"TWIST OF FATE"

by  Fiona Tomasi

My name is Jacob, I am 30 years old and I live in Milan. I live alone in a small flat. I’ve got a good job, I work as a reporter at a daily newspaper. Women are not a problem for me, I’ve got that something... they say. I don’t have a steady girl. But, after all, why should I waste my time with one if I can make many happy? Oh, I was almost forgetting, I’ve got a kind of a mania. Yes, I..., I like to torture and kill women. Never my girlfriends... though! Well, now that we got know to each other a little better, I would like to tell you what happened to me during the last few days.

February 15

As always, that evening I left home to go shopping at the local supermarket. I went inside and started to move around the shelves. Suddenly, I felt a shiver down my spine. I saw her. She wasn’t beautiful, but she struck me at once. She was young, about 25, brunette, brown eyes. She was dressed casual, jeans, sports jacket and a red scarf. Maybe it was that colour so bright that hit me. I don’t know. My girlfriends are completely different from my victims, they cannot upset me, they just are pleasure tools, yes, but with them the pleasure is merely physical. My victims, instead, excite my soul. They turn my heart upside down... Well, she definitely was a victim. I decided to follow her, at a distance, without her noticing me. I had become an expert in this field. I learnt that you only have to be convinced you are going to a particular place, that you have to have the determination of who, following an invisible thread between him and his destination, knows exactly where to go and which road to take. She didn’t notice me. God knows I would have liked to operate immediately. But I have learnt to tame my impatience; after a four-victim experience I understood that the more you suffer and the more you enjoy the achievement of your goal. That girl would have been mine. I knew it. After a 10 minute walk she arrived home. Fulfilled, I turned around the corner and went back down the road. It was late and Claudia, the girl I had to go out with that evening, did not like waiting.

February 16

That morning I got out of bed with a great will power, something I had not felt for a long time. I run at my desk and took my agenda. I started turning the pages. "The Milan killer strikes back" the title of an article from the Corriere della Sera, and "He is among us" from another newspaper, my favourite because the description of my work is so detailed that I myself could have written it. I was excited. I had to start preparing everything. I intended to act very soon. I always pay attention to details, from the most insignificant aspect to the true dynamics of the attack. That evening, I thought, I would have gone to wait for her outside her house. I usually study the victim for a couple of days. It’s not just fuss, I like to increase the desire that grows inside me and then to enjoy better the crucial moment. And yet, in this case, I felt that I wouldn’t have dedicated much time to study, but that I would have simply let things go on as set, not by me, but by that something that we all call fate. That evening I waited for her. There she was. She had some books under her harm and she wore the same jacket she wore the day before. Somebody called her "Frida!". What a strange name I thought. It was a guy, probably her boyfriend. They talked for a while and then they entered the building together. I was amused by thinking that he would have soon only remembered her. I had enough, I went back home.

February 17

That morning I arrived late at work. I was absent-minded during the whole day, lost inside my thoughts. But you already know why. A few hours later I would have carried out the job for which I was born. I would have followed my fate. There were no doubts in my head, since I could reason, I knew that my life had only one purpose: cause pain to obtain pleasure. But, I would like to let you understand, not that intense pleasure that lasts for a moment and then vanishes, so great is the intensity of the feeling. No, much more than this. I am talking about that subtle and insinuating sensation which persists, which does not vanish and that, when remembered, makes us feel the exact same emotions we felt when it happened. I don’t know if this is right or wrong. I only know that I found this vocation inside me and that I live it with great devotion, as a clergyman who preaches his beliefs. Around six o’clock I started preparing myself. I carefully chose my outfit and I polished my shoes. I was getting ready for my sermon. I went out of the door, down the stairs and got into the car. I drove down the road mechanically. I could have done it even if I were blindfolded. Frida was calling me. From the street I saw that her flat was dark. She hadn’t arrived yet. I waited. I saw her arriving a short time after. I started the engine, I came closer and with the usual excuse I used before, I talked to her. She didn’t even have time to open her mouth that I had already dragged her into the car. She was terrified and I knew that in that condition even the least convincing of threats would have been enough to make stay still, as paralysed. And so it was. As I drove away I took a gun from my pocket and I showed it to her for a few seconds. I already knew I wouldn’t have used it, my hands are my sole tool, but I wanted to pass the time during the journey we were making. I arrived where I had foreseen. I turned off the engine. I forced her to get out of the car. She didn’t speak and she looked at me in terror. I went closer to carry out my fate and hers. She moved back, lowered her eyes and then raised them at once. She wasn’t Frida any more. She was me. She was playing my game. I hardly had the time to realise it when I felt the blade inside my stomach. Frida was laughing. She laughed and laughed. As I was dying I could clearly hear what she was saying. She was thanking me for the chance she had been waiting for a lifetime... My life ended in that precise moment. It’s strange, but when you think you are doing something unique, as a painter feels about his canvas, you realise that you really aren’t anything special because there are millions of persons doing the same thing.

February 18

Now I am here at the morgue. Laying on the slab, still. Tomorrow I will probably change my residence. I will live farther from the centre, in a field, together with a lot of people which, maybe, have met me during my activity. I don’t feel anything… anymore. It’s just amusing to think that I’ve got something in common with them too, a twist of fate has changed our lives.

THE END

© Fiona Tomasi 1998. All rights reserved.

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