The Baal Dialogues

Windows of the soul.

I look into my eyes and I see death.
The face that the eyes are set into, that they pour out of like twin orbs of darkness, that is the face that I call my own, but in fact it is alien and inscrutable to me. This face resembles a mask to me.

I know that if I could tear this mask, this fade away from my head - rip the skin from the flesh like thin plastic - then I would see the face of death. The face is a lie, a piece of artless trickery that deceives those who look upon it. It presents a veneer of normality that fools people into believing that which they want to believe. That I am normal. That I am not a killer.

There is no explanation for the eyes though. Anyone who looks upon their obvious malice, as I do every day, must notice that they at least cannot disguise what I am. Grey-blue like a cloudy windless day, flecks of rust brown within, like dried blood. The same shade as the spatters that stain the tiles beneath my feet.

The truth is, whomever observes my eyes cannot fail to see the monstrous entity that looks out through them, observing these people in return but seeing them only as objects, measurements, visions of violence. Thoughts of how they would appear lying on the tiles, chest cavity laid bare, organs arranged around their corpse like post-modern confrontational art. These thoughts must be apparent, must be reflected upon their surface.

I see a childs face upon the street and see only an image of future pain that I could inflict upon them. Children see more, or rather, they ignore less than what is readily apparent. We grown ups do not want to accept that in the eyes of a man on the street we can see untold horrors, can smell the sickly sweet odours of blood drying upon pine floors in some charnel house of a cellar, can taste the slick warmth and coppery tang of the flesh as it yields to teeth.

Children are less easily constrained and they give me a wide berth usually, knowing that what they see in my eyes is not fancy, not an overly imaginative mind at work, not societal paranoia. Children see my eyes and see a bad man looking back at them. A killer. A monster.

I like children most of all, for when a child is in the grip of absolute fear, when it reaches that point of utter certainty that they are going to die, then, oh god, that moment that sweet moment! All the fighting, the lying, the survival instincts give way to an instant of complete peace. All fear passes from them. There is total acceptance of their mortality, and at that moment I can see their souls and it is beautiful. More beautiful than anything else you can imagine or experience. You have broken down all their animal like instincts and vulgarities, and in return they surrender their very soul to you. As they die they die having known ultimate peace, they have transcended the mortal boundaries that we wallow within for our entire lives. They are pure.

The girl on the floor is beginning to smell now. It's time to clean up I suppose. I look once more at the pinprick circles of blackness in the centre of my eyes. I shake my head slowly. They know. They know and yet they do nothing. They share my guilt, they are as culpable as I. At least I am honest with regard to my nature. All they can do is deny it, and deny me