Story of a Psychopath

(I wrote this one a long long time back. Funny how things have changed since then. Anyway, moving on...)

You know that little voice in your head? Yeah, that sanctimonious self-righteous s.o.b in the back of your head that’s always cribs and cries and never lets you have fun. Whether you’re pushing around that dork in school with those nerdy spectacles and plastic retainer or trying to get it on with the drunk bitch at the party, that irritating whine is always there in your head, bitching and nagging all the time till you give up and go along with it just to make it shut up. Drives you up the wall, doesn’t it? And don’t give me all that shit about ‘doing the right thing’. If I don’t get anything out of it, then it’s definitely not the right thing. That’s why I killed off that whiny little bastard in my head a long time back, and that’s why I’m called a psychopath.

It started with an expulsion from school when I put a bozo in the hospital with a shattered kneecap. Not my fault really. If he had just handed over his money I wouldn’t have taken that two-by-four to his knee. Authorities, of course, chose to look at it differently. I had been on probation for other misdemeanours anyway. Everything after that was just a natural progression I guess. Schools bounced me around. Therapists tried and failed. More and more people ended up in casualty wards and angry parents started baying for blood. I already had one foot in jail before my parents decided to have me committed and packed me off to a mental hospital.

The one year I spent in that place was hell. My entire world was restricted to a 6-by-8 padded cell and I spent agonizing hours screaming my head off at those plain white walls. When the drugs they put in my food failed to calm me down, they resorted to electroshock therapy. Three times a week they strapped me to the chair, placed those electrodes all over my body and let the high-voltage current fry my nerves. Three times a week I twitched and jerked in terrible agony and tried to get the screams past my gagged mouth. They tried their best to break me, but of course they had to fail. A lax moment on their part and I was able to get my hands on a screwdriver on the way out of the therapy room. A thrust here, a stab there and I got rid of the two orderlies and the doctor. It was a simple matter after that – to exchange clothes with an orderly, stash the bodies in the closet and stroll nonchalantly out of the place. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I started living on the streets after that; there was no sense in going home after all this. Sure, the streets are full of predators ready to pounce on you, but after I carved up a few punks who tried to gang up on me, everybody else gave me a wide berth. I got by pretty well out there, mugging passers-by, having the occasional bit of fun if they were female. I got into drugs after a while, and life became an interminable haze of ecstatic highs, followed by tortuous lows that lasted till my next fix. Drugs are an expensive habit, so I started peddling to pay for my fixes. I kept to dealing in the cheap low-grade stuff so the established syndicates largely left me alone. Those who didn’t, I took care of.

It didn’t take long for things to spiral out of control. The drugs began messing with my head, making me more paranoid with every second. I began to see enemies everywhere around me. I felt hemmed in, suffocated. I needed air. I had to escape. And I did that the only way I knew.

My first kill was in a stinking garbage-strewn alley. The idiot was hopelessly drunk and tried to fight me. I took care of him with my knife. My blood-lust was satisfied for a bit, but I needed much more.

I had much more fun with the next one. I paid a prostitute for a full ten minutes, after which I strangled her with my bare hands and left her nude body in a garbage bin. I wonder if anybody ever discovered her.

I began to vary my fun with each kill. Bat, chain, knife, poison, acid – I used them all. One thing I never used though was a gun. It’s too neat you see, not to mention noisy. I used to chop off the nose and ears too, you know, like a trademark. It got pretty popular with the press. Not a good thing in hindsight, I guess, seeing that I began to attract police attention. I don’t how, but they managed to track me down. I was lying in a drugged stupor in my rented room when they came barging in. Next thing you know, I was behind bars.

I’ve been sentenced to life imprisonment. There are no padded cells. No electric shocks await me. But it’s still A GODDAMN FRIGGIN’ CELL I WANT OUT I can’t live like this!

You know the funny thing about jails? You can find all the things that you normally find only in the outside world. You just have to know the right people. A few greased palms here and there and within no time at all you can get a SIM card, or maybe even a box of reefers. Not for me though. No sirree! I got myself a magic pill. A pill that’s going to solve all my problems, a pill that’s going to free me from these man-made confines, from the shackles of this sick, twisted world, forever. Just like that song you know –

“Swallow it done, it’s just a jagged little pill.”

One gulp. That's it. I'll be on an everlasting high after this one...