02.03.2019 – Sunday
So here we are, then: on each new horizon there is actual war, or at the very least the visage of war, replete w/all the markers: guns, tanks, munitions…men at the helm of everything again.
Worried news anchors and grave politicians, their hallowed words dissected by pundits who cautiously explain every nuance, who smugly flag up each un-signposted bend in the semantics. They are like archaeologists chipping away the dirt from unearthed relics.
As the crises are unfurled, turned out across the broadcast news outlets like a grotesque tapestry loom between television sets, housebound wide-eyed watchers, agog and in the grip of the broadcasted neurolinguistics, are led by the hand and are made to understand that the small things mirror the whole, that each event is but a gear that moves against another gear and with each and every turn the consequences are graver, the stakes higher. As above so below; the oligarchy will endlessly peddle their black magick spectaculars.
There is nothing to do. Nothing can be done. When people decide it’s time to do something the horse has already bolted.
Warnings are issued but nobody takes heed.
Can the ants defeat the elephant? No.
We could be our own best solution; instead we are our own worst enemy.
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
But the tide will turn… — 1107hrs
04.03.2019 – Tuesday
Earlier finds me sat in a high end restaurant. 5 star.
Suits, pinstriped suits, sit at neighbouring tables. The women w/them clad in pencil skirts and silk blouses. No Primark here.
There are no television sets in establishments like this, but a few of the young up-and-comers are being brought up to date on the news of war by way of their tablets and iPhones. They remain unmoved, save for the few whose tongues poke out stupidly from between their wet lips as if in great, dumb anticipation of something.
I don’t want to stare.
I hold up my wine glass to the candlelight and notice a blemish. Not good enough for a place like this. I would complain but I don’t want to draw attention. Attention’s the last thing I need for what I intend to do. — 0301hrs
04.03.2019 – Tuesday
I’m only up. Sleeping longer and longer these days. I gotta pick up the slack if I’m to succeed in this…
I drop off to news of war, and awaken to same. Now they’ve posted their top anchors to the Theatre of Operations. These anchors stand at a distance…at a distance from something it’s hard to tell, but then my set’s LCD, not plasma.
Sometimes there are gunshots and the anchor flinches. There are seconds of reverb, the crack bouncing across the terrain.
Anchor turns back around and then continues w/his dispatch.
Housebound, wide-eyed watchers flinch, too, and then lean in, keen understanding sharpened, credulity bolstered…they’re primed to drink it all in.
Akin to soft soap trauma-based mind control, this: first soften the subject up, some mild disturbance will suffice, a vicarious thrill…danger hinted at. Afterward, their hearts opened up, spread out, like a blueprint. Lines are rubbed out and redrawn…add walls and doors and windows where before there was just empty space.
But that gunshot I reckon’s a sound FX. Gotta be. Too well timed.
Wish I’d’ve recorded it. Sometimes I record the news. I would’ve taken note of what the anchor was saying immediately before/immediately after gunshot. Those loaded words are a spell, even in the strictest sense of the word – powerful prompts, cast out upon the fertile soils of the viewers’ unsuspecting inner-minds like so many rotten seeds.
Understanding these things is very important.
Computer-generated gunshots. Current Affairs are Fairytales. My gunshot’s gonna be the REAL DEAD DEAL and you mark my words, CONTROLLERS! — 1436hrs
06.03.2019 – Thursday
I slept all yesterday. I am not going to need to sleep again until this thing is done.
Before all this, when I couldn’t understand these feelings I had, when I couldn’t put them into words, I wouldn’t sleep for days at a time. After long stretches like this, struggling under the weight of a ceaseless insomnia, the night-time dreams I should’ve been having began to superimpose themselves over my daytime routines. Hallucinatory tableaus, fleetingly glanced out of the corner of my eye, would fill those vacant corners. Often it would be him, standing there, saying nothing for once. Imperious, that silent and eerie sentinel. — 0705hrs
06.03.2019 – Thursday
The target’s patterns and general routines have been established.
This past fortnight I’ve spent my lunch break in the city, sitting on a filthy bench across the way from the studios. I eat a sandwich and pretend to read a newspaper. I take note of the time he arrives, paying attention to the 2-3 minute margin of lateness/earliness, which I put down to the traffic. Also logged are the plates of the car that drops him off, as well as a detailed description of the driver.
Two different cars, with two different drivers, leave him off Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday-Friday’s the same car, the same driver. This driver he is most congenial with. There is laughter and warm waves of goodbye as he exits through the rear passenger side door.
Monday-Thursday he dines out in various eateries across the city. These restaurants’ locations are too random, too eclectic to pin down. This was a worry, initially. But on Fridays, always and without fail, he’s in that 5 star high end place. Always and without fail. I can bet my life on it.
This is, unbeknownst to him, the loophole, providing me the perfect opportunity.
All that’s left now is for the pull of a trigger… — 1355hrs
06.03.2019 – Thursday
Why? Why am I doing this? What’s killing him going to do? Prevent the war? Salve our collective bad karma? No. So why?
Abstract performance-art protest? Activism? Can murder, plain old blow-their-brains-out murder ever be considered art? Killing lots of people in a war can be considered honourable, and that’s a fact.
Perhaps when I place my gun against his temple and let go there won’t be skull and brain matter splatters the place…no. Instead, I can see it, instead, his face will fall off and underneath will be wires and circuit boards and a little ticker tape rolling along with all the news stories he’s ever delivered to the housebound, wide-eyed watchers. All the news that’s been and all the news there’s going to be. He’s not real. They’ve made him up.
But they, him, he and the likes of him, make the news, drop the bombs kill the people poison the earth. And that’s why he’s gonna; why he’s gotta die… — 1500hrs
07.03.2019 – Friday
I picked up what I need from the man I know. Man who owes me more than a few 2-bit favours. Big deal’s what I’m due of this man.
Snub nose 6 shooter. Number filed off. The usual. Not much range, but it does the trick. What I plan, a 1-shot thing is all I’ll need, and range is not an issue. Way I plan it, I’ll be close enough to smell the reek of his caviar laden breath.
My man refers to it as a ‘rod’. He slides a round into each empty chamber. Then, with the most casual flick of his wrist, the cylinder flips up into place with a click-clunk.
He hands me The Rod. I feel the dimples in the grip pressing into my skin. I lift The Rod, hold it at eye level. I turn to the left, a 90degree turn, stand face-to-face with myself filling completely a floor-length mirror. It’s virility. It’s me and my gun.
I am Travis Bickle. I am Giorgio. I am John Hinckley, Jr.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
I stop. Consider this. One BOOM!s all it’s gonna take. Three BOOMS? Many, too many. I don’t want to blow his head to smithereens, have people not know who he was, who I’ve saved us all from. Just another headless corpse, they’ll say.
One hole in the temple, that always TV-ready face intact, recognisable. Passers-by will stop and remark, ‘Oh, yeah…that’s the man that reads the news…that every night tells us what has just happened in the world, and how it happened, and what to think about it.’
The Rod, but. I like this. In the interviews after it’s over this is how I will refer to it: The Rod.
‘I placed The Rod against his left temple and BOOM!’
‘But why? Why did you do it?’
‘……’ — 0040hrs
07.03.2019 – Friday
Spent all morning working out then went for a run through the park.
On my way home I passed by the station. A bus was parked up, awaiting passengers to board. Then I see, on the side of the bus, it’s him. He’s hawking his new book. He’s holding the tome just under his chin. And that smile, so broad, so full of guile and venal solicitation, like an upside down rainbow auguring dark days ahead.
His head is enormous. His enormous head is framed by gushing book critic quotes: BREAKING: MY STORY…IS A REVELATION, A MASTERPIECE…A CATHARTIC TRIUMPH… – I’ll give him cathartic…I’ll blast his catharsis all up the walls of that high-end eatery.
I take my switchblade from my jacket and use it to scrape his eyes out. No one can see me and the busman’s busy. It’s just me and him. Him, minus his eyes – now a messy angry crisscross of tears and scores.
I am ready.
Today is the day. — 1212hrs
07.03.2019 – Friday
I am back in that la-di-dah restaurant again. The target doesn’t come in till later on, between 1715hrs and 1725hrs, depending on traffic.
He always takes a table nearest the kitchen. He’s an arrangement made with the maître d, who has recorded his bulletin for him. The maître d brings him a tablet from the kitchen and props it up on the table, facing him. The maître d asks him what he wants to drink and if he wants to see the hors d’oeuvres menu. He’s brought his glass of red wine, large, and, after a sip or two, proceeds to watch himself delivering the news of the day…he’s his own favourite dinner companion.
1715hrs-1725hrs…this is…will be…the window for his arrival. This is a timeframe I’ve established over 12 consecutive Fridays, over the course of 3 months, averaging out the times he’s arrived and taken a seat in preparedness for his dinner.
Anyway, this is a dry run. I order a G&T and take a table by the window. I’ve a small iron horseshoe in my pocket. It’s about the same weight as The Rod. I slip my hand into the pocket of my sports jacket, the pocket on the window side, outta site. I take the horseshoe out and hold it in my hand. I plot the quickest path through the tables over to the one he always sits at.
I am ready.
More ready, now.
Today is the day. — 1450hrs
07.03.2019 – Friday
I arrive at 1700hrs. I’ve a table booked, the same one I was sat at earlier.
He arrives at 1707hrs. He’s early. Much earlier than anticipated. Nearly 10 minutes early. This has never happened before.
He’s not with anyone. I wait.
There’s no need to rush things. He’s early. I wait.
I have a feeling he’s going to be joined by somebody. Somebody. I don’t know who.
I wait. — 1710hrs
07.03.2019 – Friday
I grip The Rod. My palms are wet. I imagine The Rod’s melting. He checks his watch.
I notice the maître d has not brought him his tablet tonight. And, if I am not mistaken, there is a certain snootiness displayed by the maître d toward him.
A man, a much older man, is shown to his table. He gets up, shakes his hand, grips him at the elbow. I study the handshake, watch the thumbs, check for pressure being applied anywhere. Things are friendly, but forced, not warm.
They sit facing each other. The older man is talking. For once he is quiet, nodding. Brows furrowed. There’s anger seeping through the cracks. Anger and perhaps hurt.
What is happening? Is he getting bad news? If he is then it is of a professional nature. Is he being fired?
But, no…He speaks and the old man throws his head back and bursts into peals of laughter. His narrow, weak shoulders rise and fall with each rheumy chuckle.
That old bastard’s getting it, too…
Now I stop waiting.
I’m past ready…
…It is time…— 1717hrs
THE END
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Barr has had several stories and essays published in the last few years, including in Lancaster University’s The Luminary and The Big Issue. This last year he’s been published in The Honest Ulsterman, Misery Tourism, New Critique, Litro Magazine and Sonder Magazine, with work upcoming in Headstuff.
Follow on Twitter: @NibdarR