Fantastic Metropolis

One of the receptionists at the lobby greeting counter noticed (but didn’t tell anyone) how the stranger’s walk across the buffed marble floor reminded her of a horse in graceful trot, and how she glimpsed the twitching of an anxious forked tail sneaking out from under the black coat. She also noticed (but didn’t tell anyone) how, after he moved through the revolving counter-clockwise and against the motor, he looked up at the sky for a second, then rose up into it. She didn’t tell anyone because she understood a few things very suddenly, and was glad she had aborted Simmons’ child herself. And that forgiveness of herself allowed her to get up and leave forever, rising up too, through the smog, and straight into joy and true love.

 

(Every morning) the woman without dreams drinks a nutri-shake instant breakfast and does 45 min. of VCR-led aerobics before showering. Back at work she keeps 10-hour days. Some evenings she watches TV until she’s ready to go to bed. Most nights. All nights.

She is living the life of someone else, but doesn’t know it yet.

There is this guy at work. He’s started bringing his lunches and eating in the corner of the break room. A quiet guy. He makes her smile. Someday he will look at her. She hopes.

But doesn’t know it. Yet.

 

This is the last story before the end.

 

There is a killer they will not catch. They could catch him. But they, as many, just don’t Get It. (Insert note here: some of them are just stupid.) They follow him and take pictures of what he’s done. Of what’s left. He likes children best. He sets them Free, he says. He does not know the word knife or the word blood, but knows he likes to watch them move. Things should move fast, he wants. He will never know boredom for a second more. Until he is Done. Until the end. He has forgotten the words why and pain. Which makes his work easier. And fun.

The agents of the usual department are pursuing relentlessly, trying to Make Some Headway, or to Get A Solid Lead… but it is not their fault he will never be caught or stop what he does (until the end, don’t forget). Not their fault, except that they are ignorant of the simple idea that names are stories and their department name is dry and therefore quite powerless. Except maybe that they believe time is Real and therefore too short to attend a new name. They always arrive (too) late on the scene—a week, a day, an hour—sneaking or smashing into the shed warehouse locker room garage apartment elevator to the thick smell and (un)usually anxious flies. They inspect the messes, adhering to procedure, and compare pieces throughout the nights. Finding alot. Finding nothing. Trying with honesty now, as if it just occurred to them. Trying uselessly.

The killer is on the news every night. Every witness sketch is different. But it is always him. It can no longer be helped. There have been too many stories. In the competition for ratings and sales, the newspapers and TV stations have given him too many names and faces. They have run too many stories, too many specials about the woman who claimed she went to high school with him (and he was always alone I mean always, and always talking to himself, I’m pretty sure, I think, I didn’t know the guy at all, cuz he was so damn quiet, looked at the floor all the time, oh yeah, I do remember him, he was strange now that you mention it) and the man who claimed he sold him a steaming cup from the espresso stand, and the “authentic” letters (concocted by a journalist who does not understand story and lie), the professionals who gave their professional assessment of his mental state while worrying about how big their name appears in the caption just below their neck, and, while they’re thinking about it, hoping the makeup person didn’t put too much powder on their neck.

Now he will never die. Not even at the End. As he ushers it in.

There are four authentic letters from the killer so far. The one signed, “Yours Truly,” has a bottle ring stain of ginger beer in the paper. All four of the real letters are return addressed “From Hell.” But no one in the forensics team does much reading anymore. And the forensic lab misses the ring too because they get Caught Up in a discussion about the smoothness of the digitally animated walruses in the new corporate cola commercial. The discussion is very lengthy and distracting, and includes insights like, “Have you checked out that one commercial?” and “Which one? Oh, yeah. It’s incredible what they can do with computers nowadays.” But no one comments on how the same cola corporation’s holdings in South Africa (prolonged the election of the first liberal Zulu leader, and likewise) delayed the downfall of apartheid. But that is a different story.

“Another flood,” states one of the postcards. “But bigger this time. And red.”

All they would have to do to catch him is say his real name and he will come running back to the lamppost and let them tag him without touching home base and the long game of history which is hate and kill and lies and darkness will be done. Or at least someone else will be it until the End.