text: I once watched a man break a woman’s knee caps. It was as horrifying as one would think. Sometimes people say terrible things aren’t so terrible as they’re made out to be. Like the first time you have to get a cavity filled or resetting a broken bone. “It’s over before you know it.” they say. That’s not what it’s like watching a man permanently disable another human being. It happens forever. The screams are so loud that you forget what silence sounds like. The gurgly, banshee-cries pierce your ear drums at first. But then it’s just white noise. And your heart doesn’t jump to your throat the first time he swings the crow bar. It kind of rises up like a large bowling ball and presses against your adams apple with gradual pressure until you feel like your head is going to erupt from your shoulders. You wonder if it will ever stop. But it doesn’t. Like the screaming it just goes on and on until you can’t remember things being any different. The crow bar makes a thudding sound the first couple times. Then crunching, then squishing. I don’t remember how many times he hit her. I just remember the sounds. -- Before that day I used to think of myself as a good person. I saw bad things happening ‘out there’. Evil men took advantage of other men and women and children. Crazy people hurt other people. Not people like me. I was a good person. I went to work, said hi to the receptionist, made small talk with a few co-workers. I bought coffee for everyone once a week. Sometimes I paid for the person behind me in the drive-thru. Bad guys didn’t make small talk. The day I watched a man break a woman’s knee caps started like any other day. I kissed my girlfriend goodbye while she lay half-awake in bed. It was always like that: we both started work at the same time but she was a barista across the street and I had a forty-five minute commute. Sometimes that would really annoy me. Most days I would be genuinely affectionate and kiss her softly on the cheek and she’d roll over to kiss me back and I’d have to pry myself off of her so I wouldn’t be late for work. But sometimes I woke up angry and left the house without touching her and fumed about how lazy she was for most of the day. But I always forgot about it by the time I got back home. It wasn’t like the way I felt about my boss. I never really liked him. All the women in the office found him a little uncomfortable. He never touched anyone or said anything out of bounds or inappropriate or anything like that. But he was always...around. And he didn’t make good company. Some people try way too hard to be your friend even though you feel like you’ve made it clear through the existing social norms that you don’t want to be friends. It’s not like they’re bad people or there’s anything wrong with them. They just come on real strong and can’t seem to take a hint. It’s like they just don’t quite know how to be around other people. My boss was that kind of person. He spent most of the day trying to make small talk. Mostly with the women in the office. Everyone always talked about filing a complaint, but it was a small company and it was privately owned--by him. Filing a complaint basically meant you were asking to be let go. And the pay was good. And it really didn’t seem like a big sacrifice to make uncomfortable small talk with a socially awkward person periodically to work a decent job. It was Monday, and I was extra tired because my girlfriend and I had been up late the night before. I didn’t think much of the receptionist not being at the front desk. I didn’t think it was weird that the doors were closed to all the other offices even though I was ten minutes late. I just counted it as good luck that I could have some peace and quiet in the morning. It wouldn’t be the first time most people showed up late to work on a Monday. I had just sat down at my desk when I heard a loud thud. I don’t really know where it came from, except that it wasn’t outside. I don’t know how I knew that. I just did. I knocked on the door of the office next to mine. No one answered so I jiggled the handle. That’s when I noticed the door jamb was broken. It was splintered; like someone had forced it open. I didn’t go in. My first thought was that we’d had a break-in over the weekend. My heart started racing and I felt cold and sweaty at the same time. I started walking to my boss’s office. I didn’t think about how a break-in would only make sense if the front door or one of the windows was also broken(they weren’t). I just didn’t think it could be anything worse. Break-ins were bad enough. I was a good person: I didn’t think about what could be worse than a break-in. I could hear voices coming from my boss’s office as I got closer. The first voice was Jacob(my boss). ‘Good,’ I thought, ‘The robbers must not have gotten to his office.’ Robbers. It didn’t occur to me that this was the kind of word children used to describe bad guys. The door to Jacob’s office was halfway open. I was about to burst in and make my announcement. I would be the good guy that had discovered the robbers. I was going to be a hero. There’s a mirror in Jacob’s office. I don’t know why he has it. It’s not like a small mirror he keeps in a drawer to check his face before a meeting. It’s a full body mirror. Like one you’d find in a department store dressing room. Sometimes if his door was open and we walked by we could see him standing in front of it. He wouldn’t be smiling--Just standing with his hands in his pockets and staring. The mirror sits in such a way that you can see the opposite wall when the door is open. I had my hand outstretched to push the door the rest of the way open. I was that close. I happened to glance toward the mirror and saw that Jacob had his back turned to the door. He was standing up with his right side facing the mirror. He was covered in blood. I didn’t think it was blood at first. I thought it might just be paint for a moment. Then I thought maybe he had caught the robbers and stopped them himself. Then I heard the whimpering. “Please don’t hurt me” said a whisper. It was Gail--the receptionist. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her shaking through the sound of her irregular breathing: “I won’t tell anyone, I promise” “I wouldn’t mind if you did,” said Jacob abruptly. He sounded much different than I was used to; like my father after a bad day at work: “I’ve been doing this for years and no one’s ever found out. At first it was thrilling: committing the ultimate crime and never getting caught. But now it’s just boring! I’d rather people found out so something new would happen. The routine is getting to me. Have you ever been brushing your teeth and found yourself thinking, ‘I fucking hate this’. So you stop brushing your teeth for a few days in protest. And new things happen! Your breath stinks and people complain and your gums start to bleed whenever you chew things...that’s me, today. Have you ever woken up angry and had no idea why? It’s like that. I spent all morning looking forward to finally changing things up, and WOW are things ever going to be different today! I even set a new record for myself. Did you know? I’ve killed nine people today. You’re about to be the tenth.” That’s when she started screaming. I stood with my hand still outstretched while I watched the crowbar go up and down dozens of times. Spots and splatters of blood decorated the mirror and the surrounding wall. I imagined Gail--just out of range of the mirror--being beaten to a fleshy mass of nothing. I wondered if I was next. Finally it occurred to me that I should probably fucking do something. Gail was somehow still screaming and Jacob was still swinging. The sound was like someone walking through fresh mud in rubber boots. I opened the door. I was reaching for a paper weight on Jacob’s desk when Gail saw me, pointed, and shouted, “Help me, please!” I think Jacob hit me then. All I remember is an explosive pressure in my head and a ringing in my ears that mercifully drowned out Gail’s cries. I felt the same explosive pressure in my legs in a few different spots. I thought Jacob might be hitting me with the crowbar, now. When the ringing in my ears turned back into the white noise of Gail’s scream my vision cleared. Jacob wasn’t holding the crow bar. He was holding the edge of his desk and jumping up and down on my legs. “You fucking bitch!” He shouted it over and over and over again. After my hearing and vision came back I started to register pain. I had known my legs were broken when I saw him jumping on them. Now I really knew. I had to stop Jacob, but I couldn’t move my legs and there was nothing within reach. Something was knocking me in the head. I barely had the presence of mind to find out what. I craned my neck to find that Gail was holding the crow bar. She was extending it out to me. With a strength I never knew I had, I took hold of the crow bar and in one fluid motion slammed it into the airborne ankle of Jacob. Lord knows what I would have done had that shot missed. The impact threw Jacob’s balance off mid-air. He let go of the desk to clutch his ankle and subsequently landed on his side next to me on the floor. Without thinking I drove the sharp end of the crow bar through his eye. I don’t know if I hit the floor or the back of his skull, but he went limp immediately. Had I stopped there, I would have perhaps still thought of myself as a good person. But I kept going. Gail kept screaming, and I kept stabbing and smashing. My legs were useless, so I propped myself up on one elbow and used the other arm to pummel Jacob’s body into ground meat. I only stopped because the crow bar became slippery with blood and flew out of reach. We couldn’t reach the telephone and both of our cell phones were destroyed by Jacob’s beating. The police say we laid there all day--It wasn’t until my girlfriend noticed I was late coming home that she thought something was up. The doctors say I was likely unconscious most of the time. Gail died of blood loss before anyone found us. I was the last one in to work that day. Everyone had already been killed except Gail and Jacob. Each person in their own office. I’m a good person, I think. But the police find it suspicious that I’m the only one without injury consistent with all the other victims.