The Tower of Brahma: Chapter 32 - the Widow's Son

06/13/07

I had a gun to kill my father. I brought it over one night that I stopped by for dinner. Delirious from the continuous bombardment of my senses from living in New York City; now I was home.

Sitting across from my father I knew he must die. That it was he who orchestrated my life so far. That he manipulated me and was grooming me to suit his mad plans.

I had no idea what those plans were but I shook off the veil he had his brother cast over my mind. I remembered sitting here at this table in the past, or is that happening now? Someone, white haired, yet young, is on my left speaking in slow concentrated syllables lulling me deeper into connected confusion.

They were babbling on about honoring secrets and I saw things before me that seemed commonplace yet complacently antagonistic. I sped up my internal dialogue and began telling myself a story about Agent Fenris and Agent Spider.

They went West to find a place where they could develop their talents. A place where they could reinvent themselves and set themselves up as kings. Alone together, they suffered the elements, braved the world, and found a kingdom. They shared a telepathic conference room where they formulated a strategy.

"Conquer the self my boy. We'll have a new one ready for you by the time you recall all this."

So, here I was, back in front of the man who turned me against myself and he was going to pay.

"I remember when you invited me here. I quit writing after the last time I visited."

He just looked at me. Empty. Was he even my real father? A plant? A brainwashed sucker forced to coerce me into going along with their diabolical plan. The gun was heavy in my lap.

"Why did you do it? What do you get out of this? God, say something!"

The gun slipped into my hands. My arm snapped into a locked position. Hammer cocked, trigger held, and yet no sign of anything in his face. He'd have to be held accountable. He must.

"You goddamned sonofabitch. This ends now. I won't be used as your pawn."

He stood up slow, pushing the chair back with a slight groan against the wood floors. Marionette muscle spasms jerked his body simulating life. I thought about pulling the trigger. About killing him, or this hollow shell of him.

"You'll never get my book. I just won't write it. Or I'll write it in defiance of all you stand for. Tear down everything that is structure and math and the mechanics of us. Chaos is my lord and I am here to deliver his wrath!"

Caress the trigger back, banging blasts of shells emptying themselves of all they once were. Closing the distance between us, friction scorching the specialized bullets, forging them into spears.

"I hate you!" I screamed. It resonated within the bare walls of my former home.

My father lie dead, hunched over the table, bleeding out like a stuck pig as the saying goes. I felt nothing, but wasn't numb. It was easy in the end. An afterthought as I cleansed my palate of the bitterness of my childhood.

I felt free, as if my back had burst open and wings had erupted forth from my pain. My nefarious enemy was now slain and my mission was complete. My mind was my own again. I had become a god of delicious apathy.

I awoke in the past, at the moment of hypnosis. I looked over at the fictioneer, as he referred to himself.

"You'll feel a bit disoriented for a few hours, but nothing a nap and some fluids won't wash away."

"You made me kill him."

"I'm not dead, son. I'm sorry. I mean brother."

I turned to my father's voice and saw that he was looking at me, smiling.

"I'll kill you. The future. My book...it all goes horribly wrong. They'll hate me in the end and persecute me. What you're asking me to do is to give up everything for this plan..."

"Just as I have, and he has...” he said motioning to the hypnotist. "We killed our own."

"But I killed you! It was a vision of the future, I only dream of the future!” my voice was flushed with a madman tremble.

"After today you won't remember much of what you saw. You'll know there's a list of people to find, a story that you'll need to tell your own way, and the core secrets of the universe we've crammed in that head of yours."

My dad glanced down at the Mason symbol in his hands. "As for my death, well, we'll see what comes. In the meantime, you are now free.”

The faint sound of someone counting down backwards was clashing against the trace memory of holding a gun in my hands. I swam in the true rage and hatred I needed to end the life of god and to begin the death of man.