text: Due to circumstances outside of my control, I decided to move across the country. I left everything I had ever known behind. I don’t know if I’m happy about it, or if it’s going to work, but I know it is better than staying in New York. I’m getting ahead of myself however; I must go back to the beginning. I had originally fallen into quite the routine to mange my stressors. I would wake up each morning at precisely 4:30am, from that time I would allow myself 30 minutes to shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and brew my morning coffee while scarfing down a protein bar. I would then drive to the gym, arriving at precisely 5:30am each morning. From there I would spend 15 minutes stretching, utilizing bands and other implements to ensure that my body was prepared for my workout. Then I would spend an additional 10 minutes doing something to raise my heart rate, doing anything from jogging to light sled pulls. From there, I would spend the next five minutes warming up for whatever muscle group I planned on targeting that day. The time was then 6:00am and I would begin my workout. My workout would continue until 6:50am, at which time I would rush to shower and exit the gym in my suit by 7:00am. I would then drive to a local diner a few minutes from my office, and order the same thing each day: A sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich with an extra egg and hash browns. Although slightly heavier than I would have liked, this meal allowed me to remain satiated until lunchtime. I would sip on coffee while reading the morning news upon my tablet, preparing myself for the day ahead. At 8:00am I would pay my bill, leaving the same tip each day, as It was customary that I would also receive the same waitress each day, who ensured that my coffee remained full, but not refilled too early, as that would ruin the ratio of coffee to creamer in my cup. She also reminded the cook that my eggs needed to be just slightly runny, and my hash browns crispy each morning. In fact, if she were to be off one morning, she would be sure to let me know so that I could make other arrangements. On those days she was absent, I would wake up 30 minutes earlier and arrive and leave the gym 30 minutes ahead of schedule to allow myself to run home and prepare my own breakfast before going in to work. I did not like to leave my meals to chance, because the times that my routine has been interrupted have been... unpleasant. I would then drive to the office, arriving to my desk at precisely 8:30am. This is when my day would truly start. I would spend the next hour poring over the pre market transactions, attempting to glean anything I did not yet know about the securities which I was interested in or held positions in. Once the markets opened at precisely 9:30am, as they did every morning, I would begin making the trades that I had been planning in my head since I had left the office the night before. This would continue until 12:30pm, when I would rise from my desk and go across the street for lunch, again, ordering the same tuna steak and side of wild rice each day, with a large glass of sweet tea. There were two different hostesses that could be working this particular shift, depending on the day. I had trained, for lack of a better word, each of them to provide me the level of service I required to maintain my routine. Like my waitress at breakfast, they would ensure my glass remained full, and my meal properly cooked. They didn’t run quality control, per se, as it wasn’t their job, but they always let the chef know I was there, and reminded them of my discerning taste. By 1:15 this meal would by over, and I would return to my desk for the remainder of the day. I would continue trading and going through research my team had prepared until 4:30pm when the markets closed. At this point, my preparation for the next day would begin. From 4:30pm until 6:00pm I would look over the rest of the research my team had prepared, do a little bit of my own, and develop a plan for the next day. At 6:00pm, I would drive home, shower, change into evening clothes, and cook myself dinner. My dinner would be the only meal that was variable. It could be anything as simple as a cheeseburger, to something as elaborate as a sushi spread with some sort of exotic ramen I would prepare myself. Cooking gave me an opportunity to leave the analytical side of myself behind. Cooking was an art, something that I could deviate from the recipes that I was following in order to create an end result that I would be satisfied with. I didn’t prescribe myself a set time to complete this meal, due to the varying complexities of my dishes. If I needed to create something exceptionally difficult the next day, I would then begin any necessary prep work to ensure that meal would go smoothly. After this point, I would allow myself an hour of leisure, something like video games or Netflix, again, an escape from my analytical mindset. By 9:00 however, my day would be complete. I would then walk to my bed, and head off to sleep. Each day had carried on in this template for years. I was content, and the rigidity of my schedule had allowed me to keep the anger that resided inside me under control. What my peers didn’t know about me is that it is extremely difficult for me to handle deviances from my sense of routine and normality. It is a condition that I do not truly understand. What I do know is that there is an inherent anger and violence to the way I perceive and react to the world. This is perhaps the price I must pay for my great analytical skills and intense discipline. That is, until these urges became far too strong and I was able to resist them no longer. There came a day, that I let myself become consumed in them, and would do something that I wish I could say I regret. It began when I arrived to the gym, which was typically empty and somehow each piece of equipment, dumbbell, or rack I needed would be occupied by someone who had no idea what they were doing, frustrating me even more. Then my waitress at the diner was gone, and her replacement did an extremely subpar job in ensuring the quality of my meal. I was frustrated that my waitress had not warned me beforehand. . I kept the urges inside, but they began to pile up. The markets were crashing that day, something that many times before I had been able to predict, but today I lost vast amounts of money due to my error and the irrationality of the day’s events. I began to unravel, but was able to convince myself that any reaction was not worth it until lunch. I ordered my tuna steak each day seared, with a crusted outside that contained seasoning, and a center that was raw but slightly warm, so as not to be jarring to my pallet against the hot outside. After waiting much longer than usual, the steak came out well done, ruining the cut of fish. That was when I could take these mistakes no more. I rose from my table and walked towards the kitchen to find the chef who had cooked my meal. It was a younger chef than I had typically seen working, but that made the mistake no more acceptable. It was clear that he had no respect for his clients, especially one important enough for the hostesses to warn him about. I then returned to the office, biding my time until the restaurant would close. The chaos around me as the markets continued to crash felt like a blur, I no longer cared and my analytical mind was no more. All I felt was an insurmountable rage that I had been able to keep deep inside for so long. At precisely 9:00pm, the restaurant would close, as it did everyday. At 8:45, I rose from my desk and waited in the lobby of my building, waiting for the chef to exit. It took him 27 minutes after the 9:00pm closing time to exit the restaurant. I began to follow him home, waiting until he was in a back alley when I called out to him. “How hard is it to follow simple instructions?” I ask him. “What the hell are you talking about?” He retorts, clearly not recognizing me. “My tuna steak. I order the same thing every single day. Every day my steak is ordered seared and yet you manage to mess it up, even after being reminded by the hostess and the ticket from the waitress.” “Dude are you kidding me, you seriously are following me to bitch about your lunch being overcooked? Fuck off.” “And now you’re going to disrespect me, after I gave you the chance to apologize or at least some justification for your actions?” “Bro, it’s your lunch. It’s a piece of fish for Christ’s sake, if it’s that big of a deal to you you should have complained earlier and got the meal comped.” “I think it should be clear that money is not my motivation for this. This is about respect and doing your job. This is about ruining my routine.” “Your routine? What the hell are you talking about? You’re out of your mind.” At that, he turned to jog away. But I couldn’t let this exchange go unpunished, so I began to chase after him. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I tackled him and felt the folding knife I keep in my jacket pocket press against my ribs. I reached into my coat, pulled it out, and began stabbing the chef in the back of the neck. I stood up, astonished at what I had done, but not necessarily regretful of it. It felt so good to release the anger I had been bottling up for so long. Once he had finally stopped his pitiful writhing on the ground, I hoisted his body into a dumpster, returned to my car, and drove home. Once home, I cooked the dinner I had prepared the night before, and enjoyed the fact that it was properly cooked. The anger and bloodlust were still within me, and I left the steak even more rare than I typically would, letting the juice drip down my face as I ate. It was at this moment that I knew I must leave. I could no longer control what was within me, and if I wanted to continue living in comfort, I must go. That night I packed all the items I thought I would require in this new life, and in the morning, after allowing myself to sleep in, something I never did, I walked to the bank and withdrew everything from my accounts in cash. I then drove to the dumpster I had left the chef in, and put the body in my passenger seat. On the drive to the river, I pulled each of his teeth and disfigured his face, so that he may be mistaken for myself if he were ever found. I then let the car roll into the river, and walked back to a main road to hail a cab to take me to the airport. I flew to Colorado and purchased an isolated, but grand home to live out the remainder of my days, attempting to isolate myself from anything that I could lash out on. I was no longer the analytical, regimented freak I had been for much of my life, but I had become something far worse. I realized I didn’t care what the consequences for that release I had experienced through that killing were, I realized that the clarity it allowed me to feel was too good not to experience again.