Of Playthings and Puppets

Hello, all! I’ve got a special treat for you today: the first chapter of my brand new (and, as of yet, unpublished) novel, Sanity’s Flaw. This is what is currently being passed through literary agents, and so I figured “Why should they get all the fun?”

So, without further delay, I present Chapter One: 6:03 A.M.

My first memory was of walking along the East River. It was two hours before the first death and a cold Monday morning in December. There was a fine frost on the ground and dense mist hung in the air. As I recall, the ground crunched loudly beneath my boots with every step. It was my first sound, and when I paused to look toward my misbegotten journey’s beginning, it grew ever more dramatic. Aside those murky waters, gazing at the trail I had unknowingly completed, the grinding crunch never seemed to stop. Even the latent burning of wind buzzing past my ears and the crying horns of distant ships pleading for my attention couldn’t call the sound away. I can still hear it, even now, nearly two decades later.

To say it’s haunting would be an understatement.

Yes, it was a Monday morning and I was walking slowly up the cement path, with no other person in sight to guide me. Instead, instinct alone drove me on, a notion that only fed my confusion and frustration. At the time, I already knew the city’s layout, but I couldn’t name a single street. I also knew the river, but not its origin. As to the path before me, I knew where and when each stride should land, but couldn’t describe how I had come to be there on such an icy morning. And as for myself, I could feel greatness flowing within me, desperate to be released upon the world.

Yet I was a victim of lost memories. A blank slate. And so I wandered forward, ever forward.

And as I wandered, I questioned. What was the meaning of my life? Why was I there? In my gut, I knew I was set loose with a distinct purpose, a strategic goal set forth by some creator. God? Whether or not He or She truly meant for me to target the city or the people within it, to cure it of its ailments, I still don’t know. I’m considering it in depth here, now, for the first time, so many years later, but when I looked upon New York City with an empty stare as nineteen ninety-three drew to a close, my thoughts all ended with the same question: what do I do now?

Eighteen years later, it’s just another question I have yet to answer. Eighteen years. That is far too long a time not to understand the actions of a single week, and yet there are still so many more questions. Why didn’t I simply walk away and embrace the offered freedom? Why didn’t I try to find help or attempt to rationalize my actions? Why must I remember the week now as but a disheartened soul? It is difficult to address these concerns knowing what I do, knowing that whatever woes and wherefores I now describe of my short and pitiable life, none can truly describe the tortures I, and the people I met, had to endure.

I was not unlike a marionette, a doll forced to dance by some unseen puppeteer in order to weave a tale of despair and destruction in my wake. I felt no remorse on the surface, yet my heart ached with each and every woman. Did I even have a heart that day, or did that come only later? Did Antoni do that to me?

I suppose that makes this story as much his as it is mine. Perhaps Antoni’s even more so, actually. Our paths were so fatally intertwined—what else could I have done to make amends for the rather unfortunate series of events that unfolded for my dearest friend? An apology would never suffice, and none was ever given. How could I simply apologize for setting off what tore his life apart through and through? It couldn’t be done. I wouldn’t be able to stand myself if I had but said sorry after leaving him with no hope for the future. He was a brilliant man, and quite pleasant, and I never meant to do him harm—but I will let my actions speak for themselves. No point in shaming his memory.

Before we get to that, though, I must ask that, as you follow whatever sort of storyline I inevitably create, you please keep in mind that point: I never consciously intended to harm any of the victims. Not once. And I still believe, to the deepest depths of my heart, that were it not for the actions of that week, much more damage would’ve been dealt upon the poor souls who found their time with me cut short.

It is, of course, so much a matter of opinion, but as I sit here now within this isolated terminal, pondering the lives of those self-proclaimed innocents I freed, it is not for sanity’s sake that I’ve sought to commit my atrocities to paper after all these years. Nor is it merely for historical perspective or for the occasional editorial revolutionary who believes my word is first and foremost invaluable to the scientific study of the criminal mind. No. Instead, I’m writing this now for those of you who believe—truly believe!—in what you see, in what you hear, taste, smell, and even touch. I’m writing this for the readers who walk the world in disbelief of the men and women and children who stare at the television and hang onto the endless lies fed through the mass media. This book—this account of that week in December—it’s for all of you who seek to know the absolute truth, who want access to all of the details, who wish those in charge of our lives would let us know what the true, unbiased events and simply be done with it!

I shouldn’t come on so strongly. You need to be convinced. There’s no point making an argument, a statement, like that without backing it up. Otherwise I just come off as insane and I’ve tried for the past eighteen years to prove that I’m not. So yes, I am putting off my other activities for the day and sitting down to type this with a guard at my back and bars on my window for you, and for a very specific reason…. But why should I spoil it for you? You have to see it as Antoni and I did, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll understand everything that’s ever plagued your life.

Or maybe not.

Please check back here next week for another excerpt from my forthcoming novel, Sanity’s Flaw. You won’t regret it.