You know the kind of girl I’m talking about. She looks like life chewed her up and spit her back out.
Psychological
Because let’s face it – the disturbed mind of a human can be more terrifying than any monster.
Putin doesn’t like my father
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, but none of my friends will listen to me anymore and I don’t know who else to tell. I don’t have any ghost sightings to report, and there aren’t any monsters under my bed, but I’m not afraid of that sort of thing. I’m afraid of what’s happening to my family, and even worse, that everyone sees it happening but does nothing. It feels like drowning at a pool party, struggling and shouting and begging while all my friends silently watch.
She looks like a future victim #YouToo
How do killers and rapists choose their next victim? Does it have to do with some repressed childhood memory, fueling a blind hatred toward a particular type of person? Or is it just something they see in the moment: the shape of a body or her pretty face stirring the blood into an undeniable throb? Whatever it is, I understand why he chose my co-worker Casey. It’s hard even looking at her without letting your mind wander. It’s not that she’s overtly sexual or provocative or anything — it’s more the way she moves, graceful and flowing to the point where even waiting tables looks like an intricately choreographed ballet.
The girl on a leash
Ten, maybe twelve years old, wearing a leash attached to one of those dog training collars with the inward facing spikes. She was sitting on the balcony of my neighbor’s apartment, her dirty bare legs dangling through the iron bars. She stared at me where I sat with my book on my own balcony, so I gave her a little wave. She didn’t so much as blink in return — she just kept swinging her legs through the bars and staring. I figured the collar was some kind of ironic fashion accessory, although it hardly matched with her thread-bare summer dress.
In the Assassin’s Orphanage – The Kill
You haven’t felt alive before you’ve killed someone. The symphony in your nerves in that moment will drown out every thrill you’ve ever had. I’ve never seen a color brighter than Mr. Daken’s blood, nor heard a sound truer than the death-rattle rasping from his final breath. And if I go the rest of my life wading through a sea of muted colors and muffled sounds, I will accept it gracefully because I know I have tasted of the forbidden fruit and hate myself for how sweet the juices ran.
In the Assassin’s Orphanage – Training Day
Sammy D taught us that there are three distinct ways to kill someone. The first is a murder of opportunity: the victim is alone on a dark night, or is blackout drunk, or some other circumstantial convenience which makes it the right time to act. Then there is the assassination: the calculated and premeditated kill which we will be training for. Finally there is the murder of passion: when the blood boils too hot and we allow rage or hatred to force our hand. This is the most risky way to kill someone, both physically in the moment and regarding future forensic investigations, and it is strictly forbidden to us.
In the Assassin’s Orphanage
My mother cost 10,000 dollars. That’s the standard price for a hit. My father was 25,000 because he was considered an “important person” — at least important enough to demand a formal investigation into his death. From what I’ve heard, the police never found anything besides the single razor blade used to cut each of their throats. Of course I know who did it — I even saw it happen — but I never had the chance to tell anyone before I was taken.
Something else listens to the midnight prayers
Years ago when I was in jail, I used to pray every night. When you’re little and you pray, it’s because you want something from the world that you don’t know how to get. When you’re older, it’s because the world wants something from you that you don’t know how to give. The lights would go out at 11 PM and I would pray to be a better man, humiliating myself before the arbitrating silence of my thoughts, begging and pleading and even screaming when the thoughts became too loud to contain.
The head transplant was almost successful
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
-Julius Oppenheimer on the first atomic bomb.
Our extra son was for experiments
Imagine being lost in the open ocean, frantically bailing water out of a sinking raft which refills exactly as fast you empty it. You will never be found, never be saved. Sooner or later you’ll need to rest and cease your constant vigilance, but you’re still fighting the waves for as long as you can. However hopeless, the terror of that dark water is more real than everything else in your dying world. That’s what being a mother was like to me.