A Captive Audience

1.

Sean was almost thirty-six, which was closer to forty than he ever thought he'd see. Not that he thought he'd die before then, necessarily—and, until recently, he'd never given any serious thought to the notion of suicide. No, he just never thought it'd happen to him: older than he ever wanted to be and, on the road ahead, only the promise of ever-diminishing returns.

There was nothing especially wrong with him, you understand. He'd accepted the bodily changes, though reluctantly: the gradual hair loss; the occasional impotence; the almost constant longing for sleep. In fact, he'd settled into a nice, waking coma as of late—to better accommodate the passage from morning to night. And it seemed to be working. His relationship with Sam was progressing steadily and, work-wise, he made just enough to keep the roof his grandmother had left him over his head; and even to indulge nightly in drug-induced, take-out fuelled benders.

Compared to some, Sean was blessed. He realised that too, perhaps better than anyone. Not that it made any difference. Actually, it made everything considerably worse, because Sean understood all too well what dismal, lugubrious conditions he'd face should he slip up—should the outside world catch a glimpse behind his carefully constructed and laboriously maintained mask of rational, functional conformity. And a certain toll had already been exacted.

Sean had spent years straining to conceive of an end in sight, and this new norm—which felt as though a colossal, mucilaginous worm was excavating his stomach and nesting somewhere deep in his lower intestines—had become all too familiar. If anything, he almost wished something was wrong.

"I'm not afraid to die," he said to the man. "I'm afraid it'll hurt."

"Look, friend. Untie me. We forget whole thing."

Sean tore off another piece of tape, applying it to his captive's mouth. He'd already exhausted most of the roll securing the man to the elbow chair but, thankfully, there was just enough left to finish the job. The man grimaced, a single droplet of blood slowly inching down his forehead and getting caught up in his thick, unkempt moustache.

"Can we be honest with each other?" asked Sean, collapsing down on the sofa opposite, the coffee table between them. "I'm Sean."

The man writhed in place against his restraints. It was no use, though. Sean had looped him several times, fastening his enormous bulk to the green leather folds of the chair, which appeared to be gradually digesting the heavyset stranger. The struggle persisted until the man turned red in the face, then finally relented. Much to his chagrin, he wasn't going anywhere.

2.

In the corner, at least three different sets of Christmas lights wrapped haphazardly around a cat's tattered scratching post—one of only two sources of light in the room—was accentuating the entrenched nooks and crannies of the man's furrowed brow, aging him considerably in the gloomy, melancholy ambiance of Sean's living room. Outside, the streetlights snaked through the gaps in the curtains, helping to expound the otherwise nebulous environment.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can get you?" asked Sean. "You're my guest, after all."

The man made a fist, finally meeting Sean's eyes, then nodded.

"Now we're talking!" exclaimed Sean, suddenly enthused. "Water? Tea?"

The man nodded again, not in a position to do much else. Sean, somewhat manic, got to his feet, his shin colliding with the edge of the coffee table and spilling a pile of old magazines to the carpet. Carefully, the man observed for any sign of advantage.

"Sorry," said Sean. "I'm nervous, I guess. Or excited. Whichever you prefer. I just can't wait to have a real conversation with you."

With that, Sean left the room, returning a few minutes later with a glass of water in one hand and a mug of hot tea in the other. Lodged between his right forefinger and thumb was a pink, plastic straw, and he had a towel thrown over his shoulder.

"No, don't get up," joked Sean, disregarding the coasters and placing both drinks directly on the coffee table where already there were a number of yellowish rings. "I don't get many visitors," he said, sitting back into the sofa. "Except Sam."

The man strained, again testing the limitations of the tape. This made no impression on Sean, however, who was already withdrawing into his own private world; mouthing prophetically the words he wanted so desperately to share; rehearsing their cadence. A car passed by quietly on the street outside, then silence.

"Oh, sorry," said Sean, leaning forward to remove the tape from his captive's mouth. "Go ahead. Take a sip."

The man gasped and licked his lips. Sean held the glass with the straw to his mouth, then again with the tea. And the man was grateful, genuinely—although he wasn't about to tell Sean that. In fact, he'd already decided exactly how to play this: very close to the chest, postponing the inevitable until a moment of weakness could be exposed and properly utilised.

His captor, he'd been told—an out-of-shape, thirty-something data entry clerk with depression—was a nobody, who'd been with the company for twelve years and never budged an inch; never even asked for a raise. Just a drone with the white-collar equivalent of tenure, they said. A nothing person of no real consequence.

In truth, Sean had only gotten the advantage over him by complete happenstance: a sudden reflexive response to imminent danger. The bat was still lying upstairs, right where the man had dropped it when Sean, throwing open his bedroom door, had near enough scalped the intruder bent-double peeking through the keyhole. Sean had heard him tiptoeing up the stairs, being a generally paranoid person. It was an accident, though. A happy accident, most would argue.

3.

Sipping at the tea, the man's disorientation seemed to ease. Sean took the towel and dabbed at the man's wound, which was gushing quite profusely—prompting Sean to fashion a quick, makeshift turban to help control some of the bleeding.

"I need doctor," urged the man in his thick Slavic accent.

"No, you're fine," said Sean. "Just imagine you're Douglas Quaid."

There was a pause.

"You know, from Total Recall? With the thing on his head?"

The man looked him up and down. "I leave, friend. I don't come back."

Sean sat up straight. "I'm afraid tonight's about me. And you made yourself a part of this when you broke in. Now," he said, clearing his throat, then suddenly becoming very distracted. "Why tonight, by the way? It's just such a weird coincidence."

It really was, too. Yesterday, Sean had stayed up most of the night smoking weed and watching Schwarzenegger movies, inebriated beyond reproach. He'd have never seen it coming, which is exactly what he wanted: a feeling of utter contentedness or—dare he say it—unhindered joy, followed by immediate, painless release. In fact, this exact scenario had been the subject of much of his daydreams as of late. He wasn't afraid to die. He was just afraid it would hurt.

"They tell me to," said the man. "They said come here tonight. So I come."

"Well," began Sean, "you've come at a weird time, to say the least. What should I call you, by the way? What's your name?"

"I am nobody, friend. I go."

"Can you give me a name? Any name? It'll make things easier."

"Andrei."

"Andrei. Cool. I like that. Well, Andrei, I had it all planned out, you know? Sam would have been the one who found me, of course. I kind of liked that idea because she would’ve taken care of me. Not too much mess, either. I would have left the tap running to drain away the excess blood, and this note," he said, brandishing a piece of paper, "would have been clipped to the shower curtain, explaining things. I hoped she would understand."

Andrei said nothing, retreating from direct eye contact. Was this true? What a pathetic state of affairs, if so. How had he failed so spectacularly to murder a man who wanted to die?

4.

Tonight was, in fact, supposed to be the end. And Sean had indeed planned the whole thing out. Instead, the universe took things into its own hands, interrupting his carefully constructed ceremony of self-destruction—intended to be spent in isolation, replaying old memories of better, happier times—in favour of unexpected company: a captive audience. Sean wasn't sure yet what to make of that. Was it a sign? He didn't believe in signs.

"I come at bad time," said the man claiming to be Andrei.

Sean laughed deeply and with sincerity. "Yeah, you really screwed yourself. Another hour and your job would've completed itself."

"Who is this Sam?"

"My girlfriend. We haven’t been that close lately. I've been having trouble feeling anything about... well, anything. Her included. I think it's the meds."

Andrei seemed uncomfortable. "Why you tell me this?"

"Because you're here. And I have no intention of killing you. I wouldn't know how, or what to do with the body afterwards. I mean, I get it," he said, putting his feet up, "you probably do this sort of thing all the time, but I don't. I don't have it in me." He paused. "At the end of the night, I plan on letting you go. And I'm not interested in who sent you, or why. All I really want is an honest conversation with the man who saved my life."

"Then we go separate ways."

Sean winced. "You see, that's already not very honest, is it?"

"I—I don't understand," said Andrei, struggling to comply with his captor's demands. He so desperately wanted to keep him amenable, after all—until his moment could present itself. If Sean wanted to play games all night, Andrei was only too happy to oblige. Perhaps, if he could just establish some rapport—somehow get Sean to lower his guard—he could find a way to turn the tables. He'd need to get out of this chair first, though.

"When I let you go," said Sean, "you're going to finish the job you started." He recoiled into the sofa and removed his feet from the table defensively. "You're going to kill me."

Andrei began as if to protest but Sean steamrolled over him. "It makes no difference to me. Like I said, I just want us to be honest with each other but, if you can't manage that, I'll call the cops right now and turn you over. It's your choice."

"No," blurted Andrei. "No police."

"Great," said Sean. "Let's try this whole honesty thing out then." He smiled. "What are you going to do when I let you go?"

They met eyes. "I'm going to kill you, friend."

5.

Andrei scoured the room for inspiration on what to say next. There wasn’t a lot to go on, though. Sean’s living room was scarcely decorated, to say the least—just a whole lot of beige carpet, littered with open takeout containers in neatly arranged, yet remarkably precarious, piles.

He decided in the end to be honest. "Only a coward kills himself," he said.

"Maybe," said Sean, dismissively. "I never said I wasn't a coward. What's my incentive to be anything else?"

"I—I don't know."

Sean sat forward, motivated. "For the record, I don’t think suicide is cowardly. In fact, I think it takes great strength—to defy your programming like that, despite every molecule of your design willing you to live. I think it’s quite brave, actually. Or, at least, it makes the most amount of sense, given the nature of things and the state of it all." He offered his captive another sip of water, then the tea. "Do you ever feel this way? Like something crawled inside you and died? Like your brain got wired wrong somewhere along the way?"

"No," said Andrei, although that wasn't quite true. He'd made an attempt once—half his lifetime ago—and survived; downed a bottle of sleeping pills and went to bed, hoping not to wake up in the morning. And he didn't. He woke up in the middle of the night instead, muscles ablaze; paralyzed from the neck down; fingers and toes spoiling in a damn swamp of sweaty bed sheets—but alive. Turns out, they'd expired. The only reason he was here now.

"You ever hear of serotonin syndrome?" asked Sean.

Andrei shook his head.

"Well, I think I have it. I must do. It's the only thing that makes any sense. My brain used up all the good juice… or maybe it was the MDMA," he pondered. "Either way, there's nothing left. Just dread and despair and sleepless nights."

With that, Sean stared off into space, losing momentum for the first time since the incident with the bat upstairs. You see, he'd been running on empty all night, having read online that you should do what he had planned to do on an empty stomach, and not wishing to embarrass himself any more than the act already necessitated. All of a sudden though, it hit him.

"Have you eaten?" he asked.

"I'm fine, friend."

"Maybe you're right. It's too late for a second last meal." He clutched his temples. "You know I'm not trying to get out of this, right? I know what's coming."

"Yes, friend. I kill you."

Sean nodded, satisfied that there were no more secrets between them. He then left the room and, a moment later, Andrei could hear him rifling through the cupboards.

"Fuck it," called Sean from the kitchen. "I'm starving."

Andrei sensed an opportunity. "I'll have sandwich," he mustered, pulling at his restraints. He was running out of time. He had been since he regained consciousness.

Sean popped his head in the room. "A sandwich?"

Andrei froze in place. "Ham and cheese."

Sean smiled. "Alright. Coming right up."

6.

Andrei didn't have long. Maybe a few minutes. He wrenched left and right to topple the chair, but it was no use. The thing was twice his width, which was already pretty wide. His vision had also been impacted by the blow to the head, and the turban—now a deep red—was weighing heavily on his neck, compounding the disorientation. Whether or not Sean was telling the truth—about letting him go—Andrei wasn't convinced he'd last that long regardless.

Was there anything in his pockets? He couldn't tell. His fingers had turned a rather disconcerting purple and his muscles were cramping something rotten—but he wasn't about to give up. Sean was bound to have made a mistake. He wasn't cut out for this. He said so himself. Was there anything down the side of the cushion? Could he even reach? Turns out, he could—just about—but it was like probing an abyss without substance: a void without a beginning or an end. If there was anything down there, he'd never know. He couldn't feel a thing.

In the gloom, amidst the clutter, beneath the bluish-black lesions of damp, Andrei started to panic and rock back and forth to no avail. It was all he could do. What time was it even? Would anyone know he was missing? Probably not. He usually wouldn't check-in for at least twenty-four hours after completing a job, and he had no family or friends to speak of. Even his handler knew not to contact him directly, and his phone was nowhere to be found. It was hopeless.

7.

At some point, Andrei lost consciousness. When he awoke, Sean had reclaimed his spot on the sofa opposite, but something had changed: his expression was one of deep-seated misery and exhaustion and, although Andrei didn't notice it at first, he was twiddling a butcher's knife between his fingers and scrutinising its sharpness, lost in some execrable nightmare.

"It was a good effort," said Sean, "but I wasn't born yesterday. I mean, it's common sense, isn't it?" He sighed. "I guess I can't blame you." He gestured towards the sandwich on the table between them. "That's for you," he said. "We should probably wrap things up now."

"I—I don't understand," said Andrei.

Sean forced a smile—distant and hollow—maintaining eye contact but, in a strange way, staring right through Andrei into the nothingness beyond. "I've been selfish. I thought we could keep this going forever, but there's always a tomorrow. Always."

Andrei withdrew at the sight of the gleaming metal instrument in Sean's hands and prepared himself for the worst. This is it, he thought. This is the end.

"I don't know how everyone else does it, Andrei. I really don't. And I can't keep hoping things will improve. It's too much. It's fucking exhausting is what it is: observing, as a passenger would the landscape in transit, as all semblance of joy is progressively stripped away from me, piece by piece. It’s just not how I ever envisioned things would be." He paused for longer than he intended to, losing himself again in that same execrable nightmare. "So, I’m choosing to take back control," he said. "I'm choosing to transform into whatever comes next."

Andrei closed his eyes and braced for the inevitable, then he decided against it. I won't die like that, he thought. I'll face this head on, with my eyes wide.

"I can see the other side," said Sean, "but that's not what scares me. What scares me is tomorrow. The promise of yet more arduous expectations." He rounded the table slowly and stood closer to Andrei than he had all night. "The promise that something will eventually go wrong. That something will happen to Sam. That something will happen to me."

Andrei drew a deep breath. Here it comes.

"And that's what this feels like: the same struggle every day to keep my head above water. And it's just not worth it anymore." They met eyes for the final time. "You know, there was so much more I wanted to say to you," said Sean, "but that'll have to do. The rest I'll take with me." He dropped the knife carefully into Andrei's lap. "Here," he said. "I'm going to bed now. Enjoy the sandwich. You can show yourself out, I'm sure."