The Parallel

Journalist goes to interview a man he never expected to be able to learn about living from.

The Parallel

​I will never forget the day I met him. I guess I had never really had a real idea of who I was, but then again it wasn’t something I ever questioned. No one wakes up and questions themselves and their choices. But he did. And he knew more then the rest of us about who he was and why.
​I put down my pen on the notepad and stared in awe at him. I could hear the crying of dozens of people behind me, but I only thought of him. He was so still sitting there. He showed no regret on his face and I knew that for those behind me he would seem to want to smile. But I knew that wasn’t him. He was not proud of what he did, nor did he wish to go back. And that was when it happened. It seemed as if he was looking directly into my eyes, with the just the glass between us. Never forget he told me with just that look. So I closed my eyes and shut off the noise behind me. And just as I drifted back to that moment, just hours earlier, all I knew was that they had pulled the switch.


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​“What did you say your name was again?” I stood with my arms out and legs spread apart, trying to allow the two guards to pat me down.
​
​“I’m sorry what did… Hey, don’t touch that!” One of the two men had grabbed my notepad and pen from my outstretched left hand. I lunged forward to grab them when the other man yanked me back to my original position.

​“Calm down,” a third guard said from a few feet to my right. “ We are just trying to be safe. It’s not everyday we get visitors on this sector of the building. Now state your name.”

​I lifted my arms back up and stilled myself. I could see what he meant, it wouldn’t seem that too many people would be interested in coming to a maximum-security prison, especially the side where the kept him.
​
​“I am Mr. John Doherty, here as journalist for the Daylight Tribune and I was approved to speak to Mr. Haven.” I uttered these words in the most confident voice I could muster, but the apprehensive looks of the three guards didn’t help me keep my tone. The two guards patting me down finished and walked out of the room.
​“Look Mr. Doherty, I understand that the public has a right to know about the atrocities committed by Mr. Haven, but I caution you about the interview. Mr. Haven isn’t like any normal man. He can change your thoughts and make you doubt everything you know. He is not a sane man and he will get into your head.” The guard walked over to a table that had been just out of my sight from my earlier position. He grabbed my notepad and pen and walked slowly over to me, holding the objects out. The guard continued, “Do not let what he says get to you. He is a very bad man. And he deserves what is coming.”

​I could only stare back at the man as I slowly took my things.

​“Don’t worry, I have no intentions other than to get my story.” I said the words, but I wasn’t sure if I truly believed them. From what the guard had just said, it seemed I had the right to question myself.
​
​“Follow me.” The guard walked to a door opposite the one the two other guards had just walked out. As I walked through I could see just one long, plain hallway. Every couple of feet there was a glass door, which I assumed wasn’t an easy break. Each one forced us to stop and wait as the guard waited for clearance from a tag he bore on his shirt. We walked and stopped repeatedly at least five or six times before we got to the last door. This door was made from concrete I think. There was a medium sized glass window to the side of it, in which I could see inside two new guards sitting and eating. The guard that walked me threw the hall knocked on the window to get their attention. The one on the left motioned towards his right shoulder to signal for a clearance tag. The guard next to me took his tag and held it up to the window for the man inside to see. The one inside put his thumb up and pressed something on the panel in front of him. There was a loud alarm sound followed by the opening of the concrete door.

​“Ok, this is where I go back. We have cameras inside to keep track, but if you need out quick there is a button on the left wall that will signal in those two.” The guard motioned to the men behind the window, who had already gone back to their food. “You have an hour before we come back in to get him. And remember...” He grabbed my arm and pulled me to attention. “Don’t let him get to you.”
​The guard let me go and stepped aside to allow me in the room. I walked slowly into the area and just as I had fully entered the alarm sounded again, followed by the bang of the concrete door closing. Inside the room, there were three plain walls and one clear one. Behind the clear wall, I could see a toilet, sink, small bookcase, wooden chair, and a bed which was occupied by a figure in gray. He sat facing away from me reading a book. In that moment, I decided it was best to check for the button the guard had told me was on the wall. The minute my eye caught the bright red button I felt a rush of relief. Better to be safe than sorry I thought.

​“Hello, Mr. Haven. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m here with the Daylight Tribune and I would love to get a few words from you if I could.” I walked just a bit closer to the clear wall, making sure to leave plenty of distance. But as I finished speaking the figure did not move.

​“Mr. Haven, I…”

​“I heard you.” The voice was so relaxed yet deep. I watched as he grabbed a small object lying next to him and put it in his book as a bookmark. He stood from the bed and walked over to the bookshelf. “You want to interview me. I guess, sadly, that this means I will not be able to finish my book.” He set the book down on the shelf and turned to face me. I shuttered, but not because there was anything horrifying with his features. But instead because of how nonchalant he was. His features were so relaxed and he looked as if there was nothing to faze him. It was almost as if he didn’t realize that today would be his last. How could a man facing the end be so calm? It scared me.

​“I’m so sorry Mr. Haven, but seeing as this is perhaps the last opportunity to get your take on the story of those people I have to do this now.”

​“Oh, I see. You came to hear the tale of a crazy man. I’m guessing your boss brought you down here, thinking that I would be in the corner rocking back and forth muttering satanic curses. Or perhaps he wanted to get the scoop on how badly I wanted to see their blood gushing from their bodies. Is that it? Is that what you want to hear?” He stepped closer and closer to the wall between us and I couldn’t help but to step back.

​“Well I don’t mean to offend, but it was pretty gruesome…what you did. You tortured, mutilated, and killed twenty-three people. Our sources say that there was a chance that at least ten of them were forced to torture one another until death. And worst of all the police found remnants of skin cells and blood of nine people inside your pots and pans.”

Mr. Haven squinted at me and clenched his fists as if in anticipation of my next words. I was almost too nervous to finish.

​“You ate those people, didn’t you Mr. Haven?” I knew, as the words came out that they had to be said. He unclenched his fists and let go of his tightened face muscles, allowing it to soften in appearance, but he never lost eye contact.

​“You can call me Haven, I do not like the formality that the mister places on the name.” He walked over to the wood chair and pulled it up to the clear wall. He sat down with his hands on his knees and a calm expression. “Yes, I ate them. And those ten people, I did force them to mutilate one another. I will not lie.”

​“Why?”

​Haven laughed at my question, which made me very uncomfortable. He laughed the normal man’s laugh as if I was a coworker of his that had just told him a joke at the office.

​“You know that book I was reading? I would tell you the name but it’s not a recognizable one. It is a very dark story of a man sentenced to death, but before he goes he writes letters to everyone who had led him down his horrific path. I have actually finished and reread it multiple times. Ever since I was a kid I have always come back to it. It’s funny I had never really thought of it until now. But reading that book and then hearing your question reminded me of when I first found it.” He paused and stared at me. And as he spoke he pointed to an area behind me. “How about you grab a chair?”

​I looked behind me to see a similar wooden chair and got it to sit on. I readied my notepad and pen waiting for him to continue.

​“I was ten when I found the book, but that wasn’t when the problems had started. No, they had been going to before my birth. My father was an alcoholic and my mother a drug user. My father spent his days and nights watching television, beating my family, and drinking. My mother spent hers working three jobs and injecting herself with anything she could get her hands on. I had had two siblings. Starvation took one of them and a harsh beating from my father took the other. As I got to the age of ten I was all that was left. I frequently ran to the abandoned houses near ours to escape the sounds of my parents yelling. But I wont forget that day. When I ran and as I closed that door all I heard was my mother screaming ‘why!’ and then bang. My mother was gone. I ran as far as I could to an abandoned house that I frequented and as I hid I noticed that book, just sitting in a pile of old wood boards. How I didn’t notice it until then I don’t know, but I assume it had just been brought there recently. I’ve read it ever since. And even when I learned that my father had shot himself from fear of his own consequences I continued to read that book in every abandoned house I was able to set myself up in.”

​I looked up from my notepad. All I could do was think of the loving family I had grown up with. My three siblings and I were so close even now and coming from a wealthy family I was privileged to receive things that this man could never have dreamed of in childhood. I could now understand the reason for the pain he wanted those people to go through. He had wanted them to feel what he felt. Tortured. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t informed of your childhood experience before coming. And I can see that that pain made you feel you had the right to do what you did to those people, but it still isn’t enough to justify what happened to those poor men and women.” And again he laughed.

“I never said that that was the reason for my actions. I simply was giving you some of my story. Is that not what you are here for?”
​I stared at him in confusion. “Well yes, but I don’t quite understand. If that isn’t your reasoning then what is? I want to know why you did what you did.” Haven leaned in his chair to rest his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. He looked down and sighed. And as he looked back up I could see the tire in his eyes.

​“You know you are very quick to conclusions. Probably why you wanted to be a journalist, huh? Well if you want your story then you better just listen and write, because it gets better. I jumped around different houses for two and a half years before the cops found me. Apparently, everyone had thought that when my father had shot my mother he had gotten me too before offing himself. But when they found me they decided the best thing for me would be to place me into foster care. Of course I was sent to live with the Smithe family and they were just a step or two above where I had been raised. I was still abused on certain levels, but where it was hardest was at school. The school I was transferred to allowed me no friends. People made it a game to tease me and I’d always came home with a swollen face and bloody. I never really told anyone, I was so use to it from before. But I did my best to hide and just keep reading my book. I use to dream of the things I’d do to them. The horrible things I could do to repay the horrible things they did to me. There had been plenty of times where I was brought to the hospital, only to get beaten by my foster parents for being useless against anyone. This lasted throughout all of my schooling” Haven paused and I thought I could see tears welling up in his eyes.
​I felt ashamed, for all I could think of was the people at school who had adored me. Every year of school both faculty and peers loved me. I was the boy that every girl wanted to go with on dates and to dances. I was the boy that teachers gloated to my parents about. I knew there was no way that I could have done what this man had done; what he had been through. Slowly I started to understand more of what pained him enough to force him to commit such atrocities. I started to pity him. His peers had mutilated him.
​
​“That’s why you did it. You treated those men and women the way you were treated as a child. You poor man, you felt forced to do what you did as an act of vengeance. I do not advocate what you did, but I am sorry for what happened to you.” I looked at him with the best expression of sympathy that I could express. But as I did so his expression changed to one of disgust.

​“You still don’t get it. Those problems made me do nothing. But I guess I could let you off with just those stories and have you publish them. Some would see me as evil and others would see me as another lost man who was too confused by his past that he destroyed his future. But in that case I would leave this world without anyone knowing the truth behind me.”

​I rose from my seat in a quick and irritated motion. “Well then what was it? I don’t have all day. The guards will be back in,” I looked down at my watch. “Holy crap, twenty minutes.” Realizing that forty minutes had gone by without much result I sat down while taking a deep breath. “You know what let’s just start from the beginning,” I said as I tried to flip to the first page of my notepad, which I had written notes on before coming. “It says here that the first of your victims is believed to be a woman by the name of Ms. Cummings. She was your fiancé?”
​Haven looked at me with a shocked look and then went back to his calm demeanor. “Aw yes, she was the love of my life. We were perfect together everyone said so. I had met her just a couple years ago at a neighborhood party. She never took her eyes off of me and neither did I of her. The moment she said hello I knew I could never be without her. We did everything together and never left each other’s side. I would wake up to her smiling and she would say to me, ‘I love you,’ and I’d repeat the words to her. Jeanette was her name, Jeanette Cummings. She used to let me read my book to her every night until she feel asleep. Months after we met I proposed, I knew it was what I had to do.” Haven smiled every word and I began to wonder: If he loved her so much, what happened? But he answered faster than I could get the question out. “Then just about a year ago I caught her with another man. I was so mad and hurt I flew into rage and destroyed our living room. If that man I caught her in our bed with had not run away I would have killed him. And before you say ‘so that’s what happened,’ let me finish. I gave my lovely Jeanette another chance; perhaps I was blinded by love. But every other week, for a couple months I found another man and another man, until it happened. My sweet Jeanette came to me and said, ‘I never loved you. You are worthless and weak. I have taken all of your money without you being the wiser. You would have been better off if your father had shot you.’ And as I stood in front of her I died. I had lost the last bit of love and hope I could dig from my soul. And that is where it began.”
​She had killed him. Turned him to shreds and eaten every bit of him. I could not imagine Mrs. Doherty, my newly made wife, to do such a thing to me. Yet as I listened to what he said it had almost seemed so much like how I was with my love. I didn’t know what to say to him. Whether it was that moment alone or all the moments in Haven’s life that led up to his actions, I believed that I saw now the why of Haven. I opened my mouth to improvise the best apology I could when he rose from his seat. He walked around his chair slowly and placed his hands on the back to support his weight as he leaned forward.

​“So do you understand now who I am?”

​“Yes, you are a man who saw so many trials. A man who lived his life waiting to take a stand against the hurt that was brought on him. You were pushed into what you did. You did what you did because of the hardships that hit you throughout life. I first looked at you and saw a mad man. Now I realize that I was given what you were not, so I was not understanding of your pain. I cannot express the proper sorrow.”
​“No!” Haven yelled and pushed the chair over. I got up from my seat and quickly backed away from the wall separating us. I prepared myself to run for the red Help button on the wall when he began to speak again. “You people see life as a game. You can both get lucky and make it or you can be unlucky and fail. The story I know you wish to write is full of pity for me as though I am a victim. I will not deny that I was one at one time, but just as the people who hurt me made their decisions, I made mine. I killed those people because I made the decision to do so. The reality is, is that we make our own choices. It doesn’t matter what happens, what matters is what you do. If the theory is correct that I just acted upon forces of what happened to me then you would have also heard tales of horrific things that I did when I was young. Sure I dreamt of what I’d do, but I never did them. I never harmed anyone until near this day. I read that book to myself and just before the end cam I yelled at the main man, ‘Why? None of those people made you. What you took from what they did made you.’ I believe we were put on this earth to choose and to try. As in a test we are given trials, but we are not tested on the trials but more on how we react to them. If you write anything in your paper it should be this: We should live knowing that it is not the situation that makes us, but the way we handle the situation that makes us. I killed those people by my own decisions. Whether I had grown up any different, I had the same chance to make the same decisions. The again maybe I did have some anger in me, but it was me who tortured, mutilated, and killed those twenty-three, not the people who tortured, mutilated, and killed me.”
​I calmed myself and looked at him. He was right. I had listened to his stories thinking that it was the people who hurt him that committed the crimes. And though everyone in his stories had committed crimes of their own, none were had been the one I had gone in to interview. And I sat and realized that if I wanted to I could do what he had. Even with my perfect life, I could have become him. I could run out now and kill the first person I see on the street using my own judgment in decision-making. Haven was all of us. For we all made decisions whether bad or good. Those people at school who hurt him may have had lives like mine and still did what they did to him. Perhaps many men growing up loved Jeanette and still she hurt him. Haven was right, we humans were not what happened to us, but what we made from what happened to us. And thinking of this I became sick. I could see my own humanity and saw that on the other side of that clear wall was the parallel. Two different worlds that were so close together and always running near each other. Haven had made it onto my parallel, only showing how easy it was to be placed on that path running along with our own.
​“I could have been you. Any of us could be behind that glass waiting for death. The only reason I am not isn’t because I lived the privileged life, but because I made the decision not to be. You fought for as long as you wanted and you stand on that side of the wall because you decided on your own it was time to stop.”

​Haven laughed. “Now you’re getting it Mr...?

​“Mr. Doherty.” Wow, I hadn’t even realized that I never introduced my name.

“Aw, Mr. Doherty, nice to finally meet you. I told you those stories to have you see what I knew you thought you knew compared to what is true. Most would say I was made to do what I did, but what I did was what I wanted. And when I die in just a couple minutes I will have died knowing it was on my own terms. Not sitting and blaming like most people do when faced with the consquences. I am me, not them.”
​An alarm went off and I jumped. I could here I click as the concrete door opened behind me and allowed in the two guards that had patted me down. A second later the third guard who had led me to the cell walked in. I turned to see the first two open a door embedded in the clear wall. They cuffed Haven and walked him past me and into the hallway I came in through. Haven and I stared into each other’s eyes until he had left the room. I felt a hard smack on my back causing me to jump again.
​“So how was it? You get your story?” The third guard grinned at me as I stared in confusion while processing the last hour with Haven. “Oh god, he got to you didn’t he? Just forget what he said he’s a loon. If it helps, the electrocution is happening for the families, of the loved ones he killed, to watch. You know, to help them feel a sense of justice. And don’t worry it’s a one-way mirror. You can see him, but he can’t see you. You can come and sit in if you would like?”

​I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to put on an indifferent tone. “Sure.”

​“Well then follow me.”

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​A couple minutes later I found myself sitting in a room full of weeping families. All I could do was sit there wondering about all of what Haven had said. ‘I am me, not them.’ I could see how what he meant was that who we all are is what we make of ourselves no matter where we came from. That we were here in life to go through trials, proving that we could function on our own accord and by our own means. I knew that I had to live not victimizing myself if things got hard. And when Haven was brought into the room on the other side of where I sat, I knew that he killed on his own. He did not make himself the victim and he did what he felt he wanted. And though I knew he was not saying that we should all go out and raise chaos, he only wanted to leave this message.
​When they were finished strapping Haven to the electrocution chair, one of the guards walked up to the wall separating us and pushed a button. I could hear the buzz of what sounded like a speaker going into the room I was in.
​“Mr. Haven would like to say a few last words.” The man holding the speaker button continued to hold it as he turned and nodded to Haven that he could now speak. I leaned in and focused.
​“Hello ladies and gentleman,” the calm voice that had at first disturbed me now intrigued me. “There is not much I can say to take away the pain that you all feel now. And I will not claim to be any kind of oracle or wise man. All I can say now is that no matter the pain, do not go on to do as I did. I blame myself for what I did, because it was my choice to harm your loved ones.” I could hear a couple females in the back start to sob harder and the lump in my throat came back. “I am sorry, I know I had the chance to keep trying in this life, but I decided not to and took what I wanted. I hope that you all remember to make your decisions wise, because that free will to chose is what makes us, us. And Mr. Doherty?” Holy crap! How did he know I was back here? “I leave you my book, The Parallel, to read. And I finish these words with a quote from my favorite part in the book, from just before the man is executed. He says, ‘And so I knew then that I had had the ability to be my parallel, but I chose something else. And I chose knowing that my decisions were mine. For I am me, not them.’” And with those the speaker was turned off.
​That was when I knew that I would never forget the day I met him. I guess I had never really had a real idea of who I was, but then again it wasn’t something I had ever questioned. I had never woken up and questioned who I was or the choices I had made. But he had. And he knew more then the rest of us about who he was and why. So I closed my eyes and shut off the noise behind me. And just as I drifted back to that moment, just hours earlier, all I knew was that they had pulled the switch.

Author's Note

I know there may be a mistake or two and I apologize. But I hope you like it and take something from it.

Reviews

[RedaSounni]

I like some of it and dislike some if it as well. The story is written decently, although some sentences just don't make much sense in the way you set them up. For example, " This door was made from concrete I think '' is cringe-worthy, perhaps " The door seemed to be made from concrete " would have been a bit better? Another thing is that I find the setting of the story resembles as well as Mr.Haven resemble Hannibal Lecter and the Silence of the Lambs a bit too much.

On the other hand, I find the moral of the story as well as Mr.Haven's refusal of blaming the hardships of his life for his actions to be a good way to set a tone and to keep the reader active throughout the story, even if the dialogue could be a bit improved. All in all, I think you've done a pretty good job, perhaps it's still a bit raw, but it's good and you should keep working on it! Good luck and thanks for the read!