Got seven candles lit, black wallpaper, black carpet.  Looking for which (victim) to target. “
– Nas

An Ezekiel Roberts Story

“Ezekiel Roberts?”  I heard the feminine tones of a woman’s voice ask.

I looked at her image on the display while she stood in front of the door.

“Yes!  You are in the right place.”  I responded. “Please, come in.”  I instructed the AI Assist to let her inside.

When she walked through the door, the android moved to take the woman’s coat. “Never mind. I’ll take it.”  I interrupted.

“A gentleman?  Not many left these days,” she remarked.  I flashed her a smile and handed her a glass of wine, while I took the coat from her other hand.

She had dark brown hair and a pale timbre to her skin.  Her eyes were like dark green emeralds.  “That dress is a good fit on you.”  I said.  “And the color perfectly compliments your beautiful skin… a soft cream.”

Her face had an untainted beauty and a cheerleader’s smile.  “And a charmer as well.”  She smiled.  Shifting gears she asked, “So where do you want to get acquainted?”

“First, tell me a bit about you.”

The escort tossed her hair back and laughed.  “You’re one of those guys.  Look, this is about business.  And it’s not the business of slow money, so let’s get to it.”

I paused and let my eyes rise to meet hers.  “No, not one of those guys.  Most assuredly, I am not.”  I smirked.  “By all means, let’s get to it.”  I extended my hand to show her the way.  I pointed toward the hallway on the right and followed closely behind.   My vision narrowed, heartbeat remained calm; never getting ahead of myself; never acting too thirsty.  The trick was to stay in the moment and not anticipate the reward.

—

“Nurse, please get patient six-seven-zero ready to depart by noon.  He has shown considerable progress from the time he was admitted.”

“Doctor, that patient is Ezekiel Roberts.  Are you certain?  I just-”

“I am recommending he be released into his uncle’s care under his recognizance.  The strength of his uncle’s argument, a rather tidy sum, will benefit the hospital greatly.”  He replied without acknowledging her authority on the matter.  “He will be released into his uncle’s custody.  He is no longer our concern.”

It had been days, weeks, maybe even months since I’d seen the sun.  I am unsure of the passage of time.  They kept me tied to the bed in a room with no windows to the outside world.  Throughout that time my mind wandered and wandered, disembodied and ghost-like.  That was the only freedom afforded me, but now I was finally free.

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked up at the sun, absorbing it’s warmth.  I, then, closed my eyes and listened to the wind blowing through the leaves.  It was summer time.  It’s funny how significant little things become when you are deprived of them.  “Thank you for all of your help doctor.”  I shook his hand and looked into his eyes with a slow, triumphal glance.

“I’m ready to go home, uncle.”

My uncle turned to the doctor.  “I trust that you will ensure any record of him having been here will be removed and that I will have no need to check into this?”  He raised his eyebrow. “It would be a most unfortunate appointment, if I had to do so.”

—

I sat in full view of the camera, affixed to the back corner of the ceiling.  It triggered the lights to react upon entry and exit.   I sat there and rubbed the ache in my neck and closed my eyes while kneeling on the floor, hunched back and hairless. I fashioned my body through hours spent each morning, scrubbing it with porous stones to remove every inch of hair from it.  I felt better that way.  The feeling of smooth skin comforted me in a way I cannot explain.  I believe I may have become accustomed to the feeling from the assault that was forced upon me during many hours of therapy.

My chest heaved, with the sweat rolling down my face and body.   Flipping my hair back, I ran my fingers through the streaks of blonde, still tasting the salt in the sweat on her skin holding firm to my lips.  The checkered, black and white, tile zigzagged in diagonal patterns from the edges of the blood toward the corners of the room.  The pattern ran under the antique white furniture fitted with lions feet and a gold trim that rimmed the room.

I closed my eyes while the sweat and blood flowed into rivulets, forming drops suspended from my face.   Under the unavoidable influence of gravity, I watched a drop let go of it’s tenuous hold and fall downward, pushing into the pool of blood below. The remnant core of the drop, bounced out of her essence, before being pulled back into the mass, only to repeat the illusion until nothing of the drop or her personality remained.  Rubbing the back of my hand across my face, I picked up the scent of her perfume – a lavender mist with a faint earthy tinge to it.  Despite her obvious lower level of class, I could tell she spent an inordinate amount of money on organic fragrances, attempting to pass as more than she was.

My throat was dry.  I felt the sides of my esophagus peel away from one another as I swallowed.  Reaching behind my neck, I scratched, voraciously, at an itch at the base of my skull, while assessing my work.  The feelings of agitation and restlessness began to stir again within me.  Not enough minutes had passed to keep the hunger satiated.

—

My father and I walked out of the office and onto the street, fresh from a meeting with a prospective buyer.   He walked with conversation and purpose.  “Son, look at them.  Their family has had wealth for generations now, but they are such small thinkers.”   He was judicious in everything, never wasting anything.   “They lacked the vision of a god.   They lacked an understanding of the responsibility godhood carried.”  Those feelings that began as a child, lingered into my teenage years.  Feelings that grew while I stood in my father’s shadow and watched lesser gods amass wealth, tinker, and play at the idea of being gods and at the idea of controlling of men to shape a world.

Unfortunately for me, my parents died in a horrible accident, leaving me with a considerable sum of wealth and leaving me inconsolable for many years.  As the sole heir of their estate, I wandered the globe, losing myself in the bowels of many cities as I drank myself into oblivion, nursed occasional fevers, and caroused with unclean and lesser people.  I tasted the inorganic and processed love that coated the sweet lips of many women, who by society’s standards would be moral filth.  These objects were under my control, smiling with the eyes of the Dragon, while offering their fruits of pleasure and submission.

—

The floor sweeping drone waxed in size as it approached her.   It’s software processed the images of her body and veered off to avoid her.  Expressionless and without focus, her eyes stared out, void of life.  Maybe she stared out into a different realm; perhaps another world or universe, into what must have been her first glimpse of the afterlife.  Maybe she saw into the Rift, as I had many years ago in that hospital room.

She never saw the attack coming while we lay there soaked with each other’s sweat.  Her lipstick in a smear angling up toward her left cheek.  The red stood, bold, against her flush and rosy cheeks.  But now her screams were gone and her voice was stilled because I wanted it so.

Her upper torso and head extended out, beyond my body, to the left of me.  Her arms lay limp, extended above her shoulders. Her skin was a soft cream.   Her legs were folded over, laying on top of one another while they extended out, beyond my body, to the right of me.

Despite her perfume, her clothing held all the signs of lower class breeding.  I’d come across her profile through an escort service app and arranged for her services.   Her, girl next door innocence, lead me to choose her.  She was beautiful in an unassuming, but obvious way.   Her involvement in an escort service betrayed the innocence of her gifts.  I felt the crime of the matter needed to be addressed.

—

I had committed no crime by living off generations of legacy while manufacturing my own purpose.  My father gave purpose to hundreds of thousands of people within his corporate empire; his employees.  They loved him, adored him… feared him.  Falling over themselves to please him or get a few simple seconds of his well-earned attention.  “Good morning, Mr. Roberts! Great day, sir!”  All delivered with toothy smiles, stretched eyes, and a thirst for his acknowledgement.  This is the nature of the relationship between the masters of mankind and mankind itself – leaders and the lesser followers.

I fed and grew on their adulation and their constant genuflecting until I’d grown into an enormous beast, addicted to the feeling.  I was never sated for long, always needing more, always craving more of the feeling.  I walked with my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds.  I was larger than life.  I was life…and death.

I vowed to become a leader among men like my father.  And so, I would lead men and become their true god.  Not some fanciful invisible or immobile god, but one they could see and hear; one who would grant their wishes, if I desired to do so.  I would show them true power.

—

A single droid stood, in a faraway doorway, watching as I rubbed the strained muscles in my neck.  I dropped the knife.  Placing my hands, fingers spread out into her blood, I watched as the red liquid spread out a little more, changing the area of it’s amorphous shape.  I swirled my fingers through it, poking at the surface –  Plop. Plop.  Plop.

The game had exhausted itself like it usually did, after a few hours.  I stared at her face which was, mostly, unrecognizable.  She had been erased, removed from this world by my desire, according to my will and control.

Focused on my deed, I barely noticed my uncle walk through the twin doors.  His hard bottom shoes tapped out the sounds of the slight limp he carried in his gait.

“Ezekiel Hawthorne Roberts!”  He looked down with a scowl of disapproval.  “I’ve told you before to deal with these cravings in some other place.  Not within these walls…on the tile floors. The blood is extremely hard to remove.  Am I understood?”  I loved using this room.  The stark contrast of it’s whiteness against the ruby red of my hobbies always excited me in unimaginable, to some people perverted, ways.  “Yessir.”

He clapped his hands to summon the android servants.  “Get yourself cleaned up, while the androids take care of this mess and dispose of that thing!”  Uncle didn’t refer to her as a person either.   My uncle and my dear parents taught me that some people, the others like those from Olton were not people.  At least, not people like us.  They were lazy, indigent, and less intelligent, as well as lacking morals.   At least, that’s what my parents and uncle taught me.  Their lives had very little value and contributed even less to the natural order and cycles of society.  They never created anything and never would.

My uncle turned to the androids.  “Erase the last three hours of recorded history!” By contrast the androids showed their value by carrying out their purpose of service.

My uncle cut his eyes over to address me.  “I don’t want to have to repeat myself, Ezekiel.  Be clean and ready to go in the next hour!”

“Yes, uncle.”  I replied while the beast pulsed and rippled under my skin in satisfaction.  I rubbed my hand over my arm to soothe it as my eyes rolled in their sockets.  I, then, wiped the blood from my face as I stared into the mirror, making sure to clean all recent activity from the mirror’s history.

The two androids stood inside the entry ways of the service doors.  I observed them with a sense of curiosity as I watched them lift the escort’s lifeless body with care and concern, almost with a sense of veneration.  This must have been the result of their programming.  They held a regard for her that I did not possess.  After the removal of her body, a swarm of robotic insects poured from the service vents.   The many eyes, completely covered the blood.  The mass of insects quivered and wriggled over every inch of it until all traces of her had been removed from the room and this world.

—

My uncle called to me from the next room.  “Let’s go Ezekiel!  We don’t want to be late for the Thomas Inner City Youth charity fundraiser.”

Adjusting the collar on my shirt, I wiped the sleeve of my tuxedo.  I caught a glimpse of the creature, in the mirror, sparkling behind my eyes.  “Coming, sir!”

Looking to read more about these characters’ stories?  They can be located in this category:  hyper-reality

by malakhai jonezs
(c) Copyright 2017