Entry H
Unheard Melody
He had long ago given up trying to make sense of the world he lived in, it did not make sense, it was not his world, he had never lived in it, always outside.
To him the world had been an impenetrable bubble full of people who were, to a greater or lesser extent, able to tune-in to the melody of life. On a few occasions he had tried to make sense of it all, if he pushed really hard he could get a finger into the bubble, sometimes a whole fist. It left him exhausted and confused, it never lasted more than a day or two but he felt at the time it was important to try. He tried hard but he never heard the melody, just the distant vibration of a few notes that he caught on a fingertip. It wasn't enough to help but it was enough for him to know that the noise in his head was different, very different. He did not belong here and after a while he gave up trying, it was too painful.
Opening the Stanley knife was not easy, the blood and hair of his last victim had a grip of the blade like a natural glue. Why could he never remember to clean things afterwards? He ran it under the hot tap for a while, the sight of the blood draining away both comforted and sexually aroused him. He had never understood this reaction, nor had he ever known what to do about it but like a moth to a light bulb he was unable to resist anything that reduced the noise in his head, no matter how short lived the respite may be.
He moved away from the tap leaving it running, snapped off the blunt end, extended 2 inches of fresh metal and lay back at the opposite end of the bath. Where to start, left or right? With surprising clarity of thought he decided right first, last time had been left first and he was still here. The knife ran across his wrist easily, as usual there was a spike of ecstasy from that fleeting moment of seeing bone and other tissue before the blood obscured all. He realised again that with every new operation the thrill of that moment was diminishing, nothing would ever compare with the first time. He had no idea how many times he'd tried to recapture that moment but every time it just got further away. He repeated the action with his left wrist, closed the blade, put the knife in his pocket and watched the blood on it's slow meandering journey to the drain. Somehow the fact that it was his blood made no difference.
In this brief moment of tranquillity the story of his life was unrolled before him like a badly woven Persian rug. Devoid of any harmony or balance, the colours either washed out or far too intense, the few patterns that were decipherable were scattered like leaves in the autumn wind. His childhood was pure pitch black, nothingness, memory banks erased, even this last minute frantic search for clues could not find the smallest of recollections in the deepest recesses of his mind. The blackness first broken by early memories of a children's home, a picture of abuse, bullying and deprivation that was not pretty but was at least recognisable. He didn't pay much attention after that, he knew the rest of his life had been nothing more than building a platform from which to launch this moment of release.
Ironically, as he drifted into unconsciousness the noise in his head was replaced with a melody so beautiful it made him cry, for the first time.