Unconfessed

Tragedy was for other people. She was of the blessed life, one percent of the global one percent, insulated from the woes and worries of - let's face it - the morally inferior. She grew up in Christian schools and maintained her Christian heritage. She had - she deemed - a superior belief. Oh, there were other believers to be found, but she had that extra special edge that exempted her from ordinary concerns.

The longer her bliss continued, the more sure she was it was truly deserved. Watching the nightly news of mass starvation, bombed out cities, unspeakable atrocities, and uncertain futures, she contrasted that with her perch among the swank San Francisco mountains, justifying her easy life as a gift from God. She longed for the day for the last of her nagging Doubt to leave and depart, she to be forever ensconced 100% in the belief she had achieved purity and to never need fear the world.

It's hard to say if the two events coincided perfectly or if one triggered the other, but she felt she had finally achieved that state of nirvana - right as she got the news that wrecked her life irrevocably. Her daughter, her oldest child going to college on the east coast, had been shot dead. The shock of it was unreal, a cruel prank that cannot be true for someone like her. She would never see her daughter again. Into the abyss she fell.

How did this happen? Simple. I shot her daughter. At one point I had climbed the San Fran mountain to get my perch to make the kill on the mother, but then I thought what she really needed was to suffer as I suffer. As any parent knows, a bullet to their child hurts a thousand times worse than any bullet the parent may receive. And since it was apparently a random killing without motive, that made it virtually untraceable for the police. Interview all the people you want, suckers, you'll never find a clue. I knew the mystery of that would only drive the knife deeper in her.

I was supposed to have been buried along with her feelings for me. I admit I went along with it in my own hopeless despair. But once in the coffin it triggered feelings to live. But how was I going to live without her? I roamed the world a half-person unsatisfied with anything and everything. Until finally - inevitably - satisfaction became my only pursuit. How many times did I lie awake at night thinking, "If I could hurt her, I would."

As one who is crippled and dependent on the world, I feel the times a-changin'. If you're miserable it's somebody's else's fault. And while I know it's true there's always someone fucking you or trying to fuck you, this is something different. It's about a loveless life and finding a reason that doesn't point back to you. Somebody has to pay, you damn dirty ape! It's been happening for years and years now, we the unhappy taking revenge (and even getting elected). Afterwards, they always ask why you kill but they'd literally rather die than hear the true answer.

I have to admit I did think about what story I'd tell for my motivation if caught. Anything but unrequited love would do. I couldn't really think of a good political or religious excuse. Above all, I wanted to remain unconfessed. But you can't just keep it all inside. You can't say you bombed a marathon because no one loves you. In the end I decided I'd have to think of a scapegoat later. Maybe I could take something out of the paper when the time came.

What I love most is she lost her "faith". She walked as a shattered being, hollow-eyed and medicated. How could God have let her down like that? Every time she asked that question, her hell got a little harsher. The depths of her lifelong self-deception was a revelation of a greater doom than she ever feared. She had believed God was of this world, refusing to face there's only as much God in this world as we let in. Last time I checked that was pretty microscopic. She never did come to grips that the Doubt she so eagerly sought to rid from her life was, in fact, the remnant of God inside her.

I'd taken away everything she could cling to or hide behind. Her faith gone, her daughter gone, her lies gone. It was a condition I knew well as one buried alive: no way out. Welcome to my nightmare! At last I had a connection to her as love so cruelly demands right or wrong. I thought I could choose my feelings, that I was their master. Turns out it's the other way around. Like her, I tried to destroy my feelings only to have them erupt stronger than ever. Goddam, life is hard.

So did I take satisfaction in my deed? When I thought of what I'd done, my head fills with black helpless terror day or night. When I thought of her misery and frustration and hopelessness, I was like a vampire feeding off her. Nothing could hurt me more now than for her to die. Then I'd only be left with the spreading terror in my mind...

To put a final nail in the coffin, I sent a note saying her other child, a son, was next. By doing that I had done worse than kill him. She'd be looking over her shoulder the rest of her days, wondering when the time would come. She had never believed in letting go - true faith - in the first place. Now she'll really choke herself to death. But the best part was I knew she could show that note to no one. If she did, then her daughter's death could be traced back to something she did, and no longer be held completely blameless. In her mind, if nobody knows something, it isn't true. She will die unconfessed and therefor unrepentant.

That final shot killed her heart. She can curse and demonize me all she wants but it changes nothing. Funny thing is now she feels she's the unluckiest person in the world. If only she hadn't met me she'd never have feelings to bury, she falsely assumes. If you want to keep breathing, bitch, you're going to have to eat shit each and every day from now on. As time passes the deeper the realization that it's never going to change, like walking in snow that gets higher and higher yet stopping means certain death.

It's easy to see the tragedy looking back. You know it's wrong at the time but you never think that lying about your feelings can have such devastating consequences. In the heat of the moment, you wonder if it even means anything at all, one's feelings considered so inconsequential in this mad, mad world. But yes, it is a matter of life and death to be honest, just like that little voice was telling me all along.

It's a shame it came to this for both of us. Scariest part is I can see it happening everywhere. I want to yell out to them to stop lying, that I know the tragedy that is coming. But who would listen to a murderer? I guess we'll all have to learn the hard way; lying, killing and raping until there's nothing left. The currents of our feelings cannot be fought nor dammed. Whether we like where they may lead us or not, we have no choice but to confess. As I know now too late: whomever confesses the most, wins.