The
h()le
in the
Universe,
a short story
by Rewired.
chapter 7: bound.
There was no slow slide to consciousness: just two, very distinct levels. At the first level, I was awake, and couldn’t recall what had happened prior, who I was, where I’d come from, and where I currently was or even what I’d dreamt about, if I’d dreamt at all. The second level happened in milliseconds. It opened with a profound blast of cold air on m damp forehead, and it involved the immediate recollection of all that had happened and the bite, and then my eyes popped open and I sat up, looked at her in the driver’s seat of a car, and looked down, at my hands, bound to the passenger seat.
“Duct tape?”
She jumped, again in an exaggerating, mocking fashion. It seemed to be a consistent trait in her character.
“You speak as if you awoke to find Jimmy Hoffa in a tutu dancing to swan lake on your navel. Chill. What, gray’s not your color?” She had that teasing edge to her tone once again – she never seemed to shed that; though admittedly at this time she’d said very little.
“No,” I said back, the bitter edge to my sarcasm growing, “you just didn’t seem like the duct tape kind of girl. Maybe hot glue, perhaps chains, I’d even go so far as to say good, sturdy rope – and perhaps, if you had a limited selection of supplies, I might stretch to say that you’d use bungie cord – but never duct tape. It doesn’t seem your style. Excuse me, though; I seem to have prejudged. FUCKING UNTIE ME!”
“You’re a feisty one. You know, most guys would revel in the fact that a woman such as me would’ve grabbed their balls and thrown them up against the wall,” she began. “And if that wouldn’t have gotten them, a bite on the lip preceding a lengthy trip to unconsciousness after which they awoke in an undisclosed location inside a car, bound helpless to the passenger seat, albeit with duct tape, as that same girl looks at you in such a way that clearly indicates she wishes to relieve some sexual frustration out on you certainly would’ve gotten them horny, if not salivating, rather than red-in-the-face and angry as you are. Either you have a strange mixture of ignorance and insecurity, you’re unquestionably faithful to a girl or a deity, you have no genitalia or your gay. I grabbed between your legs and their was something rather stiff there, so you can hack off the last two possibilities.”
I cringed, and her hand moved immediately to caress my shoulder. “Sorry dear. Didn’t mean to say `hack.’ Ever since that Bobbit incident you guys just aren’t the same…”
“I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done to my friends,” I lied. “Look, what the hell do you want? My money? Sex? You planning on decapitating me? Are you psychotic?”
“Psychotic in reference to which society’s standards? Decapitation in what sense? Sex in the directly natural, primitive, biological sense, or the general sense of slowly escalating rhythm resulting in intense climax? How much cash ya got on ya?” She giggled like a child – though it seemed to have rather maniacal overtones. She was truly enjoying this. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d felt that someone had actually enjoyed my presence, and in whatever evil and hideous way, she seemed to be truly happy being alone in this car with me. I was still angry, though.
“Quit antagonizing me,” I told her, teeth clenched. “Just fucking untie me, you bitch. I know who you are.”
“No, you know little more than the name I gave you all. You don’t know who I am because you’re too angry and self-involved to look. You’ve blindly accepted your own assumptions as to who I am and what I’m doing. Ever stop to think that perhaps me antagonizing you has a purpose?”
Her gaze was steady on me. Where most would be hurt or enraged, she seemed only mildly empathetic. Not nearly enough, however, to end her little game, whatever it’s motives. She had that look of power in her eyes. She looked at me next as if I was some feast she was about to delve into – some delicacy. I was convinced I hated it.
“Go away.” I snarled. “Get away from me.”
“What is your problem?” She said.
“Nothing.” I told her. “Your reputation preceded you, that’s all – and your presence with other people have resulted in devastation, as predicted.”
She chuckled. It was a light chuckle, but it was still a chuckle. “What devastation?” She rested her beautiful hands on her soft face, looking so intrigued. “The gossip in that bar of yours is hotter than the gossip in high school, you know that? What makes you so sure I’m killing everyone? That is what your thinking, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, because it was. “Well… are you killing them?”
“No.” She said. “I’m bringing something into their lives that make their lives less like pursuing a death and more like living life.”
“You’re killing them,” I screamed at her. “You may not be doing it with a bullet or a knife, but I saw Pratt. The guy I knew wasn’t there. He was gone.”
“Maybe the guy you knew as Pratt was a lie.” She said to me. “Maybe he wasn’t who you thought he was, and maybe he’d grown to see who he thought he was as wrong, as socially unacceptable. As morally unacceptable. Pratt’s gay, Stan. You like women. Pratt’s Christian, Stan, and you are not. Pratt likes drinking, and partying, and you truly don’t. You’re friends, but your different people. People have to realize who they are before they can truly get along with others.”
I just looked at her.
“Pratt crucified himself for what he was, Ben crucified himself for what he’d lived through, and Larry crucified all women for what five of the worst specimens of feminine nature on earth allowed him to experience. They all built walls around themselves – walls of fears and false-images, masks that were built unconsciously to guise themselves from others and themselves. They lost connection with their center. They grew away from their true selves, their souls. And you… well, you’re another matter entirely. Not a matter that’s impossible to delve into, however. Every group’s got a heart, and you were the heart of their little tribe. Or shall I say your little tribe?”
“Let me go,” I said. “Let me out of here.” I felt a heat surge up from within me, blast through my chest and hurt the space between my ears. My teeth clenched harder, my hands tightened to fists below the tape that bound them, and my body craved for freedom, for the feeling of my hands around the neck of this woman.
“You’re almost in tears,” she said calmly, leaning toward me, unafraid. “Why? Are you that in need of control of everything? Do I frighten you because you can’t manipulate me, because maybe I’m smarter than you – that I can see through you like glass and you can’t crack through the brick wall behind my eyes? Is that it?” She gazed longer, harder, deeper. “Yes. I think that’s it. You’re scared as hell because I can see right into you.”
I looked away from her. “Is this one of those mushy moments like in the movies? Or one of those points in a story where this one, enigmatic character traces all my multi-flawed character traits back to one traumatic event in my childhood?” I asked. “Because I’m not all up to that. And you don’t know a damned thing about me. And I never claimed I could read you.”
“So what is it – girlfriend or god?”
“What?” She had a thing for quickly changing the subject, and my mind had to sprint to even dream of keeping up with her.
“What is it that holds you back – a girlfriend or a god?” She said. “Or maybe a cause. What is it? There’s something your dedicating yourself to.”
“I don’t believe in a god,” I told her, “religion is for the weak. Faith in anything besides yourself is evident of a sincere lack of intellect. And I don’t have a girlfriend, and I don’t need one.”
“You’re a strange cookie, I’ll give you that,” she said. “What are you so scared of? Most people find dedication a beautiful thing; a sign of strength. Here you tell me that faith isn't equivalent to strength, but evidence of weakness. And here you seemed so spiritual. You’ve got the look in your eyes; the aura about you…”
“I love this about people,” I said, angry that I had to reveal to her that she’d struck a nerve. “Just because I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean I’m not spiritual. It seems as though everyone believes you either dedicate yourself to science or god, but both philosophies are built upon the faulty human concept that there has to be a beginning and end to everything accept for some central, fundamental something that, apparently, has existed forever and cannot be conceived. Where religion has creation science has the big bang – where religion has god science has…. hrmmm… it’s hydrogen atom, I suppose. It’s all bullshit.”
“So you believe in a soul?”
“Yeah.” I told her. “I believe in the existence of the soul. A free-natured spiritual entity. I suspect each person has one, but I can only truly know that I have one. So I demand my own freedom, respect those of others.”
“Why are you so certain you have a soul?” She asked.
“I can question that this car exists, that that bar exists – because I could’ve just as easily have dreamt it. We’ve all had dreams that were so vivid that they could be reality – only upon wakening do we surmise that it was a purely subjective illusion.”
“But the car exists for me, as well,” she said, enjoying the game. “So does the bar.”
“Yet as you tell me that, I could be imagining you. The contents of my dreams could seemingly validate the existence of another content of the dream – this car, for instance – and it would prove nothing.” I told her.
“You can question your house, your hang-outs, even the existence of other people. You can doubt the existence of your body, your brain and your nerves and muscles… but not the fact that you can doubt and question and analyze. You can only honestly question something until you come to that which is doing the questioning. You hit a brick wall. You can’t honestly question your capacity to question – and that which has the ability is self-awareness.”
“It makes sense.” She said.
“So I dedicate my life to the only certainty – my self-awareness – and doing my best to expand that awareness, to fill it with all I can and to comprehend all that is already contains, and to control all aspects of myself. A god would get in the way, a woman would get in the way, succumbing to some animalistic urge would get in the way. They’re all distractions, they’re all common things you learn to obsess over and identify yourself with. People are like electrons – and they bounce around in space until they find a nucleus to revolve around. Some find a god. Others find a significant other. Some find science, or a cause. I revolve around my self. To discovering myself. I see that as ideal – so I dedicate my life to self-realization and self control.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, and put it so it rested behind her ear. “How about we just talk and walk, huh? It’s a beautiful night out there. So long as you promise to stay with me and not run off,” she said, “or I will kill you.” She waved the gun in the air. She climbed over to me, wrapping her legs around my sides and toying with the tape to set me free. As she did so, she looked up at me, her mouth centimeters from my own.
“And just so you know,” she said, the edges of her wicked lips crawling up above her nose, “I’m am more of a `chains’ kind of girl.”
h()le
in the
Universe,
a short story
by Rewired.
chapter 7: bound.
There was no slow slide to consciousness: just two, very distinct levels. At the first level, I was awake, and couldn’t recall what had happened prior, who I was, where I’d come from, and where I currently was or even what I’d dreamt about, if I’d dreamt at all. The second level happened in milliseconds. It opened with a profound blast of cold air on m damp forehead, and it involved the immediate recollection of all that had happened and the bite, and then my eyes popped open and I sat up, looked at her in the driver’s seat of a car, and looked down, at my hands, bound to the passenger seat.
“Duct tape?”
She jumped, again in an exaggerating, mocking fashion. It seemed to be a consistent trait in her character.
“You speak as if you awoke to find Jimmy Hoffa in a tutu dancing to swan lake on your navel. Chill. What, gray’s not your color?” She had that teasing edge to her tone once again – she never seemed to shed that; though admittedly at this time she’d said very little.
“No,” I said back, the bitter edge to my sarcasm growing, “you just didn’t seem like the duct tape kind of girl. Maybe hot glue, perhaps chains, I’d even go so far as to say good, sturdy rope – and perhaps, if you had a limited selection of supplies, I might stretch to say that you’d use bungie cord – but never duct tape. It doesn’t seem your style. Excuse me, though; I seem to have prejudged. FUCKING UNTIE ME!”
“You’re a feisty one. You know, most guys would revel in the fact that a woman such as me would’ve grabbed their balls and thrown them up against the wall,” she began. “And if that wouldn’t have gotten them, a bite on the lip preceding a lengthy trip to unconsciousness after which they awoke in an undisclosed location inside a car, bound helpless to the passenger seat, albeit with duct tape, as that same girl looks at you in such a way that clearly indicates she wishes to relieve some sexual frustration out on you certainly would’ve gotten them horny, if not salivating, rather than red-in-the-face and angry as you are. Either you have a strange mixture of ignorance and insecurity, you’re unquestionably faithful to a girl or a deity, you have no genitalia or your gay. I grabbed between your legs and their was something rather stiff there, so you can hack off the last two possibilities.”
I cringed, and her hand moved immediately to caress my shoulder. “Sorry dear. Didn’t mean to say `hack.’ Ever since that Bobbit incident you guys just aren’t the same…”
“I know who you are, and I know what you’ve done to my friends,” I lied. “Look, what the hell do you want? My money? Sex? You planning on decapitating me? Are you psychotic?”
“Psychotic in reference to which society’s standards? Decapitation in what sense? Sex in the directly natural, primitive, biological sense, or the general sense of slowly escalating rhythm resulting in intense climax? How much cash ya got on ya?” She giggled like a child – though it seemed to have rather maniacal overtones. She was truly enjoying this. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d felt that someone had actually enjoyed my presence, and in whatever evil and hideous way, she seemed to be truly happy being alone in this car with me. I was still angry, though.
“Quit antagonizing me,” I told her, teeth clenched. “Just fucking untie me, you bitch. I know who you are.”
“No, you know little more than the name I gave you all. You don’t know who I am because you’re too angry and self-involved to look. You’ve blindly accepted your own assumptions as to who I am and what I’m doing. Ever stop to think that perhaps me antagonizing you has a purpose?”
Her gaze was steady on me. Where most would be hurt or enraged, she seemed only mildly empathetic. Not nearly enough, however, to end her little game, whatever it’s motives. She had that look of power in her eyes. She looked at me next as if I was some feast she was about to delve into – some delicacy. I was convinced I hated it.
“Go away.” I snarled. “Get away from me.”
“What is your problem?” She said.
“Nothing.” I told her. “Your reputation preceded you, that’s all – and your presence with other people have resulted in devastation, as predicted.”
She chuckled. It was a light chuckle, but it was still a chuckle. “What devastation?” She rested her beautiful hands on her soft face, looking so intrigued. “The gossip in that bar of yours is hotter than the gossip in high school, you know that? What makes you so sure I’m killing everyone? That is what your thinking, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure what to say, because it was. “Well… are you killing them?”
“No.” She said. “I’m bringing something into their lives that make their lives less like pursuing a death and more like living life.”
“You’re killing them,” I screamed at her. “You may not be doing it with a bullet or a knife, but I saw Pratt. The guy I knew wasn’t there. He was gone.”
“Maybe the guy you knew as Pratt was a lie.” She said to me. “Maybe he wasn’t who you thought he was, and maybe he’d grown to see who he thought he was as wrong, as socially unacceptable. As morally unacceptable. Pratt’s gay, Stan. You like women. Pratt’s Christian, Stan, and you are not. Pratt likes drinking, and partying, and you truly don’t. You’re friends, but your different people. People have to realize who they are before they can truly get along with others.”
I just looked at her.
“Pratt crucified himself for what he was, Ben crucified himself for what he’d lived through, and Larry crucified all women for what five of the worst specimens of feminine nature on earth allowed him to experience. They all built walls around themselves – walls of fears and false-images, masks that were built unconsciously to guise themselves from others and themselves. They lost connection with their center. They grew away from their true selves, their souls. And you… well, you’re another matter entirely. Not a matter that’s impossible to delve into, however. Every group’s got a heart, and you were the heart of their little tribe. Or shall I say your little tribe?”
“Let me go,” I said. “Let me out of here.” I felt a heat surge up from within me, blast through my chest and hurt the space between my ears. My teeth clenched harder, my hands tightened to fists below the tape that bound them, and my body craved for freedom, for the feeling of my hands around the neck of this woman.
“You’re almost in tears,” she said calmly, leaning toward me, unafraid. “Why? Are you that in need of control of everything? Do I frighten you because you can’t manipulate me, because maybe I’m smarter than you – that I can see through you like glass and you can’t crack through the brick wall behind my eyes? Is that it?” She gazed longer, harder, deeper. “Yes. I think that’s it. You’re scared as hell because I can see right into you.”
I looked away from her. “Is this one of those mushy moments like in the movies? Or one of those points in a story where this one, enigmatic character traces all my multi-flawed character traits back to one traumatic event in my childhood?” I asked. “Because I’m not all up to that. And you don’t know a damned thing about me. And I never claimed I could read you.”
“So what is it – girlfriend or god?”
“What?” She had a thing for quickly changing the subject, and my mind had to sprint to even dream of keeping up with her.
“What is it that holds you back – a girlfriend or a god?” She said. “Or maybe a cause. What is it? There’s something your dedicating yourself to.”
“I don’t believe in a god,” I told her, “religion is for the weak. Faith in anything besides yourself is evident of a sincere lack of intellect. And I don’t have a girlfriend, and I don’t need one.”
“You’re a strange cookie, I’ll give you that,” she said. “What are you so scared of? Most people find dedication a beautiful thing; a sign of strength. Here you tell me that faith isn't equivalent to strength, but evidence of weakness. And here you seemed so spiritual. You’ve got the look in your eyes; the aura about you…”
“I love this about people,” I said, angry that I had to reveal to her that she’d struck a nerve. “Just because I don’t believe in a god doesn’t mean I’m not spiritual. It seems as though everyone believes you either dedicate yourself to science or god, but both philosophies are built upon the faulty human concept that there has to be a beginning and end to everything accept for some central, fundamental something that, apparently, has existed forever and cannot be conceived. Where religion has creation science has the big bang – where religion has god science has…. hrmmm… it’s hydrogen atom, I suppose. It’s all bullshit.”
“So you believe in a soul?”
“Yeah.” I told her. “I believe in the existence of the soul. A free-natured spiritual entity. I suspect each person has one, but I can only truly know that I have one. So I demand my own freedom, respect those of others.”
“Why are you so certain you have a soul?” She asked.
“I can question that this car exists, that that bar exists – because I could’ve just as easily have dreamt it. We’ve all had dreams that were so vivid that they could be reality – only upon wakening do we surmise that it was a purely subjective illusion.”
“But the car exists for me, as well,” she said, enjoying the game. “So does the bar.”
“Yet as you tell me that, I could be imagining you. The contents of my dreams could seemingly validate the existence of another content of the dream – this car, for instance – and it would prove nothing.” I told her.
“You can question your house, your hang-outs, even the existence of other people. You can doubt the existence of your body, your brain and your nerves and muscles… but not the fact that you can doubt and question and analyze. You can only honestly question something until you come to that which is doing the questioning. You hit a brick wall. You can’t honestly question your capacity to question – and that which has the ability is self-awareness.”
“It makes sense.” She said.
“So I dedicate my life to the only certainty – my self-awareness – and doing my best to expand that awareness, to fill it with all I can and to comprehend all that is already contains, and to control all aspects of myself. A god would get in the way, a woman would get in the way, succumbing to some animalistic urge would get in the way. They’re all distractions, they’re all common things you learn to obsess over and identify yourself with. People are like electrons – and they bounce around in space until they find a nucleus to revolve around. Some find a god. Others find a significant other. Some find science, or a cause. I revolve around my self. To discovering myself. I see that as ideal – so I dedicate my life to self-realization and self control.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, and put it so it rested behind her ear. “How about we just talk and walk, huh? It’s a beautiful night out there. So long as you promise to stay with me and not run off,” she said, “or I will kill you.” She waved the gun in the air. She climbed over to me, wrapping her legs around my sides and toying with the tape to set me free. As she did so, she looked up at me, her mouth centimeters from my own.
“And just so you know,” she said, the edges of her wicked lips crawling up above her nose, “I’m am more of a `chains’ kind of girl.”
