Glory Fades...The Morning After

Author's Notes: All the warnings. This is the third part of my Intrusive Thoughts of a Psychopath story. You can find the first two parts here, which would make sense to read first.

Wake up, coffee, shower, shave, brush teeth and floss.

Same as every morning, every day, the same old humdrum.

Except...

One thing is different.

Last night.

Walking to my work via my favourite cafe. The closest greasy spoon to my home on the daily commute, I ponder over the intrusive thoughts I've been giving time for recently.

Last night was different.

Last night I felt something.

Something that many people would call contentment.

The company was terrible, but that was to be expected.

The fact that I had to try and pretend to get on with that insufferable pair of skin, flesh, and bones, made me retch quite a lot. On the inside.

The wife was alright. Delectable even. Especially when she was quiet. The husband, though, was quite the spectacle. If it weren't for the fact tht I knew he wasn't playing a part, it would have been some mighty fine acting and a great comedy character.

I still think it might have been fun to see their reactions to what I could see while we waited for her to show up.

Sitting down in the cafe and giving my order, the same order I give every single day to the face of the waitress that looks like she might crack if she tried anything approaching a smile, I ruminate over what could have been.

As we sat after dinner, with a glass of Shiraz. Him, trying to keep his wife close. A move which could have, at first glance, looked like a sign of him trying to protect her, his property, but on closer inspection, was using her as a shield.

A shield from me? That made me laugh.

I imagine putting the television on and showing the interior of their house...their humble abode.

That was surprisingly easy. Putting the cameras in their house. All 50.

I'd show them the view I had while making dinner...while the poor gormless fool was sitting on my sofa, drinking my beer. What his wife was doing. The way she was putting her makeup on, for me undoubtedly, because, who else would she be?

It would have made for quite the pre-dinner discussion.

Instead...I just bludgeonged them to death, him first then her. Took my time with her, of course. She deserved it. Deserved my best work. The sofa is ruined, but, it will push me to go out and buy a new one.

He was simple enough to kill. Boring, even.

She was delightful. The way she tried to fight back...despite the hammer to her knees. Crunch...

It was just after dinner.

I just saw red and then saw nothing else but the need...no, the burning desire to make their ageing, potentially ailing parents childless. No one likes burying their young, do they?

I envy them, though. Envy the benefit they have of experiencing unbridled grief. It's something I will never experience.

I will never have to question "why did our son or daughter die?". I envy that unique experience they will have, when it comes to light that their children have vanished.

Thinking about it makes me feel a pang in my chest. Is it my chest? My heart aches with longing for that experience.

Eating my sandwich before heading to the daily grind of well burning bodies to ashes, I murmur quietly. So much dark delight I miss out on.

*

After a long and boring day at work - there were plenty of deaths to deal with, a record amount, but I feel a strange distance from deaths I have no part in. My profession is deeply depressing, for that reason.

After a long and boring day at work, it's time to settle down. Settle down on my blood-stained sofa and enjoy the misery that is floating in the air. Wait...where are the stains?

I can feel the blood drain from my face in shock. Where is the blood on the sofa?

Moving over the door that leads to the basement where I kept his wife...where are the handcuffs?

This doesn't make sense.

Heading out the front door without closing it, I look across the garden to their garden. Why are there lights on in their house?

Knocking the door frantically, looking at the neighbor's wife, standing there resplendant in a beautiful green velvet dress and the kind of lips that some would love to press against their own...or, well, anywhere. However, I see lips that are begging to be pierced and drained.

"Can I help you? What's wrong?"

"Who is it, honey, we're having dinner"

"It's...oh he's gone. The neighbour was here a moment ago."

They should be dead.

Is life mocking me?

*

Thanks for reading!