7. Obsessive Compulsive

7

Obsessive Compulsive

 

The eyes are the window to the soul, an old English proverb made famous by William Shakespeare. It means that supposedly one can accurately judge another simply by looking into their eyes. It’s a theory I like to believe in, I often made snap judgments about people upon meeting them and was regularly proven to be spot on. With something as simple as eye contact, bonds can be formed and connections made. To sit and ponder this, it’s an astonishing thing. No words have to be spoken; no body language displayed and two complete strangers can develop strong feelings and opinions about each other. All within the split second it takes to look into one another’s eyes.

                 It’s because of this that I believe in love at first sight. Without a window to the soul, love at first sight is nonsense. It’s merely finding someone attractive, which is not love. Even to fall in love shortly after meeting someone is impossible. Everyone you meet is displaying an altered image of themselves, a ‘highlights package’ of their true personality. To fall in love with that; is to fall in love with a fictional character that the subject of your love has created. A character they may never live up to. To look deep into someone’s eyes however, to look into that window and stare directly at his or her soul. Transcends the facades of a persons words or appearance and reveals them in their purest form. And to love that; to love a person’s bare bones, flaws and all. That is true love and it can happen quicker than you can say, “Holy s**t, I’ve never felt this before.”

               It’s how I feel about Rachel. I’d looked into her eyes and saw kindness and compassion. An ability to see the best in everyone and I hate myself for it but I love her. I hate myself because she has a fiancé, she’s happy and I should be happy for her but as I looked into her I eyes, all I wanted was for her to be with me instead of him. I fear what she might have seen when she looked into mine. Would she have seen a scared little boy, overwhelmed by a situation he wasn’t equipped for, or the cold dark eyes of a killer? Either way she’d have been seeing the real me, I’d somehow stumbled into a situation that had turned me into both.              

                I’m on all fours on my kitchen floor, a rubber glove on each hand and a bucket of hot water next to me. The blood on the floor has congealed and dried in all the nooks and crannies making the clean up job difficult. I’ve been scrubbing the same spot of blood for minutes, rubbing the floor with the rough side of a sponge in an energetic back and forth motion. Sweat dripping from my head and a burning sensation in my arms. The relentless scrubbing on the laminate floor makes a rhythmic sound like a percussive sample from a Pink Floyd B-side, which strangely spurs me on. I get wrapped up in each blood spot I clean; complete tunnel vision until it’s gone. So much so that I regularly get disheartened when I look up and realize the whole floor is still more or less covered.

                Paul is now laid out on a large piece of plastic sheeting in the hallway. Getting him there was a tough task, humans are heavy and with rigor mortis beginning to set in, the distance of around eight feet took half an hour. The temperature of his body upon picking him up was surprisingly cold, his eyes are sort of half closed and his mouth is open. He lies there, on his back in the hallway looking up at the ceiling. The expression on his dead face makes him look like he’s spotted something upon it that mildly fascinates him. He festers there and it may be psycho-sematic but I’m sure the flat is beginning to smell, wafts of dried blood and decaying flesh occasionally aggravating my nostrils.  

                I glance at the clock, it’s mid afternoon, there’s hours until nightfall, when I intend to get Paul out of my flat. My plan is a relatively simple one. I’d found Paul’s car key in his pocket and I now knew he’d parked outside a building a few doors down from me. As soon as it’s late enough I will put Paul in his own car boot and drive him out to the quietest place I can think of (which is around an hours drive away) and send the whole package up in flames. I’ll syphon fuel from the car and use a match to get the fire started. It sounded as simple as getting rid of a body could sound, there’s only one niggling issue in the back of my mind. I’d only ever driven a car on four separate occasions; I’d never passed a test or anything and am certainly not an accomplished driver. If any police were to notice my inevitably erratic driving and stop me, it would be game over. If I were spotted by anyone at any point it would be game over. The events of the evening will determine perhaps the next twenty years of my life.  

               I try not to over-think it; I have hours until I do anything. Anything other than scrub this floor. I’m sure the blood is growing; spots seem to appear in places I’ve already spent a long time scrubbing. My arms drive on, back and forth but they’re fighting a losing battle. I put my sponge back in the bucket, the water it contains now a dark red. My brain is out of sorts; it’s lost its edge. I feel blunted; I haven’t slept for a couple of days now and it’s starting to tell. I sigh as I get up to change the water for a fourth time. Standing, I can examine the floor from a better angle and see how much scrubbing I still have to do. About a fifth of the job is done, a clear clean patch on one side of the kitchen. The clean, clear patch doesn’t stay there for long. I recoil as right before my eyes; blood spots begin to appear where just seconds ago the floor was clean. I kneel down again and start to scrub the newly appeared blood spatter, rubbing hard with the sponge. Every time I clear some of the mess, more appears in its place. I stand up, slightly panicked. I’d never suffered any form of psychosis before and I certainly didn’t expect it to feel this self-evident. Deep breaths I think to myself it’s just in your head. That piece of floor is clean you know it is. I examine the rest of the kitchen floor, how much of the mess is real and how much is fabricated by my newly developed lunacy? It didn’t matter, to my eyes the floor was covered in blood and I had to clean it. I refill the bucket with fresh, clean hot water and with a sigh return to my knees. Turning to dip the sponge in the newly filled bucket I notice the water it contains is already �" inexplicably, a deep red. I shake my head and close my eyes for a minute, before I can muster the courage to look again. Second time around the water is clean as it should be. I dip the sponge and begin cleaning again, relentlessly scrubbing the floor into submission, focusing solely on the job at hand and trying not to think about my fragile mental state.

                  Night falls and upon glancing at the clock I notice it’s midnight. I’ve done nothing but scrub the same twenty-inch square for the last nine hours. The muscles in my arms are twitching and shaking; exhausted by the constant and lasting effort I’ve put them through. My whole body feels weak and my brain numb, a feverish obsession with cleaning the floor had taken hold and it’s only now that I’ve stopped, I can feel the effects it’s had on my body. I turn to look at the hallway, to see the soles of the shoes on Paul’s feet, the rest of his body hidden by the darkness of the landing. The kebab shop downstairs closes at around this time on Sundays, I intended to move Paul at 2am when the streets would be quiet and everyone downstairs had gone home. Remembering the difficulty I’d had moving him a small distance, I decide to give up on the floor and take some rest and get something to eat. I’m going to need the strength. Completing the task ahead will take everything I’ve got, mentally and physically.

               Before I know it; it’s half past one, I still haven’t eaten anything. I haven’t moved, I’d just sat there staring at the floor. Stirring myself I take off my rubber gloves and stand up. Nerves take over and my breathing becomes shallow, life never trains you for this kind of thing. I take Paul’s car key from the kitchen table and stepping over his body walk through to my flat door. I put on a jacket with a tall collar and the only baseball cap I own �" a hand-me-down from Dan, and head downstairs. I couldn’t risk dragging Paul’s body down the street so stage one was to move his car to a more convenient position.

               It’s an eerily still night, the streets are predictably vacant, fortunately so is the kebab shop over which I reside �" every building within sight is in darkness and the pavement directly in front of me is empty - so far so good. I walk down the street to where Paul’s car; a silver hatchback sits by the path and use his key to unlock it. I clamber in and shut the door, flinching at the volume of the car door as it shuts. I need to be as quiet as possible, the last thing I want is anybody’s attention, perhaps it’s as a result of this factor that every sound being made seems to be amplified tenfold. I sit in the drivers seat for a moment, breathing heavily. My whole body trembles with a mixture of weakened muscles and anxiety. A thought hits me; the chances are small but there may be clues in this car. Clues as to whether Paul was innocent or not. His protests before I’d killed him had repeatedly played out in my mind whilst I’d been scrubbing the kitchen floor. My confidence in his guilt was waning over time; I needed proof, needed closure on the actions of the man before I ended his life. I open the glove box and feel my eyes light up. A wave of eagerness washes over me, sat in there is Paul’s phone. Surely some answers must lie inside it. The phone is locked and password protected, meaning the information I can ascertain is limited but Paul was lying about one thing; before he died he’d claimed that Sarah was crazy about him and phoned him constantly. He’d been in my flat for twenty-four hours and there wasn’t a single missed call. Because she’s dead I tell myself. Because he killed her the same night he killed Izzy. Paul was a liar, he’d killed two girls and his life has been ended abruptly and painfully, a fate his living actions deserved.

                After a brief and fruitless inspection of the rest of the car I put the key in the ignition and start the engine. My heart is thumping out of my chest, I try to compose myself. Getting this wrong would prematurely put an end to my plan I take deep breaths and try to remember everything I know about driving. I press down on the clutch and place the gear stick into the first gear position. My hands are visibly shaking as I rest them on the steering wheel. Slowly and carefully, I apply pressure to the accelerator pedal and gently lift up on the clutch to try and find the biting point. The engine shudders to its death. I’ve stalled, sighing I rub my face with my hands. C’mon Stewart I try to encourage myself c’mon you can do this. Deep breaths, calm down, stop shaking and concentrate. The gear stick is put back into neutral and I start the engine a second time. Clutch, first gear. I apply pressure to the accelerator and gently lifting the clutch; the car edges forward. In error I apply too much pressure to the accelerator, over-revving the engine, it growls loudly. It’s only a one-litre hatchback but in the deathly still of the night the engine noise cuts through the air like the roar of a fighter jet. I panic and bring my foot off the clutch, stalling the car for a second time. Adrenaline surges through my body; panicked and stressed I repeatedly hit the steering wheel with my palm. “F**k, f**k!” I shout, my body shakes violently, I’m hyperventilating and the most prominent emotion I have is fear. The noise I’d made with my last attempt at moving the car was loud enough to attract an audience; if just one person witnesses what I’m doing then my life is over. My future depends on moving this car and getting rid of the body and succeeding in doing it unnoticed. I try to compose myself and ignite the engine for a third time. Allowing it to idle for a few minutes I focus on the task at hand. My tired brain and tired body needs to find another level. For a third time I put the car into first. Slowly the car edges forward, applying the revs gently and steering into the road I increase the speed and successfully transfer the car to second gear. The adrenaline and relief brimming over my edges causes me to laugh aloud as I take the first corner. “That’s it, good car.” I speak to it as though I’m riding a horse. With relative ease I direct the car around the block and pull up right outside my front door, placing the car boot as close to the entryway as possible. Getting out of the car I can feel my heart racing, not with fear now but with something else. In my whole life I’d never so much as stolen a penny sweet from a corner shop. Here I am trying to get away with murder and though I’m ashamed to admit it. Whilst terrifying, there’s something extremely thrilling and exciting about the experience.

               Back upstairs I wrap Paul in the plastic sheeting on which he is laid. Before attempting to lift him I take a last look at the kitchen floor, there’s more blood on it than ever before. I shudder; my brain is playing tricks on me, a new and uncomfortable feeling. I pick up Paul’s plastic wrapped carcass and drag it to the top of the stairs. He’s heavy and my body is at its limits, panting and sweating. It’s nearly over I tell myself, a blatant and ineffective lie. I pull Paul to the edge of the staircase and begin to drag him down the stairs. It’s nearly over.

 

Reviews

[Jennie Baron]

I was captured by Stewart's story in the first chapters and fully intended to read on. For some reason only today did I decide to revisit it and find additional chapters, for which I apologize.

My reaction was similar to April's. You've definitely created empathy for Stewart, for he truly is part frightened little boy as well as part cold-blooded killer. Also, I could vividly picture the scenes because you've described them so well with an intelligent vocabulary. And the way you created suspense was indeed artful. Definitely a page-turner.

[AprilRN1210]

very nice addition.... great internal dialogue and buildup into the next chapter... had me giggling in spots, romantic awwww'ing in spots, and heart racing in anticipation in other spots...