Serial Killings in West Virginia

“Another girl was raped yesterday…and her body was found charred just like 5 others in the past two week… ”, Henna Ryse’s eyes scowled and she flicked her blond fringes behind her head as she reported the mishap with a slight mixture of her own dejection. Another psychopath on lose. Oh here it comes on the screen too. She read the screen, “It looks like the work of a sociopath. All the victims were teenagers who belonged to New Jersey and were separated by a few miles. All were returning to home unaccompanied after late night hanging out with a bunch of close pals. The reporting of the murder was done by an unknown caller after midnight, at exactly 1:00 A.M. in the morning. The calls have been traced back to Nigeria. The nature of these calls seems insidious with an intention to mislead the police. It is being theorized that the rapist himself is reporting his misdeed and is playing mind games with the civil guards of the city by hiding his true identity and location. Police General, Mr. Jacob Henderson has expressed his deep sorrow over the incident and has implored women folk of New Jersey to not travel unaccompanied after dark.”

Joyce was imprecating under breath as she turned the TV off.

Why New Jersey? Lord! I thought the rape was just forced sex. I don’t want to be burnt or cut or god damn murdered!

She looked at the other side of her large living room. She had left the door ajar for fresh air to circulate in. Her pets, Jojo and Juana were engaged in a furry scuffle alfresco.

These little bounties of nature are too puny to protect me against a serial killer. I should close the door albeit my parents are at home.

She stood stupefied at the memory of the grotesque charred remains of the 6 girls shown on the TV.

They were so beautiful when alive.

As, she resumed to walk to close her door, she looked at a large antique mirror placed firmly on the ivory walls of her grand living room. The intricately carved and gilded frame of the mirror seemed to her like a doorway to heaven where the ivory of the wall presented whirly sea of clouds and the mirror a small lake shining with her exotic beauty. She swayed away with her vanity as Narcissus did. While she was preening herself, her Indian friend, Diane called and snapped her off her reverie.

Diane lost her parents when she was 5 in a freak road accident where she was miraculously rescued by her father’s American friend Lawrence Blackwood. Blackwoods brought her to New Jersey, changed her name from Geetanjali to Diane. The brown child, who was saved from being pounded to shards by a large mountain boulder in the precipices of Himalayas, brought iridescence to the pale and insipid life of the American childless couple. She had no memories of the accident. It was her 16^th birthday party she was to organize. Her raven black hair were fluttering in the air as she looked outside her verandah while talking to Joyce. Diane had weird features. Her uneven brown complexion caused her skin to look more piebald than suntanned. She was not slim and little did she make any effort to bind her bulging tummy. Her jaw line was swaddled with flab on all the sides and that under her chin made her look 5 years older than she actually was. She wasn’t particularly mesmerized by Joyce’s beauty. However, she did consider her an opponent in the Royal Rugby Challenge for Joyce played equally well. Diane was averse to partying and her parents always welcomed her choice of celerity and solitude whenever they organized any social gathering. They were never ashamed of their balsamic child for her flaws for for them she was the apple of their eyes and right after the accident in India, the only reason to celebrate their lives. Diane was a smart child. She was agog and fierce with her scouring and speculative analysis of the world around her. She refused to live in the shroud of oblivion woven by the materialistic commercial world. However, this faculty of hers was inadmissible to her mother, Marie Blackwood, who always feared for Diane’s paranoia and thus laid with chagrin on Diane’s speculative interrogation of any product seller or service provider. Diane was always curious about the world that revolved around her. She kept herself updated of all the news in her neighborhood and school. She had even interacted with a local mafia on phone on the pretext of collecting funds for an orphanage. She was fiercer than any contemporary sweet sixteen. She neither considered the demise of her biological parents nor the affection of her surrogate parents as preclusion of her speculative motives. It was a compulsion for her to know and analyze anyone she met or heard of. She knew Joyce’s weakness and the weakness of men folk in general. She was never involved in any story however bland or complex. She was always an observer unnerved by the failures and success of any plot or plan of any mortal on the planet earth. She would logically deduce the moves a person should make to succeed in his situation. However, she was shrewd enough to smirk and scoff under her breath when anybody was in trouble for she wanted to see which path the individual took and if he/she survived. Then she would compare the path taken by that individual with the viability of the move she had planned for that individual. She would often marvel at her prowess to solve the puzzle, human puzzle. She was impassive to the pity issues of loneliness, love, amorous desires, jealousy, materialism and submission to the powerful. She had a binary vision of the world marked by Spencer’s quote, “survival of the fittest”. ‘Are you fit to survive this world?’ she would always cerebrate while smiling congenially at the people around her. Every 16 year old is a rebel and intractable. So was she. However, she was recalcitrant a different way. Her parents never knew that she spied on them too. She eavesdropped on every conversation they would make in the house. She knew about every investment her dad had made to expand his real-estate empire. She knew all about her mother’s fears, fetishes and outmoded cerebration bound by propriety in society. She could deduce what moves her parents would make quite inadvertently and advertently in every possible realm of their day-to-day public and professional dealings. It was her surrogate father’s best friend Patrick Rogers who she was afraid of. Patrick was her Godfather and intervened in her upbringing quite often. It was he who ratted her out when she made that audacious phone call to local Mafia. He knew her fetish to collect raw material to solve human puzzles. It was his glare that made her uncomfortable. She could not play around anyone who was aware of her judging people while she met them. This was the reason she avoided any social gathering or camping excursions with her parents for Patrick would always be spying at her. She loathed shackles of any kind. Although Patrick’s glares were quite fettering for her, he could never penetrate through those black eyes and see through her mind. He didn’t know if the real person behind her was a sinister or a friend. She knew his incapacitation at this deduction. This is why she had to oblige herself out of his way, for she didn’t want him to discover that she was neither a sinister nor a friend, she was simply an observer who imbibed large amount of public data for her mind’s computations and simulations.

“At 7”, Diane informed Joyce pertly and snapped off the connection. She knew Joyce has bought a new dress from Daine’s father’s store and she would be prancing with alacrity to join the teenager party mostly crowded with long and lean newly adolescent men. So, it wasn’t required to request her to come or even remind her of the plush venue. Besides, that Joyce was too shallow to intrigue Diane.

Lawrence Blackwood was however intrigued at the first birthday party Diane was organizing and the magnitude of the crowd willing to attend it. He always thought that his daughter kept to herself and in his thoughts he dared to doubt if she had any friend at all. Her mother thought of it as the miracle of sweet sixteen. She thought, better late than never. She was overwhelmed with the joy of seeing her daughter attending Prom and even making a guy friend in her thoughts. She encouraged her daughter and helped her arrange for everything. She too was surprised at the rate of invitation acceptance. Everybody seemed to be dying to celebrate her precious little angel’s birthday anniversary. She too dared to think, so my daughter is not that repulsive to her peers. She was smug and totally inebriated with this mirth. She showered her with expensive gifts and relentlessly made efforts to beautify her. Diane was deliberately oblivious to her mother’s joy. Oh dear Marie! Yes, you should be happy. I am now ready. You will see more of me in public. It’s time. It’s time I unfolded my wings and start the game of simulation outside my mind. She smiled at her mother who thought she was smiling at her compliment. She glanced at herself in the mirror and with this glimpse one worry began and another left. She had made sure if the worry that began is not strong enough to thwart her experiment. She scared her chauffer to go away and started to drive to the venue herself.

It’s so easy to organize. Thanks father for earning a name in the society. It was easy to invite my naive acquaintances using your stationery. She laughed. And of course thanks to mother nature for evolving love and somatic pleasures to draw in young and eager humans to an informal ground where they could hope to secure a partner to the prom. Prom…what an attraction for young people!

She had analyzed her school quite well. She convinced her dad to secure Paris Hilton products, even her famous Chihuahua breed and it’s accessories, the next time he visits New York and showcase them at his fashion store. She knew how the blondes would run to grab anything to everything displayed on her dad’s showroom if she spilled the beans in the school.

Now when blondes have their attire what would they need? She smirked, a ramp to show off! A sea, where they could bathe in vanity while people would be gasping at their beauty! And yes, that’s what they found! Those who follow these blondes will follow them to my grounds too! Thanks to the culture of adulation by local scholastic paparazzi of infatuated men. The people who followed blonds are not dumb looking. They are quite a piece themselves. And they are not acquired. So who would follow their suits? The wannabes and the leftover brunettes…

She masterminded every possible connection of who would follow who and sent invitations in that order. Within a week, half the sixteens of the town had consented to attend her party. She reached at the parking lot and looked at the crowd surging inside the party premises. She could not help but commend herself for executing the success of her first ever public simulation. As she was entering inside, she met Joyce. She smiled at her to which the latter let out a smirk thinking I shouldn’t have obliged her with my presence. Diane patted her Chihuahua and smirked, I would chew you alive in my next meal my impuissant little friend. Uh! Oh! Don’t squeal my despicable friend. Your despicability attracts me even more!

Diane didn’t interact with anyone else in the party. She was eyeing for her only semblance of a friend to come and attend the party.

I am in the prettiest and most sociable possible form tonight. This was the lure for him to come to my party. Has my calculation failed? Is he gonna show up? He can’t bail out. According to my observations, he is always generous towards me and doesn’t flick his eyes when I am in trouble. He should be infatuated with me to do that. I need him the most today…

Her eyes dwelled at the entrance for-like-ever. She wasn’t interested in the crowd. She had collected enough data from them now she just needed his pal to arrive.

There he comes. “Oh Mike, oh Mike, you really had me waiting for so long! Thanks for coming...err...before the time ran out!” She said with such relief in her eyes that bemused Mike. Mike always thought he was never friends with her. He wasn’t sure if the invitation was even real but he knew Diane was too delicate to play a prank with anyone. He sympathized with her for the folks at the school would always mock her at her improper tan and large torso. He revered her for her sharp mind and smart grades at school. He used to always mutter to himself, yes you fools, you laugh at her! You jibe her, but see, she is strong. She never broke. Never retaliated. Never even felt self-conscious. She is well bred. She walks talks and eats with élan. She smiles unconditionally. She is a good show of mockery for you eh? But when she opens her mouth, why are you all so dumbfounded? When you see her grades why are you covered with shame?

He went to pick drinks for themselves. She thanked him, of course, perfunctorily, and then she began to talk.

“Mike! Are you aware of the serial killings going on in the town?”

Oh dearest Diane! You look so beautiful tonight! Are you going to be like this forever? Why haven’t you ever interacted with me before? See, just the way you interact with others, it’s the same to interact with me too! Did my friendship abhor you in the past? Look at you now! Now that you are interacting with me, you are confident as ever and charming even more!

Although he was quite intoxicated with Diane’s series of initiations yet he gathered courage to sputter his lips and say, “Yes”. He was now beginning to get inured to her broadside of her newly developed charms. He squinted at her firm breasts and felt uneasiness creeping from his throat through his body down to his loins. He swallowed all the entropy of his blown away mind uneasily.

“Mike, I feel I can track this sociopath down”

What on the earth! His eyes bewildered. What is she talking about?

“This is not some math problem Diane! What on the earth are you…? You are going to get killed in the pursuit!”

“Yes, I know the death sentence of being a responsible citizen”, she lied to him. She was afraid of the potency of the killer to not just rape but burn the bodies of the victims for the relatives to just smash the smoldered cadaver and retrieve the instant ash to inter. She, however, smirked, how convenient! I like this killer even more!

“Listen, if our fathers ever heard of this conversation, they will ground us forever!” “Mike, why are you so worked up? Calm down.”

I know Diane. I know you and your sangfroid very well. Hitherto they have been attracting me but right now you look like a very dangerous woman to me, quite like an Amazon!

“I knew you were such a hypocrite shooter. You are as coward as everyone else is here Mike. You should know that you are lending your father’s money in shooting training in vain and that you could never protect anyone when in real need!”

Mike was surprised at her tirade. She suddenly seemed to him a hypocritical and shrewish woman herself. Her mannerisms intrigued him. She spoke with such doctored élan that her tirade could fool any by-passer as a cogent conversation. But he cared for her, so, he had to be supportive.

She might have got angry. I should first comfort her and then ask her to back out. Maybe she is just planning on some paper work or internet search which shouldn’t be difficult to agree. Let’s see what is she up to!

So, Mikey dear Mikey, back to ur senses…eh? She read his smoothening forehead, anxious wrinkles ebbing while gradually recomposing his disordered mind.

“Listen, I have read all the reports and data generated within these two days regarding these killings. I have some connections with the street proximities and gofers. I have full knowledge about the victims and the parties they went to. All this data has arose my doubts on the primordial premises made by police on this case. According to the police, the man attacks only the beautiful and dainty beauties. But tonight Mike, he will attack me, if all my calculations are correct.”

“Whaaa…?” he stuttered again to which she let out a sigh.

“Let’s go home Diane.”

“I asked you to listen to me first. I am not done yet”

“Ok! Shoot!”

“It’s true he attacked only the beautiful girls. It’s also true the incidence happened after the party when the victims were returning all unaccompanied at night. But don’t you wonder, if they were so beautiful then why were they rendered all alone after the party? Why nobody accompanied them? No parents, no boyfriends, no protective guy friend nobody, not even a car to drive them back safely! All these parties were quite popular and certainly not girls night out. The first one of them was an illegal carousal. So, we can rule out parents’ intervention and so no parent ever dropped or picked up their ward. Now, a party like those is meant to ensue something besides the party. If a girl is beautiful, she is never left out. It always ends up in long walks hand in hand, long drives and sometimes in the bed. I speculated that these girls never had any guy friends in their lives albeit they were not averse to any relationships. So breakup and long walk to home all by themselves are also ruled out. They were not homosexuals even. So, what was it? Why were they going into a death trap?” She breathed heavily.

“The reason is, they were not beautiful and popular…enough. I procured the list of all the party members and perused them. Most of the teenagers were high profile and thus they want to subdue the nature of the parties fearing parents’ wrath, public ignominy, expulsion from school and other complex legal issues if got caught indulging in illegal orgy and underage imbibing. So, as it turns out, these victims were a part of the crowd they shouldn’t be under normal circumstances. For they were neither asked out by any guy nor were they interested in any illegal activity due to self inflicted austerity of propriety. Now, the question arises why were these handful of innocuous people even invited in the party?” She read his bewildered face again and let out an impatient sigh.

Probably intoxicated with my verbiage…

“It’s ‘cause they were invited for the cover up of the party-nature. Your parents do not doubt you at all however spoilt you are if you are going along with clean fishes by your side. These girls were bovine and when treated well by the party hosts, they felt that it was an opportunity to be in the crowd. As soon as the parties started nobody looked back at them. They were on their own from that very moment on and not just when they left the party. So, someone was watching them all along. Somebody who was at the party knew they would be going out all alone. I did some speculations. It’s not easy to pin point if one of the invitees were at the vantage point. These parties always have other people, like, famous local personalities, male and female strippers, DJs, party organizers and their various crews, which you would never find on a formal list. Further, it’s not viable to speculate everybody’s character for anybody could be a rapist and since this person’s gore is not years old, just two weeks old, so, you cannot even extrapolate anybody’s suspicious sadistic nature. It would be like finding a needle in the haystack.” She took a deep breath. Mike seemed to be less bewildered now.

“So, I thought I would simulate another party on a day when most auspicious parties are avoided, even the debaucheries for they are all covered up with the mask of ingenuousness. It’s on 13^th of May, my birthday. This party is decoy to lure the killer. I have scrupulously eliminated any possible female who could be rendered all alone after the party. So no breakup ladies or unpopular ones. I am the only left out girl.” She said smugly.

“Seems like you are not alone honey. I am with you”, Mike said ruefully.

“You are so naïve Mike, let me complete”, she was exasperated.

I shouldn’t have avoided Mike before; I should have known he is not that great a fool with a gun in his holster. I should be prepared for this character. This lecture is taking so long to explain and this guy is not deducing anything himself. I am trying to make him stay rather than elucidating how he could get an opportunity to be an accomplice, utilize his skill of shooting something other than skeet, be a savior hero and win me for Prom! What a night! I should be calm and proceed with alacrity. He is just a normal teenager. He should be easy to mislead especially when he is smitten by me. Whoa! I wish I could have mastered the art of a seductress before I took this one. She sighed with sophistry and looked at Mike with contrived benignity.

“Mike!” She pulled him forward with his tie so that their chests pressed together and only a wafer thin layer of air could separate their nose. Mike’s hands started to drench. He’d never thought of Diane getting this close to him by herself. He was happy. He looked nervously around if anybody was watching them. Everyone was busy with themselves and nobody seemed to mind these two inchoate teens getting, a little beyond propriety- realm, close in their tête-à-tête.

Hah! It’s true, Diane is the least popular girl on the planet earth.

“Mike, I want you to cooperate. Are you with me?”

“Yes my lady!” As if he had any other choice.

“I want you to go away now and enjoy the party with your other friends. Make out with any girl in the party. Dance with the girls and be like a totally smashed down party animal. There is still time for the party to get over. I want to be left alone. If the killer is watching, he shouldn’t see you around me or your interest in me anymore. Your job would be to keep a close watch on me when I walk home by myself by following me discreetly. If you sense any trouble shoot the guy. Look, the killer is a rapist first. So, don’t just shoot any guy who approaches me, it will spoil my whole exercise to find out the killer. Shoot him when you sense I am being raped!”

Mike’s eyes bewildered. He pursed his lips to say anything but Diane had gone. She was sitting alone and enjoying the drinks and food nonchalantly.

You are in a deep trouble girl, don’t you realize it?

He had little choice. He went back to his friends and made out with Lily and then with Joyce. Joyce asked him what he was doing with that punched face Asian, to which he replied, “I asked her if she needed anything else to arrange the party. I thanked her to hold this party. I was just being nice but she pulled me in and started gloating over how she never hold a party before and how she thought of it and arranged it!” He smirked unsympathetically that satiated Joyce. She muttered with smug while still in his arms, “Poor girl! She thought she got a companion for the night!” and with this she started guffawing like a brazen head vixen. Diane heard her roar of laughter and felt pity for the drunkard and spoilt Paris Hilton wannabe. She eyed at her Chihuahua and smacked her lips with hunger, the puny dog sensed pure malice and tried to bark with it’s shrill vibrations, now Diane roared with laughter and others got out of her side. What a freak! Everyone was reviling at her under their breaths.

As people drove away, she smirked at her repulsion. Lonelier the better!

The time came when people started leaving in groups and pairs, only a few left behind. Lily, Joyce, Justin, Mike and she herself.

All of us have a car. Question is who would go with who? The cars are safely parked. The girls will never take their cars. Looks like Justin will drop the girls at their respective places and Mike will take his car to follow me. I should wait for all of them to go.

But, nobody left. Joyce got closer to Mike and he was inadvertently driving her off.

Apparently, Joyce wants to go with Mike. Phew! Mike why are you so popular? You mystify them. You never get caught by these damsels and always elude then with élan. Saving yourself for me...eh? But you hurt their vanity, now see, you are hurting my plan!

I gotta do something fast. What if the situation repels the killer away?

She turned around and started to proceed towards the entrance. This gave a signal to Mike, he broke lose of Joyce and went in opposite direction towards the parking lot. Justin was Mike’s good friend, he sensed something cooking between the two. Diane saw Mike approaching the parking lot, she quickened her pace and began calculating in how much time mike would begin following her. If she went much farther away from his reach, she would greatly jeopardize her life. Mike was practically running to get to the parking lot as fast as he could. Justin chased Mike and intercepted him. Lily and Joyce followed.

“Are you going to abandon Joyce Mike?” “And for whom? Diane?”

“She shouldn’t go out alone at night Justin, a rapist killer is at large!”

“It’s she who should be taking care of herself not you Mike! She has a car and if she chooses to walk down the road to reduce her flab, why should you mind? What is she to you? Has she hypnotized you or what? Are you going to abandon me for her just so she could be saved from the incorporeal Nigerian demon of New Jersey? If you didn’t listen to the News properly, they specifically mentioned he hunted only beautiful girls and, I am sorry to say, this Diane of yours is an ugly goat.” Joyce interjected vehemently.

“I do not doubt your updation with the daily news and her face’s intricacy but I need to be with her.” Mike wanted to hurry up and catch up with Diane as soon as possible.

“What are you? Her protector or something?” Justine asked derisively, “Or do you wanna sleep with her? I saw you two getting too close at the party. I saw the way she pulled you towards herself! She is a bitch Mike, an ugly witch trying to bewitch you and make you her benefactor.” Scowl lines marked his disdainful forehead.

“First you decide whether she is a bitch or a witch Justin!” he circumvented his conjectures.

“Justin, my father is Diane’s Godfather. It’s our family’s job to protect her. I am just doing my job.” He said grimly. “Now if you don’t mind, you have to get away from my way as I got some catching up to do. If any anything happens to Diane just ‘cause you encumbered my way, I would never forgive you in my life!” Mike ran away to the parking lot in fury.

Oh Diane, Diane! Where art thou? He muttered to himself while searching for her in the dark…

He woke up in the morning in his well equipped room. Electronic gadgets were strewn all around his bed. He rose up groggily and looked outside his window in the pleasant spring of May, 2010. He looked at his wrist watch. He almost defenestrated himself!

It read 14^th May, 2010.

Where is Diane? What happened last night? How the hell did I get home?

“Mom! Dad!” He started yelling frantically as he descended the stairs. The living room downstairs was empty and so was the porch. He felt as if he was still in his dreams. “C’mon guys! Where on the earth are you?”

“…the killer is still at large…” the TV was roaring in the living room. He squinted at it and saw Diane’s photo being flashed on the TV and reporters were discussing amongst themselves about the anomaly of the killer to have killed a-not-so-pretty girl last night. He collapsed on the floor. He couldn’t believe Diane died.

Oh Diane! Oh Diane! He was too shocked to think anything clearly. He called his dad up, his parents were at Blackwoods, dutifully arranging for the funeral.

So Diane was right! The killer did track her down and killed my beloved Diane! Diane you imbecile girl! You masterminded everything and forgot if anything could happen to your sole protector and he may end up getting up in his bed without protecting you! I am a mortal, I must have got sozzled and collapsed and then Justin would have picked me up and got me here!

Suddenly he saw his car parked outside. He got confused. Bereaved, he turned off the merciless TV who dared to call her dead friend ugly finally and went into his room to ruminate.

So, Justin didn’t bring me here. Oh yeah! I remember I got on the car and sped past by them in anger and then? Then what happened? I was searching Diane in the dark and then? I couldn’t find her.

He got tired of pondering over too much. His head was aching with last night’s hangover. He got into his bath and took out some vicodin off the shelf. He nibbled the pills, washed his face and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were blood red. His face was gaunt and emaciated. Suddenly he started to laugh. He looked at himself in the mirror, he wasn’t laughing, yet he stood there and he was laughing louder and louder. He looked around to see if someone else was there. He staggered on the floor and held basin to balance himself.

“Don’t you remember it?” Someone hissed at his ears. He looked around wildly.

“Don’t you get it?” The voice grew deeper and more staccato with infiltrated laughter. You did it Mike! Didn’t you ravish her all the while? Why are you looking in the mirror Mike? You and I did it! You had been saving yourself for her for so long! You didn’t consider the approach others made at you. You didn’t even think of me Mike! I had needs Mike and you too had needs. We went out Mike, after the party looking out for any girls as abandoned as your Diannnne… The voice started the staccato chortle again.

“Who are you? You leave my Diane alone! Who are u?” Mike ran into his room to searched for his pistol. He found a lighter he had never seen before. He stumbled upon his boots and he scowled for his boots reeked of gas. He sat on the floor befuddled. The voice started again. “We couldn’t resist the other Dianes Mike. How could we resist this one? The real Diane! You should not feel guilty. I told your parents that you lost the trail of Diane when you came back. I am happy to have Diane. She was ingenious, wasn’t she? She found me out! She started to run away when she saw me smirking at her through you! He was yelling and she threatened me Mike! She threatened me, she would tell her parents if I didn’t go away. She knew our secret Mike! She was never going to be formally or informally yours. She was a threat too. I had to sack her. But she was so mouth watering Mike! You and I have always desired her! Don’t you remember how we devoured her Mike? She smelled so good and tasted even better!”

“Stop this nonsense whoever you are! Turn yourself to Police!” Mike shouted and put the pistol onto his forehead!

“Wake up Mike. Wake up! You are at the diabolic end of your soliloquy, solitude, somnolence and somnambulation. You desired her from your childhood. You shut yourself from the aspirations of your family and probably from yourself when Diane was being baptized and your father was declared her protector. You assumed a role for yourself and denied everything that came your way. That’s how I was born. You kept backlashing with me when I wanted to be with others. This is why you hate Joyce the most for I backlashed fiercely with you for not having her when she’d offered herself so many times to you! I have had Diane to quench your thirst for her. I have killed her for retaining your dignity and taking my revenge. I couldn’t bear to see you deny yourself anymore for her. Couldn’t you see? That was the first time she spoke to you and tried to use you as her guard. You should have sent the magnitude of her curiosity to see the killer, to see if she was correct, if she solved the puzzle. She was playing with you! The moment she was revealed the secret of the killer, she started running away! She wasn’t true to you. You were abstemious all your life but you ever thought why did she deny everything? She voluntarily didn’t want any love and mocked at people’s vulnerability to fall for love. She mocked at your love. She mocked at us! I had to kill her to liberate you, to tell you that you are not bound by any insolent witch anymore. I am going and letting you free. Open your eyes and see the new world around you Mike.”

Edited: Coffee with Balmer

Balmer overreacted and went inside a cafeteria down the alley into the shacks of anonymity. As he entered the cafe, a sudden aroma of mocha wafted through his nostrils into his enraged brain calming his workaholic pyramid nerves and easing out the kerfuffle irking inside. He began to feel the warmth of coffee being stewed and cheese cakes being baked.

He felt a need to smack his lips with a cup of cinnamon cappuccino and wipe its whipped caffeinic cream with his tongue. He didn't want any contamination of water or chocolate or ice or even ice-cream to ruin the perfect homogeneity of pure milk and coffee.

Gone high with chromatic caffeinic cravings in his belly, he reached the counter. He glanced at the printed menu on the board placed just above the counter. There were broadly hot coffee, cold coffee, ice-cream and cheese cake varieties with several individual options.

Behind the counter, a few strongly built agile Italian gentlemen, aged 30-35, dressed in freshly starched, neatly ironed, spotless blue cotton shirts and custom made black trousers with a recently bleached white corduroy apron neatly draped around their garments, were working in perfect coordination with each other; some were preparing the beverages and cake-concoctions while others were serving the drooling customers. Balmer got so lost in admiring their genteel sartorial get-up & daunting diligence while preparing the delicacies and extreme elegance while tending to all the customer classes, elite or poor, that he forgot to choose the coffee he would have liked to lick in.

One of the Italian workers, who was at the counter and who carried a diplomatic dimple tucked under the smile lines of his cheeks, broke the ice. He was beaming with confidence in the prime of his youth. He warmly asked Balmer to be comfortable and make the choice of coffee at ease without any hesitation to clarify the detailed description of each option. Balmer understood the mechanical perfunctory act of his advise and didn't mind his considering him as a diffident and ignorant coffee lover. Brushing the thoughts aside, he began cruising through the options idly. He wanted something hot. He wanted to close his eyes and savor the rich depths of dark coffee beans' aroma.

Amongst the available options under hot coffee banner were -

Mama Macchiato

Le Lavender Latte

Moto Mocha

Creme' Shot Espresso

Shocker Whiteout

Browny Breve

Kremlin Cappuccino

Every option was as distinct to him as the seven colours of VIBGYOR, for he could easily discern the very nuance of the flavour each preparation carried. He could easily discern their pleasant distinctive fragrance as they brushed past him while being served.

He chose Mama Macchiato for himself. The dimpled Italian counter-man took his order and asked him to be seated anywhere in the cafeteria at his leisure while his order was being readied in seven minutes. Balmer strolled in the narrow isle of cafeteria's dispersed inter table distances, carefully selecting the best place to sit in. He found himself getting attracted to the rather demure corner-most table of the cafe that his line of sight could spot. He sat there facing away from the crowd.

For him, this was one of the most important parts of his errand at any eatery. He was a perfect gourmet, he knew how the location of seat modifies the mood and hence the taste of a delicacy. If you sit near a loud lady nagging her husband & kids while making noises or any such overpowering sacrosanct, you can possibly die of their grandiloquence even before getting your order delivered onto your table. Even if you manage to eat, the food takes a distant corner of your mind instead of the precious core. The sour or sugary talks and even people's wry faces mix their unwanted flavors into your delicacy so that your sensory organs, which are obviously the degenerate interrupts whose live information telecast can keep the brain-network busy when you want to concentrate on your gustatory modality the most. For instance, your eyes can see the other people sitting around you, your nose has to smell them, especially when they are reeking and their abhorrent unwanted intrusive ideas and rants, which your ears transmit dynamically can occupy the central position of your sole brain and your dear tongue has to wait every second to buffer its info into a heavily preoccupied brain ensuing the attainment of sluggish as tortoise & disruptive as hare speed. Differential is the game. Keep the brain empty and receptive, thy taste buds shall load the info into the brain at the speed of light. Just like students gain much more knowledge in the class than when they are preoccupied or facing any distractions. When their mind is completely clean and devoted to the lessons being taught, ultimate enlightenment takes place, wherein a fire of hope, a fire of knowledge kindles inside them that allows them to perceive the greatest depths of knowledge and follow the path unaided with the zeal to endeavor and clear all the obstacles in a diligent and lucid way.

He grabbed the table and the seat like some priced possession conquered. He didn't look elsewhere. He was complacent. He inhaled a huge gulp of coffee smitten air and closed his eyes.

He recalled his experiences with the coffee's whipped cream.

...it dissolves at the bottom, as if existing in equilibrium with the realm of coffee. Just like the clouds infuse with the mountains, the misty interaction of whipped cream and coffee seemed to complement each other...

Suddenly, in his private, peaceful and happy time, Bonnito's face flashed in his mind, he couldn't take this unfair brutal barbarous blow of his subconscious mind and he opened his pitiful eyes.

The curse of the past roused the monster inside him for Bonnito killed his innocent friend in a heinous homicidal fiasco some 8 years ago. Mitochondrial troops burnt down the inventories of glucose and adipose tissues. The warm blood got warmer and began gushing like Japanese rails running on levitation, pouting a vein-web conspicuously out of his temples on either side. He sat there completely drained out. He recalled his deceased friend, Palero Zeeha just before she was mercilessly burnt to death.

He tried to cheer himself up. On a vapid whim, he directed his vitriolic feelings into an absurd abstract cauldron. He re-imagined Bonnito's face as a large coffee bean and himself carrying a heavy weight large steel head hammer in one hand and Bonnito's hair clutched mercilessly by the other hand. In this instant virulent reverie, he thrashed him, smashed him, relentlessly and vehemently, to crush Bonnito's pride into a finely ground reeking coffee powder which even pig refused to devour.

He was smug like a kid at his schizophrenic achievement.

Coolly, at his volition, he half opened his eyes, not his mind though.

He noticed the so-seemed corner of the cafe. To his amazement, this guile corner had a narrow, small extension allowing another two seater table to stuff in.

Therein sat a girl, a mysterious & an unusual girl.

1 inch wide tongue but only half as thick as an average tongue width of an adult, shaded with darker hues than the darkest pink of an Eskimo child's, multiple ulcers underneath, but, that wasn't all...it was a long tongue, longer than the height of the ice-cream jar she was trying to lick empty.

She squinted at his objectionable observance, yet remained calm and composed with an aim to slump back to reticent taciturnity and block her generic impulse to taste in public.

She knew she was different, mongoloid nose, eye balls protected inside an overtly protruded eye-cage with iris painted in different hue codes making left eye grey but the right one blue in color.

But she didn't know, her genetically different eyes were so familiar, so intimate and so dear to this gentleman though in another human form.

Her lips were without filtrum, they were pink with black outline and she had tongue of a size and strength to easily strangle a wrist. But the texture of her face was flawless, it was a smooth peachy olive span with little pinkish hues spread evenly over her eyelids and pinna. She was a big boned yet slim girl richly supplied with adipose tissues at right places. The off-shoulder neck-line of her top was glorifying the elegance of her gleaming broad shoulders yet exposing the vulnerability of her tender arms.

Below the table, below the shiny leather beige pants, lied her feet, those carried an extraordinary sex appeal that could turn even a clergy man on under the cloak of his morality. Her breath taking luminous, long & lean toes had a uniform length to width ratio along the thumb toe to little one's gradient, all sparkling with razor sharp scarlet enamel.

Her feet were as beautiful as a dove's wings. They were fair like almond milk, smooth like gel spread all over but they suddenly turned all white like skimmed milk. Nobody but a patron pays attention to a nuance like this, but this gentleman had the flair to turn this baby soft leaf and feel the feelings inside much like a hermit who knows the direction of heat flow inside a living being, to tell his mood, by merely reading the face. Our gentleman could tell the depths of her character that was flanked by sorrows of her life and intelligence of her sparkling mind. He could see the transfer of pinkish tinge from eyelids to peachy olive cherubic cheeks.

When she noticed his observance by her over vigilant subconscious sensors and when she politely & timidly ducked inside as an involuntary resistance at the breach of her privacy, she fortified her peptide bonds, she flexed her muscles internally to embolden herself and allow herself to go on with the flow of the moment of her own accord. She carried on the ice-cream licking process to preserve her dignity, that she could assert her right to freedom & right to be what she was, much the same way she respected the staring gentleman's freedom and feelings. This was the reason, she refused to cast cold looks at him even when she wanted him to stop staring and let her enjoy her privacy.

She abstained from throwing any sarcastic rude remarks, for it could only shatter their mutual peace of mind, the idea of being social as liked by extrovert people, the human instinct of casual inquisitiveness just like this gentleman possessed and the integrity of warm mellow environment of the cafe having a past record of making lovely stories in it. She neither rose nor floundered for she wasn't an escapist, she knew how to deal with a situation without causing any rampage, even when her super impulsive & short tempered mind was vying to kick the person who himself in quest of solace chose the so-seemed corner-most table but who failed to let the other person have his share of privacy. She wasn't a dogmatic bitch. She wasn't even a die hard loner. She could take any blow, yet be resilient enough to mold herself to a logically sound & benign settlement even when her impulse kept dragging her into the whirlpool of mundane madness...

Balmer's order arrived.

He forgot the girl for the coffee muchlike he forgot the latter for the former.

He stretched his tongue out, that was half the size of Dimantana Entpol's to taste the whipped cream. He dug his tongue more to scrub away the uppermost cream but the whipped cream stood like an iceberg in the cup, for it seemed superficially light and thin layer floating on the delectable liquid while it actually covered a whooping 3/5 of the cup, fortifying the even-more-delectable-now liquid moat with a non-breach-able dense yet soft fog leaving the only way to reach the real coffee by developing a huge negative pressure inside & slurping in the entire whipped cream in one or two goes according to the size of the throat.

Balmer did exactly the same in one go to get rid of it soon.

The whipped cream was as richly caffeinic as anticipated. But it was much more than that. It was a faintly fragrant smoke of cookies, muffins and cheese. It was as attractive as foams of bubble bath but at the same time, it was as sham as mocha-chocolate-alcohol-cake’s icing. No doubt, it was as irresistibly turning on as the aroma of just bathed rainy season soil but it was just some caffeinic steam trapped inside coffee milk’s little particles that made it neither liquid nor solid. He could lick it but without having his oral ways with it. It could touch him but he couldn't do the same for his tongue was prompted to dig deep in but failed to get a positive resistance, much like, when we see a beloved person, our hands are prompted to hold that person, but what if the person’s existence was a mirage; a long lost memory that had suddenly projected out at the time of remembrance? Our hands would surpass the mirage image and reach the other side! Here too, the best looking part of the coffee was nothing but a barely tangible fiasco…

Atlast his ordeal with the whipped cream was over. He brandished his tongue in the proud air of victory to finally embrace the prize of the battle, the rich mama machiato!

Its rude to kiss with your eyes open, for it not only seems forceful but also unrealistic. Only with eyes close, one could feel the ecstasy, one could really enjoy to the core of their hearts. Balmer, while drinking coffee, involuntarily closed his eyes so as to gulp in as much taste as possible. Its true, we eat food to stay alive, to feed the hungry wolf inside, but in this life where we are gifted with sophisticated tongue, eyes and nose, we are bound to become a gourmet. Anyone can be a gourmet, even a glutton can leave the extreme materialism and instead of shovelling the food in at the r.p.m of money counting machine's motor, he can sit back and savour the delicacy with his eyes vying for the rich colors and the nose amplifying the aroma of desire.

He suddenly looked at the girl as if half empty with her absence, who herself was looking at him with terrific amusement.

They both were sitting in that corner, she to save herself from glances while she ate and lolled and he to enjoy his meal time uninterrupted. They both were enjoying the breach of their very privacy.

He raised the toast to the girl and gave her a very true benign smile.

The girl intercepted the warm greetings and reverted with an acknowledging confident yet calm smile. This smile was not a restricted one to give unwanted signs to a person to buzz off nor it was an eager sheepish one to falsely portray her gratified relief at his acknowledgment of her appearance and personality. When she smiled, her twinkling differential eyes blinked once to capture the moment and to acknowledge the hailing gentleman, her lips made a second degree curve in which they smiled without over stretching the baggage of the jaws and without letting the fangs and in this case, the oversize tongue out. She raised the nearly empty jar in unison with the man's distant yet intimate allusive hand held out for friendship.

Is the propriety of your last rites really that important?

Life should be lived this way that if you have to die any day, there is a minimum backlog. Backlog is defined as the work left on the planet that had awaited solely you. So, this work is of a rather precarious nature that only you could have done it, no one else. So if you failed to love your siblings, you have a backlog since no love in the world could replace yours. Each person has something to contribute to the world. It's due to this contribution, he is remembered. Notoriety generates a huge debt on your account and you are remembered only with a wish to be forgotten soon. Even if you contributed generously in however occluded and subaltern position, you would be remembered as a yearning to find your duplicate and as an example set to your replacement. But if you only live your life for your benefit, then everything you did was a waste and there is an infinite backlog each day you live. So, you are a liability on the earth with your maximum intake and minimum contribution. In this case, you could die any day, since nothing will make any difference. So, while it's important in life to chase your dreams, it's equally important to realize where your contribution is irreplaceable. What a father expects of you is unique. Nobody can expect that from you. If you give generous efforts to accomplish that, the mere path of dedication and austerity will do your work even if you fall short of your expectations in the end. Your father would know, with every milestone that you achieved, that you were living his dreams generously and doing the unique job of a son. It doesn't mean you would be a bad son if you decided another path for yourself. Again the path will be important in terms of your diligence but here your task becomes a little tougher, here either your work will speak for itself and/or while still on your path your adherence to composure and reverence for your parents despite their persistent criticism will contribute to your generosity. So, in all the cases generosity and dedication will come into play. Generosity cannot be measured, it's only perceived through one's dedication. While it's important to rein your effusive tendencies and your predilection for indulgence in deadly sins, it's important to be generous to the outer world at some point of time. Nobody in this world is perfect, they are bound to take detours and make mistakes. So, sometimes it feels as if your generosity were a sin and a weakening agent. But when you retrospect you realize that being perfect was never that important an aim, however, dedication was. If you fail to meet those unique expectations, your family will still be your family, and they would not fail to acknowledge that fact that you tried your best. Ignominy of failure is disturbing and embarrassing but it's just an aspect, one should never deter from being pliable enough to channelize one's gift of dedication to another apropos pursuit.

Ballad: The Legacy They Held

Sons of millers

once shaped a pillar

it was not like millers '

but more like rural fillers

They went on their instincts

with the legacy they owned

from the clan who never read or wrote

Suited for the soot

all blast and and all coup

they blew holes through the roots.

They made a pillar

with gas as the filler

they burnt Amara, the holy child of a healer

to pave the way for perpetually issuing burning gases from the pillar

They formed a league

to protect the weed

They cursed the fresh

& swore to eat the flesh

They hunted the farmers with their blood hounds

blew their farms n barns with arsons all around

They cut the rope

to fell down the bridge

They jammed the river

to block the infiltration

They built the pillar to slay the non-millers

Savages they seemed

Homicidal euphemistically

but gentle they were to caress the souls repressed

Zealots they seemed

deaf to the lores of humanity

but considerate they were to hear the plea of dead

Werewolves they seemed

with claws like sword or slasher

but tender they were to be charred by pain of others

Rotten their future seemed

but bright was it with paths of wisdom and ingenuities

It was the pillar they made

that they once laid

to get the already dead slain

They unhooked the human wagons

and strayed the animals bewitching the horizons

For the rock they worshipped

an obelisk from the past

blared one night

into the gamut of mankind

"Sons of the millers

with metal in their blood

will survive the genocide

inflicted upon the rest of the mankind.

The millers are the poorest

the only race still oppressed

the only faction still blamed

for the deeds the real sinners never claimed.

They have born atrocities

their hands still burn with machine's ferocity

they long for healer's generosity.

Their stomachs are all lumped up

in a hope to get a piece of bread

from the rich cultivators spread.

They long for employment

but the autonomous plants

turn them into the ghosts of Christmas past.

They have diminished into minority

and every so seemed fresh leaf that is born

has already withered away in depravity.

They are labelled as wild boars

who indulge in coprophagy

As if they could afford a bag of rice

or an access to expensive hunting activity.

Their physical status reeks of plague

their mental one mourns for the grave.

They don't have work anymore

they don't seem to be productive on shop floors.

Their forefathers were the successful millers

and they are the sons of those millers.

Their DNA bears the code

that infuses skill of millers

as a reminiscent of instincts

that they remember no more.

They don't machine any more

but they still have metal in their blood

as the legacy of those useful once.

As of tonight, the wrath of holy spirit will be casted

upon those who out-casted.

For a fortnight

the non-millers would be haunted.

They would lose the peace of mind

they would lose all sense of happiness

slowly they would run into the crushing juggernaut

they would bear an excruciating mental pain

equivalent to those they shamed

they would be eating themselves

part by part

bit by bit

till the last morsel

until the death god kisses them into inferno's carousels.

They wont be lamented

they wont be buried

they would rot as their own faeces.

Clean would be the world

as a plain canvass

open to the art of the sons of millers

as the sole sketchers.

Cynosures they would be

in the world of madness.

Riches would be theirs

to expend as unfettered.

Such would be the fate.

Death is waiting for the non-millers at the hell's gate

While life awaits the sons of millers on earth as paradise"

Upon hearing the voice

the sons of millers rejoiced

the non-millers shirked this off as frivolity

kept running around in their ephemeral world

in a sense of security

The following night,

Gara, an emaciated girl

with metal in her blood

saw a rich lad

eating his own toes

like a famished bat

She told this to Brian, her father

who reported the sight to Dorin, his brother

Brian and Dorin ran across the city

only to see the effect of holy spirits

who turned the weak non millers blue

and the others got lost in the crew

Everywhere there was hue and cry

till the people couldn't weep through dry eyes

Non Millers went berserk

they rummaged through their shelters

and grew wild

they lost their sense of being in a grave turmoil

Brian duo alerted the miller village

for they couldn't bear the act of rummage

that was flushing the non millers out like roughage

They looked at Vyora, the wealthy snob of the town

now eating her own nose with a lot of frown

She didn't bat her eyelid at the sight of miller misery

still Brian duo tried to salvage her dignity

but the brutal act of self-cannibalism destroyed her beauty

she kept hitting her head with the maple tree

swearing hate words under the enchanted insanity...

Dortza, the wisest of all the millers

got away from the destruction of non-millers

he broke loose

he tried to feed himself to animals

to get away from the shame of watching human-animals

He saw the futile acts of their salvage

he sensed the grave curse unleashed upon the human-kind

he hailed the community of millers

and urged them to shirk the dirt

and bring the paraphernalia of necessities

from amongst the great massacre of humanity

for the quicker they bring

without loitering away to save beings

faster would the act of their redemption in peace.

He carefully listed all the things

Everyone listened and followed ardently

He sneaked out to cruise on his own way

He once had a fling with Deobra, wife of the healer

which he refered to as 'a little chat' in his deliberately deluded memory

he knew, she a baby grew inside her after the little chat

which she named Amara, the chantress.

The non millers out of love and ignorance

called her the holy child of their reverend healer, Horpez.

Dortza knew the legendary Deobra had something else too

that infected her man when he tried to get through.

It was Deobra's flesh

that was toxic to non miller's fragile body.

The healer healed himself after the first night

to hide the shame of a married man's plight.

He could never touch her again.

Deobra sought for love

for she was abandoned in her own alcove.

She was battered and distraught

when this man, Dortza took her to his home

Dortza saw Deobra dying for she too was a non miller

Alas! He couldn't set her curse free

but Amara was his blood

she couldn't have possibly died.

He kept looking for her...

She was a happy child

playing with dolls & trolls of her time.

He located her and brought her home

he slit her throat with a sorry smile.

Meanwhile on his command

the sons of miller community

built a showering tower

with a kiln that was to burn a flower

and a shaft to intensify the burnt aromatic essence

in order to poison the nonchalant non-miller presence.

Brian duo didn't know what was that 'flower'

they just knew the need of the hour

they didn't know the art of millers

they fed on their inner miller

to design and construct a pillar

Dortza brought the holy child

to burn it under rosy miles

Surreptitiously he crept inside

kindled the holy fire and light

burnt himself and the child...

The kiln imploded from inside

emitting boisterous power and fright

the shaft reverberated with demise

the emissions darkened the air & seeped into the life

that obliterated every cell of non miller population in ravine,

thus exorcised the cursed souls of mankind...