Chapter One

For three years, I’ve been planning the perfect murder.

        It’s not like I’ve got anyone in mind on whom to execute my plan, but I often lay in bed, sleepless, catatonic, wishing for someone to give me a fucking reason.

        Soon enough…

        The plan is relatively simple. If you know what you’re doing. First, steal some blood and hair; easy enough. All you need is a twenty-dollar bill and a junkie. He’ll fucking offer it to you, and even if they trace the DNA back to them, what credibility would they have? Addicts are honest like politicians, and everyone knows it.

        Or, if you’re daring, a stolen nurse’s outfit and the knowledge on how to draw blood from a comatose patient would suffice. You’d also most likely get caught

        Or you could always buy it on Ebay…

        You can buy fucking anything online if you know where to look. Need something to eat after a long night of partying? Any large grocery store chain has an online order and delivery system. Need an antique firearm to impress your redneck, racist, cousin-loving friends? Cabella’s is the way to go. Need a napkin used by George Clooney at some restaurant in the middle of downtown wherever? Ebay’s fucking got it.

        My god, what a world we live in. A life is worth no more than half its body’s weight in gasoline. A soldier dies fighting in a war he doesn’t agree with and doesn’t even make the evening news. A celebrity overdoses on illegal drugs and the nation goes into a state of shock. A man deserts his family to chase a dream of fame and fortune while his children starve and the people worship him. Let’s get our priorities straight, people.

        Please, stop me if I’m wrong. Didn’t think so. Now, where was I?

        Oh yes, the murder.  Part Two.

        Are you taking notes yet?

        Find a HAZMAT suit. Sounds tough, right? Pay attention. You can find anything, and I mean anything on the Internet. All you need is a credit card and a good lie.

        Excuse me a moment, I need to take a hit. Please, talk amongst yourselves. I need to go to space now.

        Fuck the world.

        A grab my little bag of happiness and pull a bud of free-thought out from between the plastic. The pungent scent fills my nostrils and I can feel my heartbeat increase ever so slightly. Here comes the highlight of my day. Time to bust it up with no scissors, or grinding, or knife. Fuck. Back to the ways of my ancestors, pulling it apart, ravaging it, like an African cannibal taking his first bite into his dinner of American journalist. Delicious.

        Looking down at the desk in front of me, I feel myself start to crack a satisfied smile. A small heap of plant and crystal lay on the cover of an old English textbook I stole from high school, not for the act of rebellion but for the poetry.

        Poetry. Emotions, so beautifully expressed, so detailed and explicitly written, leaving nothing out. Such an inspiration to know that some humans are more than a component in an operating system.  How ironic; our own convenience and leisure can bring about the deaths of millions. Computers can teach us how to build a homemade explosive, how to assemble a makeshift firearm; how to get away with murder.

        Soon enough…

        But for now, let’s just sit back and take a hit. Go ahead, grab your own, I’ll wait for you.
        If you believed that, you’re already lost. Turn off your television sets, close your notebooks, and grab a fucking razor. Remember, it’s not up the road or across the street, it’s both with a touch of slitting your neck.

        I reach for my favourite apparatus, a green bong with a silver dragon curling around the neck, it’s head sneering and breathing fire at the spot the bowl and stem should go.
        Angry and unforgiving. Just like me.

        Pack the bowl to the rim, flick the lighter or strike the match, and incinerate that free thought. Breathe it in, and don’t you dare waste even a single wisp. I mean it. Repeat if necessary. For me it is. It always is. Just another fucking routine.   
 
        With my eyes half closed, I walk to the dilapidated, filth I call a futon, located in the back of my dark living room by the window. Looking through the grime and grit on the unwashed window, I can see the foreboding clouds on the horizon. I dare the rain to come.
        I’m the only one who lives here now, my roommate long gone, living with his boyfriend in a bigger city two hours away. Lucky fucker. He’s happy. He’s free. I look at the clock. 12:16 AM. He’s probably getting laid right now. Fuck him.

        I take a quick glance around the room, scanning its emptiness to make sure everything is exactly where I left it. I laugh bitterly. All that’s left after that fucker moving out, or the robberies, or the police raids, or the repos are two cracked pictures depicting wilted flowers, a faded, half-broken study desk I stole from a yard sale, and a multitude of scattered papers. My thoughts, if you will. Oh, and a few big-time, Hollywood movies. Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, and a half dozen others not worth mentioning.

        I’m about to pass out. I know you’re wondering who I am. Call me the storm after the calm. Call me a criminal. Better yet, call me Hollywood. 

        I am the embodiment of humanity at its finest.