I don't feel like most people

He starred at the dead body. Finally it was a murder victim. They were always the most exciting. Not like the fat ones with the blocked arteries and the old ladies with dementia, that died of natural causes. Murder victims had history. And this one was nasty. 

Six stab wounds. Turned out he was a real piece of shit when he was alive. An abusive husband and father, until one day, after years and years of abuse, his wife had enough and she grabbed a knife from the kitchen, before he had the chance to hit her, and stabbed him over and over and over and over and over and over again. He wondered if anybody would be crying at the funeral. Probably not. 

His fingers tingled with want, so he put them in his pockets. He wanted to unbutton its suit and see the stab wounds, to touch them, to examine the shape and size and texture of them. Unfortunately, he did not have enough time for that. People would be coming in soon for the wake.

Instead, he leaned closer to it and freeing his right hand from the prison of his pocket, he placed his thumb and index finger on either side of its eyeball, prying open its closed eye. A soulless, unmoving, dead eye. Where do they go? What happens to the thing lighting up human eyes? He always wondered what it would be like, watching the light vanish from someone. Is it sudden or is it gradual? Does it leave the body or disappear somewhere within it, never to come out again? 

He often thought about it at the end of the day, lying in his too big for the tiny room bed, the familiar cacophony of the sounds and smells of a breathing city bursting into the room but subsiding at the background of his brain, as his eyes fixed on the dirty ceiling with the damaged plaster. There was a specific spot in the ceiling that he liked to stare at, it was the main reason that he decided to rent this apartment. The plaster there had a weird shape, that of a coffin and he always looked at it when he thought about Death. The headlights from the passing cars would illuminate the spot and every time he would wonder. Would he finally feel something if he saw someone die? If he was the reason someone’s life ended? Because life itself was just a constant sequence of apathy, numbness and boredom to him. Nothing in life offered him emotions, maybe something in Death would. 

And he would finally fall asleep, lulled by the comforting thought that one day he would do it. He would kill someone and it would make him feel.

***

He was right. Nobody cried at the funeral. Not even the mother, a stern figure, not one to be seen crying in public. He looked at her the whole time, waiting for her to break. She never did, her face staying perfectly expressionless. She likened her to an old ship that had travelled through many storms, coming out of them not unscratched but still capable of sail. She reminded him of his own mother, not because they looked alike. But because his mother was not able to become a stern figure. She was also not able to remain a gentle one.

It was one of the quietest funerals they had in the three years he worked there. He was glad for it, he hated the loud, crying funerals. People like to put on a show and it is not an interesting one. There was once an incident when things escalated to a fist fight. That was fun. He wished they had more of that kind of show, instead of the crying and the sobbing and the mumbling of incoherent things. 

After the casket was lowered into its grave and everything was done, he returned to the morgue in order to prepare everything for the next body. It was a young one, car accident. He winced, it was going to be a loud one, everybody would be crying. Maybe he could ask for his break at that moment, to avoid the worst of it and spare his ears. 

He was about to enter the morgue when the door leading into the building opened and a woman came out. He recognised her as the daughter of the murder victim, she was the one that had made all the arrangements about the funeral. She was young, probably around his age, not older than twenty-three. She resembled her grandmother too much. A broken woman that had rebuild herself from scratch. 

“I am sorry, but you are not supposed to be here Miss,” he said in a calm, and polite voice, lacking any emotion. It was this voice that had granted him this job.

“Yeah, I know. I just needed a quiet place for a moment,” her voice was low and rough, but she starred at him with clean eyes. She had not been crying.

He nodded and side-stepped to let her through. “I am sorry for your loss,” he said.

She winced and something familiar painted her face. It was a look he had seen before, mostly from people seeing the embalming procedure for the first time. In this line of work he had come to recognise the look of disgust pretty quickly.

“Don’t be. He deserved every single last stab.”

He could not help a small smile.

***

When he lied down in bed that night he did not stare at his usual spot on the ceiling. His mind was not set on Death. He was thinking about the mother of the murder victim and in extension, he started remembering his own mother. How she had hardened through the years, starting the moment his father died. He remembered her absence the first year after his death and then, the long string of useless lovers, until she had enough of life and she properly broke down. 

But she used to be soft. She used to play the piano and sing tender melodies. ‘Music is one of the few things that can save a soul,’ she used to say, after she was done with the piano. ‘What are the others?’ He would ask and she would smile. ‘Love,’ she would answer patting his head. 

He did not have much of either after his father died. His mother never touched the piano again.

***

The next morning, he entered a music record store. He was not sure what he expected to find there, but he went to the section of classical music, searching anything that would ring a bell.

“The piano. A noble instrument.”

He turned towards the source of the voice and was met with a beautiful woman. But beautiful was not the first word that came to his mind when he saw her. Dark. That was the word. He had never seen eyes so dark before. The depths of the oceans, where no light has ever penetrated and only blind fish swim. These were her eyes. They held the same unbearable pressure too. And he could not look away. 

“Yes, I guess so.” Ηe murmured. 

She smiled. He could tell by the small wrinkles that formed around her eyes. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” Her voice was calm on the surface but there was intensity underneath it. There were tectonic plates, exactly, under the surface of calmness, waiting to shake and crumble the entire word. 

“Something my mother used to play." He answered honestly. A rarity for him.

“Your mother played the piano? She must have been a kind woman.” 

He tried to detach his eyes from the darkness of hers. He could not swim to the surface of the ocean, and the pressure was crushing him, squeezing the truth out of him, when he wanted to keep it in, tangled around his organs.

“Not after my father died.” 

The eyes came closer. “Did she stop playing the piano?” 

He felt a coldness surrounding him. “Yes”  

“A shame,” she came closer, bringing even more coldness with her. It was like inhaling the winter. “I am sorry.” She said. 

His jaw trembled a little as he said. “Don’t be. I am not.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged. More as an attempted to shake off the cold. “I don’t feel like most people do.” What was he talking about? Why was he sharing this with a complete stranger? 

All she did was nod, like he had justified her suspicions. She placed an LP to his hands and left without saying a word. 

He looked down at the LP, flipping it over and reading the songs it included. Near the end of the track list was the song his mother used to play the most. He looked around but the woman was gone. 

Later that day, when he recalled the encounter, he realised that he could not remember what the woman looked like. He had never really noticed her face, because he was sucked in the black holes of her eyes. 

***

That night he played the LP over and over again. He laid in his bed and waited. He listened to the songs all night long, he played the song his mother used to sing ten times in a row. But no matter how much or how long or how carefully he listened, there was nothing. He waited for an emotion, he would welcome any, good or bad or strange. Anything really that would pull him out of this emptiness. He felt nothing. 

***

He had a colleague that was really annoying. He often thought that if he ever killed someone, it would have to be him. He was so extroverted and talkative, full of energy, eager to help everyone, he was easy to laugh and hard to offend. He was made for life, what was he doing working with death? 

Not that he was bad at his work. He always knew the correct things to say to the grieving relatives. He had a sixth sense for when a person in grief needed space and when a kind word, even from a stranger. He was compassionate and genuinely kind. He often observed this colleague, waiting for the facade to fall, but he had seen acts of kindness from him, even when no-one was around. After a few months he was certain that there was no facade to be fallen. His colleague was everything he himself wasn’t, and that was so fucking annoying.  

“Hey, man. Are you ok?” His colleague asked when he managed to drop the casket they were carrying twice. An empty casket thankfully.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just haven’t slept well,” he groaned as he picked up the casket.

The colleague smiled and wiggled his eyebrows. “Were you with a lady? Or a dude! I don’t want to assume anything.” 

He almost rolled his eyes. “No. Just couldn’t sleep.” 

“Oh man, that sucks.” They carefully placed the casket. “I used to drink this tea that helped me a lot with insomnia. I don’t really remember the name, but I can look it up if you want.” 

“Yeah, sure. Thanks,” he answered without actually listening. He had turned off his brain, like he always did when he worked with this colleague. To be honest, like he always did when anyone talked too much. 

He allowed his mind to wander off to a much more intriguing path, one that lead to him silencing the colleague. Driving a knife to his guts and twisting it, just for good measure. It would be messy, wet and red. Blood and the rusty smell of it everywhere, on the knife, on his hand, on their clothes, forming a pool on the floor. 

It would be a slow and painful death. Hopefully slow enough for him to witness everything he wanted to. The anguish, the moment his colleague would realise that he was about to die and then the light leaving his eyes. He stared right into the bright blue of his colleague’s eyes and pictured them lifeless. 

You should do it. 

The voice that whispered into his mind was vaguely familiar. He took a quick look around but there was no-one there except, from the annoying colleague that was still talking, for fuck’s sake. So the voice was undeniably into his head. Maybe he was really crazy. He was definitely not sane, he knew that. But maybe he was finally going completely nuts. Maybe the tectonic plates were starting to shift. 

***

He had some days off. He spent them mostly in his small apartment, watching tv shows, eating and staring at his favourite spot on the ceiling. He listened to the LP some more, just for the hell of it. This time he did not expect to find anything in the music and he was ok with that. His mother was wrong, or maybe his soul was beyond saving. 

It was nice; the silence, the loneliness, the lack of any human interaction. He was bored, but at least he did not had to pretend not to be. He did not had to pretend that he cared, to be good, patient, to listen. He could lose himself in his fantasies, uninterrupted. And every time he daydreamed about his colleague, every time he vividly imagined burying a knife into his stomach, or between his ribs, or into his chest, an encouraging voice was there, whispering for him to do it.

***

It was a slow day when he got back to work. They were rare and not welcomed, at least to him. He had to endure more small talk than usual, and because of that, he left for his break earlier and stretched it out, as much as, he possibly could. 

When he returned, there was a funeral taking place, with only one person attending. That was actually quite strange. Her back was towards him, and she was dressed all in black. She was tall and had long, rich, dark hair. He briefly wondered, if anyone ever had seen her skull, with that amount of hair. 

As he got closer to her, the temperature dropped. Like he had opened a door to find himself on top of a snowy mountain, his next breath hurt his nostrils and abruptly cleared his mind. He shivered and then the woman turned towards him and oh, there were those dark eyes again, pulling him into their depths. 

She smiled, recognising him. “Hello,” she said.

He frowned, her voice was too familiar, for having met her, only once. “Hello. I am sorry for your loss.” He automatically said.

She smiled, her eyes glimmering. He felt like he had lost something, a joke that was funny only to her. “Don’t be. I am not.” She threw his words back at him.

He was not sure what to answer to that. As he struggled to find a correct response, she spoke again. “Did you find what you were looking for? At the vinyl store?”

“Oh, um, no I didn’t. Well, I wasn’t really expecting to find anything.” Again with the honesty. 

She tilted her head and he unconsciously did the same, following her eyes. “Why were you there then?”

He shrugged, his jaw trembled a little bit, his eyes were burning. He had not blinked, since locking eyes with her. “I had to try.” He answered.

She said nothing for a few seconds, she just stared at his eyes, making him uneasy. She was extorting a part of him, and there was nothing he could do, but let it happen. He did not want it though, he wanted it that part to stay inside him, for no-one to see. She finally nodded, like she had come to a decision. 

“Are you over it? The trying?” She asked.

Why was she so interested in him, why was he not irritated from it, and why was he still answering truthfully? More importantly, why was it so fucking cold around her?

“Yes? Maybe. I don’t know.” 

She frowned, the motion looked wrong on her face. “What’s holding you back?”

He was not sure what they were really talking about anymore. He went against his instincts, when he did not lie and said, “I am not sure. Maybe a forced sense of moral?”

She snorted, an amused noise. “You should do it. You should let go.”

You should do it. Oh shit, that was the voice. His eyes widened, surprised. That was a feeling he had not had for many years. It was exciting. 

She just smiled, an ominous thing. “If you do, I think we will see each other again.”

Better get to it then.

***

After that encounter, he did not hear her voice, again. But he constantly thought of murder, it was nailed on every possible part of his brain; the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe, the cerebellum, everywhere. Sometimes it leaked from his brain, leaving his central nervous system, in order to spread throughout his whole body. 

Almost every morning he would wake up with a heavy coat of blood over his hands, the smell of it attacking his nostrils, invading to his lungs and the feeling of doing something irrevocable heavy in his heart. Until he would realise, disappointed, that it was just a dream. No blood on his hands, nothing done. And he would make a promise to himself, that next morning it would not be just a dream.