Mass Murder

“What’s the premise?”

“The premise is Mass Murder,” Darla stated, and then took a long sip from her whiskey, neat.

“Ok. A popular subject. Non-Fiction?”

“Oh…no, Fiction. Real murder is horrible. I find it deeply disturbing, some of the ghastly murders that people actually commit. Horrible.” Another, longer, sip of whiskey, and then a clearing of the throat.

Tiffany wanted to laugh, but could see from Darla’s tightened brow and pursed lips that her friend had become very serious. This is a face that a moment ago was bright and cheery, eyes wide with joy over her accomplishment. Real murder wasn’t just disturbing to her on a matter-of-fact level, Tiffany realized. Real murder infected Darla’s imagination. She couldn’t just know of the murderous acts without her mind instantly mapping out the psychological aspects of the disturbance. Every moment of the murder’s stages were vividly seen in her mind’s eye, starkly vibrant. This was the part of her that enabled her to write these scenes for her films. “The psychological aspects of such crimes are not lost on you, hmmm?”

She ran her long fingers through the strands of black hair that were hanging down her face, and brought them back over her forehead. “Anytime I hear of these occurrences, I began to analyze what possibly could have happened to the murderers to bring them to act out such deeds. The more details I hear of the murders, the more disturbing it becomes for me. I can see every detail. How can people do that to each other? The worst ones are the sexual ones. To me, those are the most complicated. You can’t boil those murders down to acceptable reasons such as revenge or sudden rage.”

“The sexual murders almost always involve men inflicting their sick wills upon women and children. They also seem to operate off the basis of kidnapping.” Tiffany smoothed her dress over her thighs to her knees, where it ended. She repeated this motion a few times and then sipped her Chardonnay.

“Just the worst in human nature, the most disgusting aspects of animal dominance filtered through the mind of a human being. No, much too much for me to acknowledge as a reality. Those poor, poor victims, it’s just awful!”

“Have you ever hypothesized that what the victims go through may be a karma payback?”

“What? How can a child have experienced enough of life, and operated it with enough understanding to perpetrate any action that would deserve such a terrible reaction!” Darla gulped the last of her whiskey and set it down hard against the table.

Tiffany could see she was upsetting her friend, but felt compelled to continue discussing the idea to its end. “Karma stems from the belief that involves the ideas that we live multiple lives in an infinite scope of reality. Maybe the bad karma is carried over from previous misdeeds in previous lives.” She sat up straight and leaned towards Darla. “But, after such horrific punishment, they are reborn into a wonderful existence with a clean slate and a chance to begin again.”

Darla sat back in her seat and eyed her friend suspiciously. “That is a bit too forgiving of a concept for me. I can’t perceive it in such an ethereal, transcendental aspect.” She paused, shook her head and stared at the bottom of her empty glass. “You know, I’m not even making this about a human killer, although humans are being killed.”

“Who’s doing the killing?”

“A pack of vicious, sharp toothed long clawed, goblins.” She smiled, turned, and flagged down a waitress. “Another whiskey, make it neat.”