Normal people wake up and feel things immediately. Guilt. Anxiety. Hope. They trip over emotions like clutter left on the floor, bruising themselves every time they fall. They call it depth. I call it inefficiency.
I don’t feel those things, not naturally. I have tochoosethem. Assemble them piece by piece like a model kit with missing instructions. People are like herds, following the strongest and walking around aimlessly. Trying to find success, happiness. Fooling themselves that they are honest, good people. Nobody is honest. Everyone holds a lie. They care more about what the outside world thinks than submitting to their inner animal. Take all the shit they rely on today, the social media, technology and access to every fucking piece of information through their phones and you peel back several layers. You will get just a little closer to the person they truly are. As the saying goes: “Dance like no one is watching.” I think live like no one is watching is a better rule to live by. Take away all the lies. The fake hair, the fake teeth, the fake happy personas, the façade to please other people, the small lies we tell friends when we say they look good or are a good person when we know for a fact they are a piece of shit and look awful. Truth hurts.But humans cannot live in a lie-free world. It would never work.
So that’s why I have to become one of them. That’s what this is. Preparation. Blending in is an artform, and like all art, it requires discipline.
Inhaling deeply, I straighten my posture. Relax my shoulders. Normal people carry their bodies like they expect to be forgiven for existing. I practice that looseness, that careless ownership of space. Am I a psychopath? According to my therapist that saw me as a teenager, I was a concern. I couldn’t have her share that information with my parents at the time as they would have had me admitted to hospital. So I made that therapist disappear. The first of many disappearances I have partaken in with the help of a friend. But that was a long time ago. It’s been a while since I took such drastic actions.
Psychopath. It’s such an ugly word. It makes people think of blood and headlines and monsters that lurk in alleys. The truth is far more banal.
I’m not driven by rage. I don’t snap. I don’t lose control — well, not all of the time.
Iobserve.
Icrave.
Icontrol.
And if needed — Iattack.
I think my parents always knew what I really was from a young age, hence the forced therapy, but they ignored it. Instead, they appeased me with money to occupy me, keep me at a distance. My mother did try toform some kind of relationship with me, but it never interested me. They became a cloud of annoyance, wanting me to work for their financial advisory company, always asking questions, trying to be the perfect family, but I couldn’t conform. I didn’t want to talk to them or work with them. I wanted to be alone. Then, suddenly on my twenty-third birthday, they announced they were leaving the country in early retirement to live in Italy. My father handed me over a large sum of money and said he would prefer if I didn’t keep in contact with them, like that was something I would ever do. Thinking back I know he saw the true me. My mother lived in denial through the years but my father always had a questioning eye on me. He was rich but also had powerful friends in high places. I did wonder if he knew the things I had done, the company I kept. But he was clever enough never to challenge or prod me, because his priority was my mother. Good for him. That money is what started my empire.
And I understand, very clearly, that society is not built for people like me — so I must wear it like a tailored suit, and I do it very well. My staff respect me, women and men love me and people want to be near me.
Re-focusing my vision on the mirror which had temporarily zoned out, my reflection blinks when I blink. Imitating is instinct now, and it’s learned young. You see, children notice when you don’t cry at the right moments. Adults notice when your eyes don’t soften at funerals, when apologies come too easily, when you laugh at the wrong moment, when you show no emotion in the mostdifficult moments that most people would show empathy.
So, I learned. I spent years studying all of these behaviors until it became second nature.
Normal people are ruled by some kind of fear, whether that’s of being alone or fear of judgement. They tether themselves to each other with affection, obligation and sickening morality. They call it love when what they really mean isdon’t leave me. These kind of people terrify me. Not because they’re dangerous, but because they’re so fragile and have convinced themselves they aren’t.
I tap the mirror once, right between my eyes.
“You need them,” I remind myself.
That’s the rule. Need, not want. Want is indulgent. Want is reckless.
I need society the way a parasite needs a host. Not to destroy it, but to survive inside of it. To be able to move freely, and to take what I require without being noticed. Blend in until you can’t tell the difference between the psycho and the average person.
What I require shifts daily. Life can feel like a black and white movie with subtitles, where I’m numb to it all, even to the air I breathe. The lack of fulfillment causing boredom to the extreme, where it becomes a maze of anger until I can find my way out and feed my mind’s desires. I need control. Intimacy without vulnerability. Stimulation harsh enough to cut through the endless flatness.
The only way to cut through the flatness is by using the others as toys, as entertainment. People fascinate me most when they think they’re safe, in particular the ones who believe they see me. Those annoying people who think they hold a psychology degree and can change you to fit their checklist.
I lean closer to the mirror, lowering my voice as if the walls might listen.
“You’re not special,” I tell my reflection. “You just see the game.”
That’s another lie I practice. Humility. Whatever the fuck that is.
My phone buzzes on the counter. Work. I have meetings this morning and need to prepare myself for conversations where I’ll nod at the right intervals and laugh half a second late so it feels spontaneous. I swallow the bile in my throat at the monotony of when I’ll ask about everyone’s weekends. Conditioning myself to remember names, birthdays, tragedies. But the best part is that I catalog weaknesses the way others collect hobbies.
My staff call me intense. I’ve also heard the word charming. Maybe a little closed-off, but reliable. Safe. A firm boss.
The thought almost makes me smile for real. They really are clueless idiots.
I turn on the faucet, splash water on my face removing the remnants of shaving gel, and watch the last traces of honesty slide down the drain. When I look up again, the man in the mirror is ready.
He looks like someone you’d trust with your secrets. He looks like a handsome guy you want to get to know, to introduce to your friends and family and take home to your bed. He looks normal. A rich prick who thinks he can have what he wants when he wants.
And that, more than anything, is what makes him a nightmare you don’t want to invite into your life.
