This one needed to be fiction…there’s much to unpack. Enjoy!
The bow was still pink.
In a sea of red cascading over the family that lived off Maple Grove Drive, her bow remained pink. Why was it still pink? Why did it matter? Eugene could not get the image nor the questions out of his mind. He made the same ritual as every time before: the detailed plans, the intricate movements. It was all the same but the little pink bow.
The same ritual, except this time, in the face of the little pink bow, his hands vibrated and the knife dropped. His single greatest rule was to never leave behind his weapon of choice, but this time he couldn’t hold it. It was like a blue flame in his hand burning through his flesh. In the face of the soft pinkness, he dropped his knife and walked off.
He walked into the blackness. He wasn’t sure how far he had gone or what time it was. Eugene was in a daze. A liminal space between the past and present. Eventually he came to a light pushing against the clouded sky. A children’s park. It was there, perhaps for the first time, that he was confronted with his thoughts that demanded to be heard. His upbringing. The abuse. Rejection. All to be faced in the calmness of the misty night.
His mother’s hands felt clawlike as they met his flesh. Claws that only seemed to recede when in the presence of her father; not only receding but almost waving to invite him closer with his fury. This was normal. Nothing irregular, simply a mother consumed by the rage of her past and the grief of the present. Though Eugene acknowledged this in his mother, he still could not help but feel hatred towards her. Her snide remarks burned holes through his being: He was a monster. Only happy when destroying. He was useless, helpless…just like his father.
Eugene’s father still had the stutter from nuns forcing him to write with his right hand, though he was left-handed. A scar remained fixed atop his head where his mother had hit him with a vacuum cleaner. His absentmindedness having been met with a metal clash. Eugene felt the unrelenting absence of a father who would never hold him accountable. An invisible hand in the sky, yet one that allowed his son to hold all the power. A mother who had abused his father and himself—they were nothing. Made to feel less than. To feel as though they wielded no power. “…Another useless man polluting the earth.” His father simply remained quiet in her presence. The son could not.
Eugene built his life around his pain. The killings made him feel electric. Feel as though he had finally knocked down his mother and placed his foot upon her. That’s not weak. That’s not useless. “I’m not useless.” He muttered into the shadows.
Eugene gazed at the park obstacles. Hundreds, maybe thousands of children had climbed upon the equipment. Each branded with the patterns they were involuntarily marked with. Mothers. Fathers. No matter the parent, the wounds continued to thrive and fester.
Walking home from school, he heard her giggles in his head. Imagined the bubbles being blown and a smile that reached her deep blue eyes. Eyes that pierced through one’s soul. They said nothing less than “I love you.” A smile rippled across his face. He looked down at the step he always tripped on before coming into the house. As usual, his mother was working in her home office, and his father was not due back from work for another half an hour. Immediately, he went to see her, wondering if she had awoken from her midday nap. He slowly opened the door and quietly walked to her crib. There she was. The most beautiful creature. A soft pink flower on her sheets. It looked as though it was placed in her hair, the placement being so perfect. Alas, another detail that he had not seen before. Blue lips. He tried holding her hand but the tiny weight was limp. No response. At that same moment his mother walked in. “What did you do!?” She shrieked looking at her unresponsive baby with blue lips. His mother lifting his sister, forcefully shoved Eugene aside and ran into the living room to call an ambulance. A flood of blackness enveloped his world from that point on.
“How could something so beautiful, so innocent, suddenly cease to exist.”
Eugene’s voice softly touched the darkness of the night. He hadn’t thought about it—of her—since that moment in time where it all stood still. That shade of pink had not been witnessed again until that night. Eighteen.
Eighteen. Eighteen murders he had committed and he began to relive them all. But, instead of seeing his victims’ faces, he saw his own. The red came back to him. The rush of it. The smell and intoxication. But it felt different now—distant, like a memory of someone else’s life.
He sat on a park bench and mulled over the powerlessness nurtured within his being. The illusion of power his father had passively promoted—a silence that allowed his darkness to grow unchecked. His mother only ever meeting him with pain and disgust. Eugene then gazed at the tall slide in the park. He looked at the topsy-turvy tower ladder needing to be scaled to get to the top and he pondered.
He sat. He stared. A single tear dropped down his cheek. He touched it and looked at the glistening spot on his finger. He had always felt a detachment from his body, though for the first time, he felt a thread.
Sirens wailed in the background yet he remained, unflinching. Hands in his black hoodie pockets. He decided to climb the tower to the top of the slide and slid down the tall descending chute. A half smile crossed his face—and then the image of the little pink bow. The flower. Another tear rolled.
He gazed up and at that moment he saw a doe. She was but a few feet away, gazing at him. He froze and stared back. They stared at each other for what felt like hours. Suddenly, she closed her eyes with a slight bow of her head and walked away.
Eugene was frozen in this moment.
A cop car’s sirens briefly sounded as red and blue lit up Eugene’s face. Another tear fell as he turned to face the lights.