Karma Killer

Also, fuck that. No one compels me to say what I don't want to say.

Her eyes twinkled. She knew me. She knew what my reaction to that would be.

"Go on then. Ask me something I'd normally lie to. Or no, better yet, let me."

She put down her drink she was holding and leaned forward, looking me directly in the eye.

"Why did you never like hanging out with my mother?"

Fuck. There were reasons and there were reasons.

"She's a tramp," I said, instead of what I opened my mouth to say. Normally when asked that question, I'd make comments about her cat and allergies, or the lumpy guest room bed, or me having to work, or her making some food I disliked. Anything but the truth. There are things you just don't admit to your wife, and being hot for her mother was one of them. Turns out Ruby knew all along why I didn't want to go.

She smirked at me, like she'd won.

"A tramp?" she asked, smugly.

"Yes, the stuff she wears, the way she talks. She... gets me hard. And I hate it. That I'm attracted to your mother. What kind of pervert is that?"

FUCK. She was right. I was blabbing like a fat kid caught with his fingers in the Christmas cake.

She laughed softly. "Why do you think she did that, Olly?" she asked, pointedly. "Once she realized the effect she had on you, she amped it up every time we were there. Just to get a rise out of you. So to speak."

Well, weren't all sorts of home truths coming out now?

I guess that's the point, though. If this was my own imagination, it was a pretty good one. And I was not known for my imagination particularly.

I did idly wonder if this was true. Was I able to divine truths from half heard statements, body language, behaviors at the time that I didn't consciously understand, but my subconscious did? And now it was spouting it all back at me, right before I died? If so, it was all a bit late. I could have used that ability months ago. Maybe not be in the position I was in now, if I had.

We sat looking at each other for a few moments, me being mortified and her being all superior.

"Well, I think I made my point. The same is true for me. Ask me something, Olly. Anything. Go on."

The obvious one was right there.

"Why? Why were you found naked, covered in sex juices, hickies, in his car? When you were supposed to be in Chicago, why were you discovered naked in a car in Wisconsin, with this guy? Who was he to you?"

She sighed. "Straight to the point as always, Olly. Well, can't put this off I guess."

She picked up her drink, took a long sip, put it down and sighed again.

"Well, fairly obviously, I was having an affair. I mean, that much is obvious. It hadn't been going on long. Only six weeks,"

"SIX WEEKS!" I erupted. If this... whatever it was, edited emotions, it wasn't doing that good of a job.

"Yes, just... six weeks. It was... on its way out. The thrill was dying and the guilt was starting to mount. I was having real trouble looking you in the eye."

"I should fucking think so," I sputtered, indignantly.

"Olly," she said, hesitantly, reaching out and putting her hand on mine. I debated pulling mine away, but what was the point? She wasn't real, so trying to hurt her was pointless.

"I'm really sorry. For all of it. For hurting you. For you finding out that way. For doing it in the first place. For everything. Especially for you ending up here, this way. That just... well, it kills me, but I'm already dead."

The attempt at levity went over my head. I was not in a jolly mood.

She sighed again, and pulled her hand back, putting her head on both hands, elbows on the table.

"I met him at a sales event. You know how it is..." she pleaded with me with her eyes. Understand me.

"No," I said, coldly. "I don't."

"No, you wouldn't," she muttered. "You were always so certain of your path, weren't you?"

I gritted my teeth.

"So this is my fault now?" I asked, holding the anger in. If this is what emotions were when dampened, God alone knows how I'd be if they weren't. And I'm sure He would know.

"No, of course not," she replied, pitifully. "That wasn't my intent. I was just... making a point that your life is different from mine. How we react to things. Our mental processes. You know how different we are. Were."

That I did. She was right about that.

And on the other hand, it's not like my knowing my path had led me anywhere great. I was sitting in a car with a recently fired gun in my hand pointed at my head, after all. That's where my path had led me.

Suddenly the anger just evaporated. What was the point? She wasn't real anyway. I'd made my peace with where I was, in terms of the end of the line.

She saw the change in me, the sudden lack of intent. The slumping on the stool, the avoidance of her eyes.

"Olly... I am sorrier than it is possible to be. That this led you here. To this end. I just... I need to know why?" She was very much pleading now. Sobs were in her voice. I glanced up and saw her distraught. She could see the light go out in me, and she knew she was responsible for that.

"Why would you do this? I am not worth it, Olly. You have to know that. Why would you end your own existence because of something dumb and stupid and fucking insane that *I* did?"

I just sighed and looked at the floor. The movement from anger to just letting go was almost instant. And it was the reason I was in that car.

I'd made my plan, and followed it.

Once I'd come to terms - well, not come to terms, necessarily, more like succumbed to the inevitable, - I'd made my plan. Like I do. Like everyone who knows me does.

I'd resigned, after putting together a list of people who could replace me. I'd documented everything that was going on, what needed to happen for all current negotiations to be completed successfully. Had to ensure that life went on for everyone else.

I'd explained to the various friends, - well, her friends really, I didn't have any close friends of my own, - that her death had taken it all out of me, and I was going to move and start again. I needed to be away from places that reminded me of her. No one really knew the precise circumstances of her death, so everyone just nodded sympathetically and I'm pretty sure sighed a heavy sigh of relief that they'd not have to deal with the widower that was socially inept. They'd feel obligated, but without Ruby, I was a social burden. I knew that, and I didn't hold that against anyone. I would have felt the same, I'm sure. I told a few people I was looking at Chicago, just to give them some closure.

Then I'd spent a week cleaning out the house. Selling everything, giving some things away, then asking the Salvation Army to come clean out all that was left.

Then donated the house to a women's abused and homeless charity. There was no point in selling it; I'd have no need of the money. I'd rather someone got something out of it, that it was useful for a group who'd never have it otherwise.

Then I'd given away our cars, and bought a basic SUV. Something new enough to get me to where I needed to go, but nothing extravagant. There was no point in that. The Tesla had gone to a family in the neighborhood and my BMW had gone to a friend who had sat with me after the police had called me about Ruby's accident. He deserved it. He had done it because his wife had told him to, and also because I genuinely think he was a decent human being. Not especially compassionate for me particularly, he didn't really know me, but in general. And as such, he wasn't going to leave me out in the cold.

Then, with the only things I had left, two sets of clothes, and my phone, I'd driven across country to Idaho, to the Salmon-Challis National Forest. I'd stopped off in Arizona to purchase a gun, selected because private gun purchases had no waiting period. One Glock model 20,.45, with one magazine of twelve bullets. I'd need only one.

Driving along the forest I'd tried to find the least used roads, turned down one after another till I was on little more than a track. Then found a place where I could get the car off the road, hidden behind a tree, powered down my phone - not that anyone would be looking for me, I had no one who would be, - and then out came the gun. The rest you all know.

The fact that Ruby would ask that question, when she thought she knew me so well, that she could predict me, well... it really just went to the root of the whole thing. That I'd been able to hide for so many years.

The deep dark truth of the matter is... I was depressive. Like, a major depressive. I knew it deep inside. I knew why too. I was so utterly worthless as a human, and I knew it, right to the bone. The kind of knowledge that is just omnipresent and part of every decision, to the point where sometimes you make decisions just to spite that internal knowledge.

Now, before you go judging and saying stupid shit like "Oh, I'm sure that can't be true!" and other meaningless expressions designed to sound like you care and that someone just needs to jolly me along, to show me that I'm really worth something, let me make a few points.

Firstly, while I'm socially inept, and out of step with the world, I am not stupid. I came third in my year at college, not to anyone's surprise. I was the archetypal stay-home-and-study nerd. It was safer for me to just not interact that much. I mean, I did. I had a roommate and was in clubs and things like that, but the interactions were quiet and precise and it was clear that most people didn't know how to take me or how to respond to things. I never made a lot of friends. Plenty of acquaintances but no "let's get drunk and watch a stupid movie" friends, if you know what I mean. The kind of friendships that get deeper with time, where you have a lot of shared experiences and things just make you think of that other person, like hearing a song or something. It just didn't happen for me. I don't think I particularly radiated Fuck Off, but I probably didn't radiate Jolly Fun Guy either, and at that age, that's what other people are looking for, I guess. I probably didn't try that hard, looking back, but then no one else did either, so... what?

But I wasn't surprised either. I knew I was different. I wasn't on the spectrum or anything. I was tested several times because even I didn't believe I wasn't, given how I behaved, but no. It was just ingrained mannerisms, rather than faulty wiring. It was a lifetime of falling into a belief that no one ever saw enough to try and derail. I was just there. Oliver. No one looked too deep, after all, why would they?

It's not like I blamed anyone. I wouldn't have looked either.

Now, I'm not trying to make myself out as a manic depressive. They are different to what I was. I was, for want of a better way to describe myself, a functional depressive. Where it was always there, always taunting me, always ready to ascribe a reason for someone's behavior that reinforced its own premise. That's one of the problems of the kind of depression I had. It was smart, and self-justified in extremely believable ways.

Don't get me wrong. Like I said, I'm not stupid. I'm even quite smart. And I'll say that myself; being able to recognize intelligence has nothing to do with self-regard. I can recognize I'm smarter than the average while still understanding how worthless I am in total. Being able to hold to somewhat contradictory beliefs is a definition of intelligence. See? My depression is smart, and able to self-justify. It can even use itself as a support for being smart, which then in turn bolsters its reason for existence.

You can start to see the circular logic here. But being smart and understanding what is happening, and even why some of the time, does not stop it happening. You can understand why a tornado starts, and how it works, but that doesn't stop you being swept to your death if you are caught in it. Depression, like extreme weather, is not something you can reason your way out of if you are caught in the center. Depression is the sea the boat-of-you is wallowing in. You can bail as much as you want, you are never going to bail your way to dry land.

So I knew what I was. How I reacted to things inside. And I learned at an early age to suppress the shit out of that, and cover it over. My parents had some idea of what was going on with me, because of early statements I made, but they had no real idea of the extent of it, because by puberty, I had learned to mask it all. And that's when it hit in earnest. When you start asking yourself why you exist at all. What value you are giving to the world. How you'll never really matter and why should you? Most people don't. There was no compelling reason why the world or the people in it would consider you for a second.

Let's face it, most people are extremely introverted in terms of what they care about most. It's all me, me, me. How does this affect ME? What do *I* get out of it? The reality of existence in the 21^st century is an incredibly narcissistic point of view, fueled by social media and reality TV, where people get handed amazing things for basically being either delusional and stupid enough not to understand it, or are willing to trade their dignity in the edit suite for some short-term notoriety that they chose to believe is 'respect'. So many people these days mistake attention for value.

In western society we are all programmed to believe that we are all special in some way. That's what the American Dream is built on, at root. And as society has slowly removed obstacles from life, it's become a popularity contest that is inevitably rigged to the haves over the have nots. But society functions best when everyone believes it's a level playing field when it patently is not, so everyone buys into it and imagines they are 'interesting' and that they deserve other people's attention - and money - just because they are 'authentic' or whatever word is currently being bandied around.

The reality is that most, no, pretty much all are nothing special and never will be. We are the grist that society demands in order to be functional. You may think there is no difference between you and Bill Gates, that you deserve all the breaks and luck that he has had, but you aren't going to get it. You are just gonna carry on working for McDonald's and making bad life choices and do things that are actively against your own self-interests because you are too stupid to really understand that you aren't ever going to be part of his class of society. That the huge random situation that put him where he is, that provided him with the opportunities that he admittedly took full advantage of, are never going to come your way.

Now, all this seems pretty bleak and cynical, but that's how it is when you really get down to it. We now have a country full of entitlement, anger, narcissism and plenty of opportunity to let that anger out in various violent ways because hey, even serial killers are famous and get a book deal, right? People know who they are. They are someone. They are considered and talked about and make a dent in societal consciousness, if only for terrible reasons and for a split second in time. When most of us, let's face it, do not and have zero chance of ever doing so.

This is just part of the mindset I have had for years, watching the world go by and not feeling especially part of it. I have more of an anthropological view of humanity than as an active member of it. The ultimate misanthrope.

You might point out that I knew I was valued at work. I was able to negotiate and make plans, step by step, that covered every eventuality I could think of, and I was successful doing it, well, at least till the last issue. So, if I was valued at work and knew it, could I not use that to beat down the depression when it raised its ugly head? Surely that was proof positive that I *was* worth something? It's a good question. But depression, particularly in smart people, has an answer for everything.

I was valued not for me but for my ability to follow steps. The reality is that you could program a computer to do what I did, assuming you could create enough situational intelligence and experience. What I did was nothing really special. I wasn't clever or brilliant or anything unique. I just did my homework and the resulting plan was a direct result of that. Anyone could do it if they tried, just most people didn't. Because of a lack of discipline, a fondness for incorrect gut instinct, pure incompetence, delusions of competence, Dunning Kruger, take your pick.

The point is though, it wasn't me being valued, it was the work. It was the process. And like I said, anyone could do it. They just didn't choose to. That didn't mean I was special or clever or particular better than anyone else, just that I wasn't carrying all the emotional baggage that most people were. It's not like people sought me out for social or personal reasons at work. I was sought out because I had a process down pat, nothing more and nothing less. That didn't mean the work and the process didn't have value; it was, after all, what I was paid to do. Just that I didn't especially. If it wasn't me doing the work, somebody else would. There was nothing essential about me for that equation to work. One wheel on a car is not any more special than the other wheels. Well, apart from a steering wheel, but I was never going to be that. Neither are you, more than likely.

But for all of that, I am smart enough to recognize I have to function as part of the herd, because being a hermit doesn't appeal either. Rejecting society just means shitty plumbing and no nice meals that other people cook and while I might be a misanthrope, I like to eat good food as much as the next man.

The fact is that when I was young, I said and did things from actual genuine internal reaction to the world and my parents got extremely worried by the questions I was asking and took me to places, and sometimes I had to stay overnight or for days on end being prodded and asked inane questions, and I soon learned to just shut the fuck up, rather than go through that. Protective measures were learned and ingrained, to avoid having excruciation encounters with well-meaning morons, who might actually end up have some degree of power over me. I always thought the funny thing about those experiences was that at no point were any solutions offered. There were attempts to figure out what might be wrong with me, but no one ever said, "Well, if it's this, then we do that to fix it." It was metaphorical prodding for the sake of it.

My parents. Good old Mom and Dad. I should mention them. They are gonna get some of the blame for this, not because I hate them or anything. Just because... well, they are to blame for some of it, though not through any conscious choice on their part. They aren't malicious or nasty or anything at all. The only real thing they are guilty of is apathy. And at their age, I would well understand it.

I have six siblings. No, we aren't catholic. That's the first question people ask, closely followed by 'are we Mormon?' No, we weren't that either. I think Mom and Dad just liked sex and had some aversion to birth control, to be honest. Not something I want to dwell on, but they had seven kids, so the conclusion is somewhat inescapable.

I have five brothers, a sister, and then there's me. I'm the youngest. The age gap is twenty years between me and the eldest brother. All the rest of them are fourteen years apart, and then there's me, six years younger than the nearest sibling to me, my sister. That's quite a gap, and let me tell you from practical experience, it does not foster a close sibling relationship. When my brothers and sister were out carousing and getting into trouble with their friends and each other, I was a persistent kid who, desperate to create some degree of familial connection, wanted to talk about TV shows all the time, none of which they'd seen or remotely cared about. I was annoying, to be tuned out and ignored so they could associate with their peers. When I was old enough to be at less annoying to them, they'd all moved out and moved on with their lives and weren't that interested in talking to someone they still thought of as a pre-teen who talked about crap they had no interest in.