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They don’t realise they’re doing it, do they? Staring, that is. You can tell by the way they react when their eyes meet yours, when they jump and start and look away. They’ve been caught doing something wrong, something they shouldn’t.
But why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they stare at one another, and at me? I’ve been through tragedy after all, it’s a story they all tell to each other -- how my parents were killed so brutally, even the dog was little more than a bloody hunk by the end of it. I’m interesting, and in their little lives something like this rarely happens.
They want to see if I look different. If there’s some way they can tell what I’ve suffered simply by looking hard enough. Surely there must be some sign, some evidence of the horror I’ve experienced.
Then they start to become uncomfortable, as they realise there isn’t anything different about me. Nothing that they can see, at least, with their small minds and smaller notions of the world and how it works. They can’t see what I don’t want them to. Can’t? Perhaps I meant won’t. Yes won’t is a much better word for it. They won’t see the things I don’t want them too. Which is exactly how its supposed to be. They might say I’m a little odd, or strange, but they excuse it, write it off to my intelligence, as if that excuses everything.
Little minds in a little world.
I never look away, not when I’m interested. I won’t say when I’m caught, because being caught implies that I was doing something wrong. I’m not, except by their silly standards. When they realise that I’m staring back, they’re flustered and confused. A calm gaze meeting theirs wasn’t what they expected, and they look away as quickly as they can. Rushing away, having not found what they expected, but not finding anything wrong, either.
It’s almost entertaining. If it didn’t happen so often I would have found it moreso. As it was, it began to get rather tedious with time. Alice Morgan, the girl who’s parents were killed. Did you know there was an investigation? No, never found the killer. I could hear them talking about it in hushed tones, the way they’d discuss illness, or the death of a pet.
I don’t know what they expected to see. Tears, or maybe raw grief. Likely they expected a breakdown or lamentation. What they didn’t expect was for me to resume my old life, as if there should be a delineation. Before Murder and After Murder, a marker that separated the two parts of my life.
What they didn’t expect, in some ways couldn’t handle, was the quiet return to work, the continued disinterest in their social gatherings or attempts at small talk. They didn’t expect me to rebuff their awkward offers of sympathy, but in my mind, nothing had changed. I’d not liked these people before I killed my parents, why should I like them after?
Of course, that was the thing they didn’t know. They all thought it was what the papers told them to think. They were fools, really, but this time I was content to have them believe what they were fed. It was a tragedy, a senseless tragedy.
Then they started the justifications and excuses. It wasn’t enough to stare and to talk, they began to intrude into my life with the stories they made up about me. I was in shock, or so they claimed. I was distancing myself from others, because of the horror I’d witnessed. If they’d stopped and thought, used the brains that were being left fallow they would have remembered that I’d never been interested in their lives and gossip. They would have realised I’d only gone to their functions and gatherings when it seemed like I had to.
Most people don’t see what’s right in front of them. Little minds and little lives, and we’re surrounded by people like that.
He was different, from the beginning he saw the things the others don’t. It amazed me, intrigued me, that could see right into me from the start. Which made him fascinating, a delightful new discovery. A challenge and so little is challenging.
How did it happen, how does his head work that he could discern my thoughts and my desires? He didn’t know me, didn’t spend any real time with me. My co-workers should have been able to see more than he did.
Or perhaps that was the point. He didn’t know me, had no pre-conceived notions of what I was capable of. It wasn’t simply that he was a detective, most of them were as much fools as the people I worked with. He was another one who’d never look away if there were something - someone - that caught his interest.
Knowing more was dangerous, but I’ve never minded danger. I think he liked our games, though he claimed to not. Who was the cat and who was the mouse, now that was the real question. How could either of us be sure? I’d like to believe I was the cat - in control and stalking him, so often watching when he’d no idea. But more than once the tables turned. He caught me off guard, I who’d planned everything.
His wife, now she wasn’t a match for him. Beautiful, in a way. It was a brittle kind of beauty, wound so tight inside of her and ready to shatter. She was frightened of him, which meant that she had enough sense to be able to truly see him and could begin to understand how his mind worked. She couldn’t completely, of course, or she wouldn’t have left him. She wouldn’t have been frightened if she’d seen what I had.
Or then again, maybe she still would have.
I let her distract me. I became the mouse because of it, had to struggle back to the top of the game. I’ve so rarely had to struggle. Is that what normal people feel like, boring people? Like they’re swimming up a stream, with the water rushing too fast over their heads. Swallowing it, and only getting half the air that they need? Whatever it was, I disliked it. Its not something I’ll allow to happen again.
Or was it him that distracted me first? I can’t tell, though they say that perspective clears things and hindsight is 20/20. They, I never listen to them. Events in the past are just as muddy as they are when they’re happening. We may learn more about the circumstances surrounding the things that happen to us, but it never truly clears thing. There are all those... feelings attached to our lives. Some of us are better at separating them out, but no one is perfect.
Not even me.