Letter Found Randomly Behind a Wooden Shed Full of Stained Meat Hooks and Rusty Circular Saws

These things are not easy to write about. It’s hard to find the words, but I’ll try. I have to try. If I don’t write this out, then no one will know. Or perhaps someone will know. Or maybe many people already know, but they don’t think of these things in literal terms. Only as a figurative truth, and figurative truths are only half-truths hiding reality behind a veil of language. Nobody takes figurative truths as reality. Not even the religious. Though they try. They understand parables. And what is a parable if not a truth hidden behind a lie?

So back to the stories. Readers understand fiction. But do they know where it comes from? Some people write fiction, and they think they understand, but  do they really? Most writers place one word after another. Sometimes there’s a plot written out before hand in an outline. Sometimes it starts with an image. But none of these things are tangible. They are only ideas. Only ideals. Only they aren’t. That’s what I’m trying to get at. They’re real. As real as you, the reader. As real as me, the writer. And if they are as real as you and me, then they must be real. That only makes sense.

But what are they? I wish I could say.

I see them. They hide in bushes, behind trees, in cloud formations, on school buses, playgrounds, boring classrooms, dull offices, long commutes, short commutes, bike rides, jogs, showers, sitting on the shitter, or  staring at the stars. The stories, they live. They breathe. Worst of all, they breed.

I see them covering the world like a plague of locusts. They swarm and devour entire families, entire cultures, leaving a bland homogeny in their wake. And I hate them.

The stories, they crossbreed. None of them are pure anymore. All of our cultures, they are gone. And who’s to blame? The stories.

It started out as cave paintings, grew into campfire tales, bards reciting epic poems, and then the printing press. Then there were movies, and television, and , finally, the internet. At each stage, at every level, the stories grew more alike. We share stories, we lose our borders, and when we lose our borders, we lose ourselves.

And so my job is to remove the stories. To stop them from being told. But the problem is, there are stories as long as there are people. And people will tell stories as long as they exist. They will crossbreed their mythologies and philosophies, until one day all individual cultures are left for dead. I can’t let that happen.

We must stop the cross-pollination of ideas. This is my mission in life. To cull the stories from your screaming tongues. To end the impurities of the unjust. To help the world find its own identity once again, an identity far removed from our polluted cross-cultural present. We must return to the purity of the original races, the original cultures.

And I know you’re out there rolling your eyes. You think I’m some sort of neo-Nazi or racist or something. But I’m not (and I know by denying this I am only proving my own racism in some circles), but that’s not what this is about. It’s about you. It’s about me. It’s about how these words I write leave me and enter you. We share a thought. We may not agree, but the thoughts are shared. That is, if I did my job right, if I wrote things correctly.

And when I tell you my hands are stained, what do you think about? When I say my hands have been inside the dreamers of the world, what does that bring to mind? If I were to tell you how I love the feel of decayed flesh, would this disgust you or secretly turn you on? If I were to write, in detail, about every atrocity I’ve undertaken, would you look away? I sincerely doubt it. You’d read faster.

So, you see, you are no longer just you. Now, you are part me, too.

And if you ask me, depending on who you are, knowing who I am, that’s pretty fucking terrifying.

Sincerely,

The Marquis de Sade

How We Met

The Geek loped in circles after the chicken. His gangly arms and legs swung in clumsy arcs. Thick drool trailed from his chin. When he ran, translucent plumes of snot and saliva erupted from his face as he gasped and laughed. He would jump towards the chicken, the chicken would veer off at the last second, and he would grunt as he hit the dirty ground, sending up a cloud of dust.

The gathering audience laughed and cheered.

The chicken ran in circles while it clucked with terror.

Bawk. Bawk. Bawk.

The Geek smiled and followed the clucking chicken with his eyes which were large, glassy, shining, black, and empty. His pupils contracted into tiny condensed dots full of darkness. The crowd could see The Geek’s posture shift as he made slow calculations with whatever it was he kept contained inside his large, conical, and bald skull. The Geek crouched low and leaped. The chicken clucked. The Geek grabbed it tight and pulled it up towards his open mouth and revealed jagged, uneven teeth.

Bawk. Bawk. Wet crunch.

The Geek chomped the tiny skull and smiled. A thin trail of blood and spit coursed fresh rivulets down the thick layer of dirt and dust coating his filthy chin.

The crowd groaned because it was expected of them to be disgusted, but their eyes still smiled. They feigned horror and pulled out their wallets, hungry for the freak show to begin.

I saw it happen. I was there. I was eating fire. My mouth tasted like gasoline spiked with cheap vodka. My tongue burned. My inner cheeks burned. My eyes and lungs burned thanks to the harsh chemical fumes wafting off my torches. I saw you, and I felt everything. I noticed everything. Through the haze, I found something resembling clarity.

You know because you were there. I noticed you because you cried. You were the only one who cried, and right then, I knew I wanted to leave the freak show behind. I just wanted to drink your tears. I knew they would taste sweet. They would be cool and refreshing. They would wash the chemicals and fire from my mouth and leave me healed. I would be baptized in the purity of those tears and reborn as something better.

I approached you. You took my hand when I offered to help you up. I saw the faint hint of a smile borne from my own act of kindness and felt a real sense of purpose for the first time in my life. I could show you kindness, and through my kindness, help you forget, or at least forgive.

For you.

My heart. My love. My wife.

We left the freak show hand-in-hand.

Sometimes, in the years that followed, I would turn around. I would hear the applause, the jingle-jangle of loose change, the laughter from The Geek, the shout of The Barker, and I would consider returning. I would remember the taste of fossil fuels and alcohol and fire. Sometimes, I wanted to taste those poisons again. But always, your hand was there – and then other hands, smaller hands – and together, you and the family you gave me would pull me back so I could remember what really matters and understand.

My heart. My life.

The Geek smiles only because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

You know. You care.

And now I do too.