as he was faced with the reality of what he had done and what he was, he did not have the strength or wherewithal to prevail. There was too little humanity left within him and the humanity that the Thought Engine restored in him so that he could truly see. Well, I think it saw the monster that he had become and it turned on that monster. 

He saw what he had become and he drowned that monster in its own shame.

His demise was truly awful to witness. It was pathetic and lacklustre. There was only disappointment as he breathed his last. But what was to be expected of someone who had long ago given up so completely on life. 

I deactivated the app and left. 

Tomorrow I would consult with the Thought Engine. In truth, I already was. I was the first to take the drug and my higher state agreed with me. Between us, we would find a way to cure all the monsters in human form. Now that I had tempered my temptation and made it mine and made it make sense, there was no going back. I would change things for the better. I would fix this so no one lost a child to these heartless creatures again.