You Are Dead

16

Thursday 11 December

I keep my projects in their own private cubicles in what I like to call my correction chamber. Tanks all plumbed in, my projects kitted out with adult disposable nappies. Cleanliness is so important for morale. I keep them healthy, plenty of vitamins, nutrients, electrolytes. I want them to live as long as possible. So that I can make the choices about when to say goodbye. It’s all about power. Power is hugely exciting.

I don’t like to call them my victims. I prefer the term projects.

I’m not a violent person, really I’m not. Once, when I was a kid, I hit a sparrow with a pebble I fired from my catapult. I can still remember that bird spinning round and round like a helicopter, plummeting to the ground. I’d never really expected to hit it — I’d just fired at it for fun. I picked it up, its feathers all soft and its body so warm, and I was crying, trying to breathe life back into it through its little beak.

I dug a grave for it, laid it in the bottom, apologized, covered it with earth and said a prayer.

I felt like shit for days after. But at the same time it wakened something inside me. Every time I looked at a bird, for the rest of my childhood, I would think to myself about the power I had.

The power of death.

Killing things makes me feel strong. Some people will say that’s evil.

Here’s the thing: does evil exist? Surely only if you believe in God. Otherwise you believe in the survival of the fittest. Which means I survive and others I choose to kill don’t.

Today I’ve chosen to kill. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for days — well, actually, for weeks!

But, of course, you are not capable of ever knowing the pleasure this is going to give me.