Chapter 01
I look at my reflection
There is a workplace joke we tend to tell a lot where I work: if you want to lure a librarian into a murder trap, just bring into his sight a disorderly bookshelf, he will run to his death with all the adrenaline rushing in his veins. Why, it is true. There is something close to being a junkie about it, when books are all that you have. Despite the degree of truth in the joke, I never quite liked it. For straightforward reasons that everyone was aware of. My parents had been murdered in cold blood on the highway and much as I would like to paint it like Poe would in his stories, I do not remember much. Maybe it is the proficiency of the people around me who tried to make the sixyear-old forget all about the cruelties of this unfair world and start over with a hope for fair bargains. I do hope for a lot in life. For instance, I hope that the readers would for once respect the ‘silence please’ sign without my having to read it out loud over and over again to them. I also hope that people would start caring for book sleeves only half as much as they care for their phone screens. And dare I hope that the new order for Penguin Classics will be delivered on time. Most harrowing is my hope that the waiter would bring me salt with my meal without my having to ask for it. It is ever so daunting to start a conversation, no matter how important. Library is this way more than heaven, a haven for me. I never have to do anything beyond my rigid routine of talking about books, their organization systems, our 12-page library policy and the directions for the toilets. When all the work is done and all the script has been repeated for all the times needed for the day, my favorite hour arrives when I go to the last bookshelves and sit in my little corner, reading my favorite works. The warm light over old pages and my fingers running across the lengths of the prose, the conversations with the writers that are essentially one way yet so engaging, the quiet of a closed down building and the blissful air of solitude: during
this time, I wonder how could life just bless me with so much more than I could ever hope for.
Bathing in these swathes of glee and gratitude I go home to my plants. While watering them, I tell them all about my day. It is almost as if they are smiling back at me. Especially when I tell them about the reader who keeps mixing up the fantasy section with the housekeeping one. I read a study in a botanical magazine about how talking affectionately to your plants makes them healthier. I do notice the results. When my aunt visited me last summer, she thought of this act as a call for help about my loneliness and gave me ‘that look’ after which she started recalling memories of my parents from their youth and how their social effervescence was nowhere to be
seen in me. It always felt like she was talking of some distant figures like some earthling making up fun facts about aliens. As time went by the distance stretched wider and now in place of curiosity and wishful sighs, I had an effortless numbness. I think I have had deeper concerns for most of the characters from Dickens’ tales than for myself. Maybe it was this callousness towards the real that made so much hope possible for me in this life.
Every day I would wake up and carefully undertake my set of rituals to make it to work, without letting anything slip from here to there. I sit at my desk, receive the daily papers, and greet the coworkers with a smile I learnt from one of them. I often have trouble recalling his name but he is the friendliest of all and I believe if I manage to greet everyone the way he does, then maybe they will stop complaining about my being so apathetic and stop spreading the absurd conspiracies about me. It used to be funny when random readers came up to me and asked if I was part of some cult but the amusing creativity of these jests waned ever since it all went far as calling me a schizophrenic. I read a study about it in a magazine too and I would not want, of all things, this deranged ailment to precede my reputation. After all, I took the test and scored 2 on it. You need a score of 8 or more to qualify as one. I still have this test lying on my desk, just in case I have to kill another mockery with this solid proof of my intact sanity.
I prefer to call my social presence as selectively engaging. I only get involved with people I have some business with, otherwise I mind my own business, and quite happily so. And in my strong defense, I still did better than many ‘charming extroverts’ in ending up with the romantic partner I passionately desired. Vera, the subject of my endearments and the center of my longings, caught my eye on a book fair. She asked for a Spanish book that the organizers ridiculed as not worth having at which she burst into flames of an avid and dedicated reader, the heat of which I intuitively recognized and it became so easy to go up to her and talk all about it. She came to me
as yet another token of life’s fairness towards me, my very own shot at romance and building a home full of warmth. Days turned to nights then turned to months of us spending time together and the passion went through its lifecycle from us being entangled every night of the week to just meeting for the movies or her book launches. Her latest book was a hit and the pride I took in her success dwarfed the pangs of separation and I happily bid her farewell for six months of her countrywide book tour. My Vera was still right here with me, in the form of the copies of her book that I had specially arranged in my favorite corner.
Chapter 02
Life goes by
Vera had been gone for four months now. In our infrequent and dull phone calls, there was a sense of mutual withdrawal where no one resisted it and no one blamed anyone for it. We were coming apart and I was doing alright. While she had suggested other romantic encounters while on the tour, life remained uneventful for me in this regard and I was quite okay with it too. We had somehow traversed our way into the characteristic lovers-turned-comfortable-friends territory. I still enjoyed her company and there were still things we could only talk about to each other. It was not just the leaky faucets of my place or the bizarre person she saw on the bus, it
was also our deepest sentiments about the most mundane life events that we could so randomly spill out to each other to foster a feeling of being heard and seen and laugh about it all to keep the lighter notes of life striking on. She was still the first and only person I spoke to about the new impressive visitor to our library.
One October evening as I got done with my work and sat down in my favorite corner with an old copy of Tess of d’Urbervilles, I heard someone draw books from the crime section in the next aisle. It was rather an improbable hour for readers to be here so I was startled and my feet took me exactly next to the person. He was tall, lean, with tousled hair and big spectacles. He ignored all my mobility and my eye of inquiry that followed him everywhere and kept on running his eyes over shelf after shelf. Having understood he was looking for something, I said in my usual raw work tone:
“I can help you find whatever you need if you please tell me about the title or author.”
No response at all. Unbothered. Impassive.
This time I tried to shed off my shell of professionalism yet it still caught on me: “I can see you are desperate for whatever you are looking for and I can make it easier for you if you wish sir. Maybe we do not even have what you want to read, in which case you can enter the book in our book request register.”
He smiled at this, his was a rather suggestive and calm smile. I was expecting an explanation but he moved on and continued with his search. I assumed that I may be of no service to him so I turned to go back, at which he broke his vow of silence and said in his oddly old sounding voice:
“If I write in your register to find me the perfect murder mystery, will you oblige dear sir?”
I smiled, my own smile not the coworker one. “Everyone in this town has been able to find their perfect murder mystery in this pile of books. If nothing interests you here, I am afraid the book you want to read has not been written yet.”
He smiled back, the same suggestive calm smile. And then took a step towards me fixing his eyes on my face in an inquisitive way, like when architects do when they look at an empty expanse of land and asked: “So, this means you found your perfect murder mystery here too?”
“I am not much of a reader of this genre myself.”
“How so? Are you not fond of murders? I love myself a good murder.”
I took a pause to actually reflect on the question. Does it make me too fond of murders if I had out numbed the murder of my parents? Did I unknowingly fancy the thrill of killing? Would it please me if I read other stories of people being murdered?
I did not answer. I was lost on my train of thoughts. He looked through two more shelves and then left in a bored gait.
I had told Vera all about it and she had exclaimed how we should murder all the other writers so people only read her books. I wondered what it would be like. Then we went on talking about other topics that we enjoyed. With Vera there was a perpetual intuition involved. I think it always remained the most basic part of our bonding. We could read each other and reach out without getting into the tedious formalities of questioning. Which might also be why we were aware, without even saying it, that the ship of the home that we were to build together had sailed. Now we were thriving on our inside jokes about the color of tie of the man she was seeing. And while, if it was at the initial phase of our intimacy, I would have felt rather insecure, now the only thought this talk gave me was really that it was actually a questionable taste in tie colors. Soon enough she was doting over a country publisher and in her attempts to take care of him, it happened for the first time that she forgot to speak to me for three weeks. I was alright with this too. I relished the irony of how my so emotionally proactive parents had bequeathed this numbness to me by being dead and out of the picture of my life. Was I capable of intense emotion? Yes. Was I capable of shunning it in a heartbeat? Also, yes.
I have to say I was proud of how I was dealing with the way things had turned out with Vera because the stories I had read had given me chills about the process of breaking up with a lover. I was relieved and I would try to relieve Vera too when she would ask in her most concerned tone about how I was coping with us being pulled apart. She would always say it is just fate yet she sounded guilty as if she had control over this fate. Then the time came when she also began to give me the air of ‘that look’ that I was so used to getting from others. It was as if pity and helplessness had a child and then wed it to remorse. I knew the alchemy of this feeling like the back of my hand yet I had no idea how to respond to the expression of this feeling. Of Course, I was thankful to those people for their regard but I did not know how to tell them that I had done nothing to earn it and how much credit for fate can humans take anyway.
Chapter 03
Work becomes eventful
I was going on with my same routine of alterations between work and rest and was enjoying it. Vera used to take me places and while with her I was comfortable getting acquainted with the world, I always have been more delighted in shutting myself out of it. I had no time to spare from my spare time favorite: reading in my favorite corner. I was finishing off books faster and I was also getting involved in them more. I found myself in the shoes of all the protagonists and could almost always accurately predict the progression of the plots. It was like being part of an invisible community, the membership to which is very exclusive yet very easy to obtain. I was a proud member, elevating myself rank by rank. Life became full of newer energies and drives for me. I started to stop caring for the other deeds of keeping up appearances. I even stopped trying to fit in inertly or imitating friendly smiles. I was free and felt lighter now that the weight of carrying responsible behavior on my back was off it. I was free and felt happier now that I had my own people and my own world. I was free. I would write it on the sky if I could. The youthfulness of my parents that aunt talked about, perhaps I had succeeded at unlocking it for myself, so what if not in the so-called real world. My world was way more real for me. I even began to pity people who had to dwell in this dry world of draining expectations and struggles. It felt almost as if they had their fists tightly clenched to hold on to something really precious that
they could not risk losing. Although there was really nothing in their hands. They held onto illusions. Mirages. Delusions of a decadent age. I felt very sorry for them but I had no responsibility to save every single one of them. Maybe Darwin was right after all. The creationists had it wrong. I was thriving and they had trouble surviving. Perhaps I had attained the key to being the fittest. I was sailing on the high tide, ignorant of how every tide that rises, also does fall. It is the fate of the tide. And of every one riding the high ones. My fall came with the decline in the number of unread books I was left with. I was falling short of space in my choices and now I had developed
an appetite for alternate genres. I skimmed through many other genres and tried to maintain the high. Category after category. Writer after writer. Reread after reread. Until I was left with no other genre than murder mystery. It was like an unsaid rule for me all my life. That this type of book is my forbidden fruit. Books take you places, turn the world of your head upside down. I knew the most probable lane a book on murder could take me to, in reverse gear, is the eventful past of my parents’ death. I kept avoiding them at all costs. But like I said, it gets to you like substance does to a junkie. I was forced to pick up the first book from that shelf. I started reading
it. It was not easy. I was getting shaky about my call. I put it down and went to reread my favorite book by Vera. Maybe I missed her now that we barely ever spoke. Her writing was vulnerable enough to make one feel like she is right here with them in flesh and blood, recklessly pouring out her insides. But this time it was not doing it for me. I missed my Vera and her words that materialized a phantom Vera made my heart sputter with an urge to hold on to her. I put the book down and made up my mind to go home to my plants and get a good night’s sleep to fix this glitch in my alternate reality matrix. I was about to leave when I heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
It was the same visitor who had shown up in October. It uplifted my mood somewhat to witness a recognizable face, one that Vera was introduced to too. He walked in and saw the murder mystery book I had left unread on the side. He picked it up and started leafing through it.
“Fails to catch my interest. Unremarkable work indeed.”
I exclaimed to degrade the book as a cover for my inability to read it. He seemed to pay no attention and continued to leaf and read into that book.
“Certainly not one for the cowards.”
He said with a still and grim face, while he continued to read it.
I was not exactly offended but this comment certainly did bother me. I shook my head and took the book from his hands, beginning to read the page he had opened. It said something about the perfect dosage of a poison and how the character should administer it just right to pull off the murder.
To my surprise, the visitor snatched the book away from my hand and put it away. I did not protest.
“What do you care about the murder of a fictitious scientist if you never bothered about that of your parents?”
More than I was shook by him knowing already about my parents, I was bothered by not being able to answer him aptly. I felt a tight noose around my neck of being in a daunting puzzle. I wanted to get out of there.
“It should not concern you.”
I said and made my way out of the library. I could not sleep for the next week because I really wanted to know whatever happened to the scientist in the story yet I could not bring myself to read it. Everyone could see I was disturbed. Finally, I sat myself down and read it all. It was different this time. Finishing a book never felt this good. I was bedazzled by the way the writer had treated the act of killing like flipping pancakes on a Sunday morning. So natural. So remote and casual. As if some bird flew by in some distant forest and who could ever bother to care for it. It happens all the time. That is what birds are supposed to do. Happens like the happenings and can never unhappen. Never a big deal. Never a dent in the way the world went about its business.
Chapter 04
The perfect murder
So many such books started to fall into my reading line as a Domino effect ever since I read the first one. At first it was the best thing ever. I seemed to get back on the saddle with my adrenaline reading rides. The visits of my visitor friend became more and more frequent. He was there every time I finished a mystery book. We would dissect the story together. He had a chiefly condescending tone towards all writers. One came off too cautious to him and the other too hasty. He would criticize some for their unrealistic plots and others for a too straightforward approach. I enjoyed his company. It was like we had a book club now. Where we were not equals but he was the chairman and I his humble student. The main agenda of this organization of us somehow became to find the perfect murder. One which would have all ingredients just the right amount and seasoned to perfection.
During this time, I received plenty of postcards from Vera but I was not tempted to open them even once. I had found a better cure for my necessity of companionship. My visitor sufficed more than anyone ever had to keep me not only occupied but also excited about life. I would lie awake and pray that the next book was better. But to no use. I was becoming just like the visitor. Just like he had said on our first encounter, I also became wary of the quality of work in the library. I too asked my coworkers if there was a way to make someone write the perfect murder story. They did not seem to get it.
Days turned to nights turned to weeks of disappointment. I became anxious and the more anxious I got, the calmer my visitor friend tended to become. Soon it was New Year’s and Vera was back in town with all her excited baggage of stories. She showed up at my doorstep but I shunned her spirits and steered our conversation to the praises of my new visitor friend. She was agitated and asked me to introduce him to her in person. When I asked my friend of it, he said: “Has she got
the perfect murder mystery?”
“I suppose not.”
“Then meeting her would only drain my most valuable resource: time. And I’d advise you to stop seeing her too. She countervails our mission with her dull writing and spiral talking.”
It was almost as if he stated the obvious for me. I did exactly as he had said. I cut her off. The visitor became the center of my universe now. Soon after being elevated to such a primary status in my life, he vanished. He stopped showing up. I would read book after book and prepare discussion points but he was nowhere to be found. I started to wait for him in the library all night long. I was upset. I wondered what made him go away. I would do anything to have him return. As time went by, my feelings of sorrow turned to rage. I was full of anger for him. I began to plot revenge somehow. When I did not know how, our same old workplace joke inspired me. Since he was a murder junkie, a perfect murder would lure him out and then I could take my revenge by murdering him. I acquired a nice gun from the shady neighborhood for this purpose and started to carry it around.
But what would the perfect murder be like? I had read tons of boring ones. I began to rule out using what it would not be like. Nothing quite seemed to be the answer. I decided to take my gun to the New Year’s town party and figure it out for good. When all the festivities had kicked off and the snow began to fall, I drew out my gun. First, I pointed it at Vera, avenging the heartbreak, too cliché a story. Then I pointed it at my coworkers one by one, no fine motive, too linear. I tried to turn the barrel to the mayor on the stage but a political assassination was also nowhere near my designs. In this way every person was ruled out and in desperation I held the
gun to my own head.
Soon as my temples felt the cold metal, I saw my visitor friend appear amid the crowd. He was walking towards me. He had the same suggestive calm smile. I was in fits of desperation. I could not tell a second apart from the other as time went by. I could not characterize humans as they stirred around and, as soon as they noticed me holding the gun to my head, broke down into roars and clamor of appeasement and fear. Vera was muttering something but I did not care. All I wanted was to have my friend here and rate this murder with me. He was the only person cheering at me and I smiled at the sense of support I finally felt. He was now standing next to
me. People were saying all sorts of stuff. First someone said, “What a lonely man, what a sad end!” To which my visitor whispered in my ear: “Tragedy.”
Then someone said, “Why of all nights the New Year’s?” Then he whispered, “Timing.” Somewhere I could hear Vera break down into tears begging me not to do it. “Terror.”
I asked. “So that’s what it takes for a perfect murder.”
“Quite close. Trigger is missing until you pull it.”
Snow was waltzing in the air through the decorations and I could feel the sweat between my finger and the trigger. The perfect murder. One bending of a knuckle away. A sense of calm descended upon me. It is so bizarre that all this time the thing that was going through my head was the scene from a movie Vera and I watched on her birthday. Someone was running around a big building knocking on doors finding all the rooms empty. I once had a dream where I was doing the same and the more rooms I checked, the more there was blood all over my hands. When I was done replaying it all in my head. I pulled the trigger. Blood started to gurgle out of
my visitor friend’s stomach soon as I was shot. He struggled to say something and finally managed to whisper, “Twinning too.”
So, two murders were what made this a perfect murder. Two birds with one stone. I had never dreamed of dying next to someone but it was again life’s generosity to me, I was not alone in death and the person who accompanied me was the reason I never felt alone in life either. Not a shadow, not a soul. Just a visitor who never left.