Simeon

Watching the light leave their eyes never did it for Simeon. It wasn’t the dying that he enjoyed. It wasn’t the dying that kept him up at night, tossing and turning, unable to sleep until he went out and killed. It wasn’t the dying. It was the death.

To slice a knife across a neck, to feel the sharp blade slide across furrows and furrows of skin, biting in and then deeper, while the blood spurted out. To hold the person as they struggled, bound and helpless against his iron strength, to feel the fierceness of the struggle intensify and then wane into stuttering tremors. Those were minor pleasure, tidbits and freebies, enough to please a lesser man, but pale when compared with his actual desire. The bare foreplay, the teasing at the proper finale. It didn’t compare, not to the death.

The finality of it all, fascinated Simeon. To end a life. The knowledge that only a few minutes ago, this heart was beating, pulsing life through a body that leapt and laughed and loved and had a family. To end all that. It was the power of God. To hold a heart, bloody and lifeless, stuck through with tiny splinters of bone from a crushed rib. To feel it still warm as it grew cold, and to know that only a few minutes ago, it had given life. It made him flush hot and cold all over.

The little girl on the side of the dark street, her pink pinafore swaying in the late evening breeze as she waited for him before she crossed the road, one hand clutching a basin of pineapple cuts wrapped in transparent nylon.

“Go on,” he motioned with his hand. Accompanying the action with two short blasts from his car horn.

The girl smiled gratefully, stepping onto the empty street.

Simeon took his foot off the brake and stepped down on the throttle.

The car hit the small body with a dull thud, pushing it forward and under the grille of the Mercedes. The basin of pineapple cuts banged against the bonnet, rolling off and out of the way, spilling out in careless array. 16 inch wheels, treads as wide as 225mm, rolled over the stunned body, crushing its tiny ribs, splintering it to pieces that exploded into the thoracic cavity, and killing the girl instantly. Simeon slammed on the brakes again. Switching the gear into reverse, he turned the steering wheel, rolling again over the dead body, crushing pelvis and arm. It flipped and flopped all over the road, a dusty brown thing that used to be pink.

The sun went behind the row of houses in the distance, the last light reflecting briefly off plastic wrapped pineapple cuts, strewn across the road.

Similar to this: Ruki’s Desire

The act of killing the body lying across the still empty road in front of his car had no effect on him. Nothing. His heart did not suddenly lift, his breath did not catch. Stepping out of the car, his palms sweaty, his breath only now beginning to come quickly, he walked to the mangled body, tiny trickles of blood already beginning to stream out all the orifices and bruises on the splotchy skin.

He stood over it. Kicked at her. It didn’t move. It felt like soft stone. She was dead. Gloriously and completely dead. Hot steam hit his eyes, filling them instantly with tears. A short moan escaped his lips. A wet patch spread on his trousers.

It wasn’t the dying that did it for him. It wasn’t the dying that sated him when he was tense and unable to sleep. It was death. It was becoming God.

He picked up a wrap of pineapple cuts as he walked back to the car, dusting the sand off.

Disclaimer

• I do not think GOD finds killing or death fascinating. I think only crazy people do.