Anatomy of Fear

52

It makes perfect sense to him now, what he’s been doing and what he’s been working toward for so long. The plan is set. God has told him what to do and he will not fail.

He takes a moment to admire his craft, but no longer needs any props, everything set sharply in his mind. He crumples the drawing in his hand and drops it into the wastebasket.

He stares up at the ceiling as if he can see into his perfect living room-the matching sofa and armchairs, wide-screen TV, everything he had at one time worked for and thought important. He knows better now. None of it matters, not the sofa, nor the armchairs, not the TV, not even the home itself; not the wife who has left him, nor the child whom she has taken with her.

How long ago was that? A few days, months, a year?

For a moment he wonders if they ever existed. Perhaps he has invented them. Perhaps they were a fiction. He tries to reconstruct their faces, but there is no room in his brain for anything other than the picture of what he is about to do, so big, so extravagant it blots out everything else.

He checks over his supplies. Everything is ready. This is what he has prepared for. This is his moment.