The Socialist

Quietness, the only fully sustaining noise. Nothingness, the sweet, bitter end that is my existence. The only time when you can feel good is in your thoughts. Quiet, it’s all I’ve ever been. Nothing, which is what we will all become.



 Let me start, my name is Daniel. I am what you could call, a mute. I don’t like to talk, social time is time not well spent. I have better things to do. One thing I’ve been told, for every plus there is a minus. By this I mean that I am advanced.



 But of course, no one has to know that. I show up to school, and just listen. I don’t need to reply, wasted time. I understand after being told once. It’s so simple, but they just don’t get it. When test time comes, I purposely get things wrong. Eighty-fives are usually what I need.



 How do I spend my time then? I think. It’s all a human will ever need, their own thoughts. I just jot down or type out my notes when something comes to mind. My time is mostly spent typing at the computer. Honestly, I’ve made plenty a contribution to the world. My dad is a professor, I send my work in his name.



 I then take the mail for me, which is still for him, and give it to myself. He gets the little bit that he actually contributed. Of course, my secret will eventually come out. Someone will ask him about one of my thoughts or theories.



 When I’m at the computer, nothing else matters. The only sounds are the clicks and bumps of the keyboard, nothing separating me from my work. I end up going so fast that I can’t even keep up. Writing, just writing, my thoughts going forth like a high pressure water leak. My thoughts just spread out on the notepads, Word, Google Docs, anything that I can do.



 Then I wake up. I’ve blacked out on the keyboard. I try to search for what I’ve done, but I can’t find it. I assume that I might have accidentally hit a keyboard shortcut for close window. I always have it set for don’t save my progress.



 I can never remember anything that I have written, or at least the blackout notes. As that’s the name I’ve given to the experience, “blackout notes.” Such a stupid concept, work I can’t get back. Time I can’t receive, time I can never use.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Sleep, now that’s an idiotic concept. It’s just eight hours I need to keep working, time that I need. I know that I need sleep to stay alive, but sometimes I don’t need it. I just stay up, trying to find any of the “blackout notes.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Then the night of the party came. It was supposed to be a simple gathering. A celebration for my Dad’s friend’s daughter’s First Holy Communion. (Church, don’t get me started on the waste that it is, so much time...)

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I was reluctant to go to this party. Three hours spent going through all possible social situations in my head. Something to pass the time, that’s what I needed. I was tired of searching for the “blackout notes.” Unfindable, that’s what they were, just a torment that would never let itself escape my soul.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When we got to the house for the party, I almost instantly changed my mind. Taking the two seconds I needed to think this through, I saw the good percentages were higher than the negative ones. I assumed it would be in my best interest to go in, my father had not been to happy with me lately.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I went straight for the first seat I saw. I had this strange, immense feeling of, I can’t even begin how to comprehend these feelings, love. Of all things I thought I would feel, love was the last in line. Why love?

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I took a quick look around the room, nothing or nobody that I cared for besides my parents. I went outside to take a quick breath of fresh air. When I went outside, I took a seat on one of the lawn chairs that was left outside.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> With my hands covering my eyes, I let out a long sigh. When I picked my head up, I saw her. One of the prettiest girls I had ever seen. She had indescribable beauty. She had long golden hair, flowing down her shoulders, blowing in the slight breeze.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I sat there thinking how to proceed. For the first time in my life, I had nothing to think about, nothing to speculate on, nothing. I was there for an hour, maybe more. She asked me something.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “What’s your problem? Why won’t you talk to me?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">  I stared at her for a second. I was about to open my mouth to speak when I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I was back to my logical thinking. I couldn’t feel any pain so I assumed that I had passed out due to heat exhaustion.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When the doctor walked in, I was shocked to hear his news, I had been stabbed. He started asking me about what I was doing, if a saw who did it, or why this might have happened. I couldn’t think, hadn’t I blacked out earlier?

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I was in recovery for only a few days. When I got home I jumped straight to my computer. I wanted to type out these experiences so that I may review these thoughts at a later time.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When I started typing I kept going so fast my head started spinning so fast I felt it would just rip off, a jumble of letters, numbers, and images running through my mind. I couldn’t stop, I just kept going. I wasn’t able to figure out what all these images were, they were just a blur running through my consciousness.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When I awoke, my face was bleeding, it had hit the edge of the table on my way down. I rubbed my forehead, and then I got up. I went to the bathroom to clean up.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “You’re just getting home?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “What? Are you talking about mom?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “You’ve been gone all day, where were you? Are you bleeding?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I rushed out of the house, what was happening to me? I couldn’t explain anything. After I cooled down, I went back inside to finish cleaning up. I went to my computer to try and find these recent blackout notes.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Nothing, absolutely nothing. I flipped my lid, I hit the roof. I spun around and  threw my chair against the wall. My mom seemingly scared, asked what was happening. I was about to hit her and I hit the wall. The dry-wall shattered with the impact of my fist.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I bolted for the door. I slammed it behind my, the glass of the window pain shattering as I did so. I was lost and confused about myself. Nothing to know, yet everything to think off.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I regained my composure after a “montage” of me beating the crap out of the bushes in the backyard with a baseball bat.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I went straight for my room, I didn’t want to explain any of this to my mother.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> __________________________________________________________________________________

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “What’s your problem? Why won’t you talk to me?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Self-diagnosed mutism, and you, I was starting to think you’d never ask.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> And that’s how it started. She was incredible, she was everything I could hope for, something to cherish, something to take my mind off this silly work. We shared so many interests. Compassion. I had so much for this girl.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> She was practically everything that I could ever dream of, she seemed so perfect for what I had in mind. We sat and talked for the majority of the party, it almost seemed as if I spent the whole time with her in the front yard. This goes without mention, but we kissed.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Julia, I need to excuse myself.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I had to use the bathroom and did the logical thing, I excused myself. I decided on taking the back door instead of the front so I wouldn’t have to cross the large crowd of people gathering to get food at the buffet table.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When I walked outside, I was slapped in the face by the refreshing air. It was so nice to have a nice breeze in this hot weather. I heard something behind me.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> It was the distinctive clank of metal on metal. A switchblade, someone had pulled out a switchblade. I turned ninety degrees to face my attacker. I couldn’t make the person out. He or she wasn’t visible.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Why are you messing around with Julia?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Who was this guy, her boyfriend? He came at me, fear. It was the only thing that I could conceive at that time. Instantly, my mind evaluated the situation. He lunged at me. I turned slightly on the side. Everything went in slow motion. He stabbed toward my stomach. I grabbed his wrist in my right hand. I pulled him forward, and used my other hand to push down his shoulder and elbow him in the back of the neck.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I took the knife out of his hand. Rage. I shoved him into the ground. I bent down and stabbed him the side, three times. Greed. I killed a man for a girl I barely knew. Fear. I didn’t know how to deal with the situation.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Hope. I felt it run through veins, through my brain, my entire being. I had to find a way out of this.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Randy! What did you do!?”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I ran, but I couldn’t get far. I fell over a rock and he took his sweet time with it...

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> __________________________________________________________________________________

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I sprang forward in my bed, gasping for air. Sweat beads running running down my forehead, falling onto the bed sheets down below me. My heart was racing, had I just dreamed this up? What was happening?

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “What in the HELL is all this?” I exclaimed. In the back of my mind I kept hearing “You will feel the seven core emotions. Rage, greed, fear, hope, hope, compassion, and love.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be. I ran out of the room, trying to think all this through. I went to the computer. I pulled up some previous notes. Of all the emotions that could be compared to these core emotions. Barely anything. Love, hope, and rage. Three out of seven, that wouldn’t help much.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> And what was the point to the emotions. I took a quick look at the desktop of my computer. I saw a notepad titled “Where?’

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Perfect, she will be just perfect. Good, so nice, just amazing. I can’t wait.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I went looking through the internet, trying to scan the whole thing for someone who would let me complete these actions. Someone perfect enough for my needs. Someone who would possibly break the barriers.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> __________________________________________________________________________________

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I couldn’t believe what I saw. I can’t describe what I saw but I’ll try. Images, notes, charts, diagrams, everything. I had found the blackout notes. They were terrible, awful, purely horrendous. Notes relating on how to pick and kill “The Perfect Specimen.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> __________________________________________________________________________________

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Don’t scream, don’t scream. DON’T SCREAM!”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> She was crying, begging, kicking. I couldn’t let her go. She was perfect.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “Julia if you must know, I’m in my own pain right now. Have you ever been stabbed? I’ll take that as a no. Now, you’ll feel the emotions eventually.”

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Then I completed my quest. I completed all my fantasies. Everything I had spent the late nights writing, drawing, and dreaming. Everything was falling into place. It was perfect, magnificent.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> __________________________________________________________________________________

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I couldn’t take myself away from the monitor. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Had I done this? An infinite number of possibilities started running through my head. I couldn’t take this anymore, I ran out of the room, taking the computer with me. I threw down to the floor.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Rage. I destroyed the computer. I smashed it to pieces. It was demolished.

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> *Knock knock*

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> When I answered the door,

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<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> “You’re under the arrest for the murder of Julia Evans and the murderings of the victims of “The Socialist.”

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