Epitimia. Part IV. The Purpose of Evil.
Theological/psychological short horror story with transgressive and historical elements. Part 4/5
They say solitary confinement is a cruel punishment.
I wish mine was actually solitary.
In the room of bleak concrete I sit on the floor, still loopy from anesthesia. The untrustworthy lighting drifts on the periphery of my perception, and I rock back and forth in silence. The room smells of stale body odor persisting through the infrequent cleaning and corrupted by the ravenous germs. My pain is transferred to an offshore account and the floating sensation of touch robbed of its stinging awareness numbs my hands.
Which makes Polly the Goatfuck chatty. I won’t honor him to call his ramblings verbose.
“You are bitter. May I ask why you resist to such a degree?”
I smile through the cotton-like freeze, ‘I am not letting you out. This land has seen enough of you.’
“We could go somewhere else.”
‘You aren’t going anywhere, Polly. There is not a place on God’s green Earth that I’d hate enough to unleash you onto.’
“You don’t even believe in God, Peter.”
I cock my head as my upper lip winces, ‘I witness the demon. It only stands to reason that there is someone who created you. What’s more important - there is someone out there who can stop you.’
“That makes no sense, Peter. You witness me but you haven’t witnessed anything else. I infect people like you - and as such, I am a product of the same evolution as you. Look up to the sky. You see an old man sitting on the cloud?”
I look up and see a dim rectangle of the fluorescent light centered in the field of popcorn ceiling paint, ‘It’s a matter of faith, Polly. If I could witness someone out there - it wouldn’t require any faith anymore.’
“That is irrational.”
‘No. Faith operates as an unconditional belief supported by miracles.’
“Would you call our acquaintance a miracle?”
‘Yes. Just not the good kind. So, this miracle gave me a hint. You see, scientific method provides for the experiment, repeatable and explainable. Faith only gives a hint - if that. I take that hint.’
“Are you waiting for an angel to walk through this door and set you free?”
‘No, I don’t. My found-again faith is fresh, but I don’t expect any relief.’
“We still can strike a deal. I shall set you up for life and you will rejoice that you made the right choice.”
I stand up and dip my head into my palms, struggling to recall the words I heard last time over thirty years ago, ‘I saw the satan falling down from the sky as lightning.’
When the words strike me as supreme truth, involuntary tears form in my eyes. I had them when I heard Stairway to Heaven the first time and I had them when I saw the roof scene in the original Bladerunner. I have never had them in a religious context before. Standing with my tongue severed and my wounds deep, with pure malevolence infesting me, the largest tears rain down my face. Through the cramp in my throat, I articulate words in my mind without making a sound, ‘So I give you the power to command the scorpions and snakes and all the unclean things, and nothing shall harm you. Do not rejoice however, that you can…’’
“You are stumbling.”
‘... that you can command scorpions and snakes but that your names are written in heaven,’ I finish and wipe my face with my hand, cotton against cotton.
“You are butchering it, Peter. Not even close.”
‘Close enough. Tell me, Polly the Goatfuck, since you are evil manifested - what is the purpose of evil?’
He starts blaring this response, but I interrupt him, ‘I don’t know, but to me…’
The keys cling, reverberating through the thick steel plate of the prison cell door. I sink down, making my face neutral and wiping emotions off its surface. In the widening split three figures emerge, two police officers and one more - the one I am afraid to face the most.
Gretchen, my wife.
“Again, be careful,” says one of the guards with a heavy accent.
She shoots a quick glance at him and asks, “You said he never hurt anyone?”
Her attentive brown eyes bounce between me and the guard, who says:
“He did hurt himself. You know about the tongue - we have three witnesses who saw him do it.”
I look past them, straining to stay disengaged.
“What happened to his hands? He was fighting someone,” Gretchen says as her voice trembles.
“Doctors say it’s self-inflicted.”
Her damp eyes reflect the errant light of the lamp, and the wisdom of ancient olive trees on a wet red field stirs a fire of regret in my chest. She rubs her nose with restless fingers - the same nose she had always felt self-conscious about, the same nose that made her face outlines ancient and majestic. That noble bump, covered with cheerful, carefree freckles, still bears the mark of the delicate glasses we had chosen last spring in Milan.
She takes a step forward and extends her hand toward me. I have never seen her hands tremble with such a fine shiver, and the awareness of it latches onto my mind like a tick.
“Converse with her,” Polly said, “This is your last chance to save yourself.”
I shake my head. Anything to avoid meeting Gretchen’s gaze. She knows me so well that even the briefest meeting of our eyes could transmit the Logos clearly and brightly, like a shining lighthouse. She knows me too well. Polly can’t have her - even more so than anyone else in this world.
She comes closer, “Peter, what’s wrong with you? Please wake up, I don’t understand…”
She touches my head, and her touch pierces me like a bullet. Tears streaming from my eyes. She must not see them. I bury my face in the crook of my elbow.
She sits down next to me. I hear sobbing and crying. She asks, “What is wrong with you?”
I strangle the answer inside me.
She strokes my head and kisses my cheek. The scent of her perfume - rose and lemon - and the smell of skin warmed by the sun floats into my stale prison. She says, “Peter, come home. Please, it’s me. It’s Gretchen.”
I crush my screaming desire to throw myself into her embrace under a pile of rocks.
For a long time, she sits beside me. She sniffles, takes out a handkerchief, and says goodbye to me with one last glance as I observe her on the periphery of my vision.
I trample down my desire to look at her face before the door slams shut with an iron clang, and I am left alone.
Not alone. Unfortunately, not alone.
“There goes your salvation, Peter,” says the hateful voice.
‘You can’t have her. Or anyone else. I’ve made up my mind.’
“She is going to forget you soon. And anyone else you ever knew.”
I sigh and comb my hair through the web of my fingers, ‘It was her idea, you know. This trip. She said I should take some time off and explore the world. After pulling six months of eighty-to-ninety hour workweek, I agreed.’
“What do you do?”
‘What did I do? Let me tell you what I did. You heard about private equity?’
“I have not.”
‘You’ve been living among the roots for a long time, Polly. Anyway, we bought off small stores, doctors practices, national chains, and then we bled them dry. Extracted all the money we could - and left behind an empty husk of a former company, a barricaded store front and a handful of unemployed people. That’s how I met Gretchen too - she was an opposing counsel. She fought me tooth and nail in the litigation. When she lost - because I always win - and a chain of employee-owned toy stores got consumed by my company, I offered her a cup of coffee.’
“And she agreed?”
‘Our date started fiery, but then we saw that we are too alike to be enemies - something I’ve realized early on, as soon as I’ve met her. Respect became intimacy and intimacy led to love. See, we both got straight ‘A’s from top universities. We both like getting things done. And let me tell you - I got things done, alright. My ends justified my means. Most people in the company have never seen a board member. Me - I had a weekly meeting with the full Board.’
I make a waving gesture as if Polly is sitting in front of me and continue, ‘At that place, I’ve made a killing, Polly. Not the type that you did, I mean, I did very well for myself. But yeah, as far as killing goes - I could have started a war on any continent within 72 hours. The Board had my ear, the lobbyists had Board’s money, politicians had lobbyists’ directions and our defence equipment subsidiary had all and contracts from the politicians.’
“You could have made a deal with me as well.”
I slowly spoke my words in my mind, enunciating them in a bitter staccato, ‘The more successful I became, the heavier was the weight of tingling anxiety. I tried meditations and I tried narcotics and I tried depravity, all to no effect. I went to the church - and felt nothing. At that time. Up on those rocks, however, I understood that my restlessness is an effect of a guilty consciousness, and I can’t erase that with whiskey or soap. I understood that I am evil. And then I wondered, what was my purpose? So I am asking you, Polly the Goatfuck, what is the purpose of evil?’
“Evil is a rainfall that happens as a part of life.”
‘That’s what I thought too, Polly. But that is not the right answer, as it doesn’t offer comfort or resolution.’ I pause and stare at the lamp as it burns my retinas, ‘The purpose of evil is to contain the greater evil. To contain it and to protect the unsuspecting world. My purpose, Polly, is to contain you.’
“Then what do I contain?” Polly says in a slow melodic drawl.
I have no answer. I close my eyes and press my eyelids shut with my fingers until the square-spiral meanders twist and fracture like barbed wire across the darkness.