You fucking asshole! I can't believe what you did! What kind of person are you? You really liked her and now she hates your guts, wanting you dead. Fucking prick. You must be the biggest jerk in the world. All this time you spend ranting about the world and everyone else - well look at you!
"I want to die...I want to die..."
Why should she have to pay because you screwed up your life? Isn't that what you always bitch about, how you pay for the sins of others? You're no fucking better, douche bag.
"I was out of my head. I wanted to be with her so badly. What could I do? Ask her back to my hellhole? I have nothing legitimate to offer. It all just started coming out. How will I ever live with this?"
Nobody likes you. Nobody has ever liked you. She's going to figure out you had feelings for her. If that happens she'll come looking for you and that will be the end of you, you fucking piece of shit who deserves feelings for no one. Out of the frying pan and into the fire!
"My life is hell upon hell. I deserve to die, I know. I won't fight it anymore. If God were truly merciful my life would be taken as I walk down this street."
But Karl's life was not taken. After suffering a total moral collapse he refused to speak as much as possible. He spent four days eating nothing but a honey bun and a fruit pie, hoping to off himself. He kept wondering why God didn't take his life already. It was obvious he was never going to have a life. And it was even more obvious the more he liked someone the less he could trust himself. Before this he never realized how urgent it was Judas hang.
*****
Karla wasn't lying when she said she wasn't rich. Anyone showered and wearing a nice outfit was rich in Karl's eyes but she was stuck in a retail clothing job she hated. But she was determined to be "responsible" and be regarded as a good person. Her burning envy of her boyfriend having an actual career had been the true driving element behind their spat that night. And where did that lead her? Into being kidnapped!
If only it hadn't happened. Karla felt the trajectory of her life permanently altered. It was her own failings that put her into that trap. She felt a new emptiness she hadn't known before. As if helplessly caught in a whirlpool she was being sucked into an abyss she could not fight. How would she find her way home?
Of all the days she needed a pleasant day at work, this was it. But the universe conspired otherwise, sensing the void in her life. Today would be her worst possible.
"Jimmy's out today so I need you in back doing all the stocking."
"But that's not my job! I'm not a stocker."
"Your job is to do what I tell you to do whether you like it or not."
Karla physically stumbled backwards, stunned to hear the same words spoken all over again. Falling, falling falling. She felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Every fiber of her being told her to flee, to be free of this. But where was out?
Where is out? How can I be asking myself this again? It's like I'm still trapped in that warehouse. This can't be happening!
Karla wanted to cry but she feared the tears too much. An emotional wreck, she was glad to be hiding in back not facing the public. Little did she realize this was the beginning of the end.
The falling sensation only got stronger. Try as she might, Karla could not escape the feeling she was still kidnapped, her asshole boss the new Karl. When her friends complained of their asshole bosses and shitty jobs it seemed the whole world had gone mad. But wasn't this the same world as before? Why is it just now she noticed?
I hate feeling used!
God damn that Karl. That feeling of outrage he awoke in her did not leave when he left. "Karls" were everywhere! And that same helpless feeling shackled her. Who could she run to? Where could she go? Was she damned to drink her life away in denial? When she experienced her first "black out" night it scared her what she was becoming. Then she heard Angry Aaron at work the next day.
"Look at this fucking bullshit. "Ninety percent insured!" and a picture of that smiling cocksucker gloating like he's done something. That son-of-a-bitch is worse than any plantation owner. For the rest of my fucking life I gotta carry this shit on my back. "Where's your card, comrade?" So fucking what if I have insurance. If anything goes wrong I'm still fucked! Any of you got 4,000 dollars for my deductible? Don't I have to fucking eat and pay rent? Do I exist to make that psycho happy? And even if I do make more money that just means I pay more to the insurance thieves! And these people are writing this shit like it's a good thing. Well, fuck you assholes! Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining!"
Karl was speaking to her still, channeling himself through Aaron's voice. Karla was transported back to the warehouse and this time she knew she'd never leave. She really was Karl's for life.
This can't be happening! This can't be real! It's like I never left! I'm so angry I can't stand it! I don't know what to do with all this rage seeping out of every pore. It makes me want to...
*****
Karl never saw Karla come back to the warehouse with or without the police or a vengeful gun. He imagined the worst, of how he'd damaged her for life, left a walking zombie in world she now knows she can't trust. Like a moth to a flame he returned to the scene of the crime, squatting and staring for hours in silence. There is nothing. I am nothing. There can be nothing. As surely the most unfavored child of God he awaited his doom. And Karl suspected that returning here would facilitate that.
Slowly the door opened but Karl did not move. The angel of death had come at last. What possible protest could he mount? Time to die.
"I've got just one question for you," spoke a new and different Karla. Her eyes were focused with a sense of resolve rarely seen in a world drowning in guilt and shame.
Karl cowered, frozen in fear. As Karla before, he too wanted to cry but too much feared the tears to let them fall. Of all the things to flash back to at this moment of death Karl remembered the suited man talking on his cell phone in his black BMW stopped at an intersection on a miserable rainy day. Outside and wet, Karl had never felt so lost seeing he who was his opposite: successful, purposeful, a winner. The clicks of the recently unemployed Karla's heels echoed louder as she approached.
"I've got just one question for you," she repeated, then smiled in what normally Karl would call a warm dream. "Who do we kidnap next?"
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