"You look like you could use some rest. Good idea, Leonard, you've had a hard first day. That said..." Roger drew a large dagger and plunged it into Leonard's right cheek. It pierced the aluminum foil ball and poked through the other side of Leonard's face. Roger then punched Leonard in the jaw, knocking him out yet again.

Leonard was awoken with an ice cold gla.s.s of water to the face, a pleasantly mild shock. The puncture wounds on his face had been st.i.tched more proficiently than the other cuts. His arms and legs were unbound and his broken arm rested in a sling. Roger looked at him with a tranquil, almost relieved expression. "You may leave now, Leonard."

"What?"

Roger handed him a cane. His legs, while terribly burnt and in constant agony, were still functional. "You question my offer?"

Leonard took the cane. "No. Not at all." Oddly enough, he meant it. There was a change in Roger's demeanor. It seemed that he had been purged, the ritual completed. Moreover, freedom was so much what Leonard wanted that he gladly set aside any suspicion. He hobbled his way to the door and opened it, stumbling into the light beyond the threshold.

His stomach plummeted. He died a dozen more deaths more severe than anything that Roger had forced upon him. He stood in the hallway outside his own bedroom. As his body began to collapse, he was seized from behind by his hair. Roger jerked him into the room and slammed the door shut. Leonard was on his mutilated knees, Roger's grip on his hair the only thing stopping him from going fetal on the floor. Roger leaned into Leonard's ear and growled, "You have experienced suffering and bleeding and bruising, but you have not yet begun to understand anguish."

He threw his crippled victim to the floor. "This is your bedroom, Leonard, the room where you and Christina have made love and whispered so many sweet nothings in your years of marriage. Don't worry. She won't be interrupting us any time soon. I've seen to that."

The door closed and the real torment began.

Strength.

by Alec Cizak.

"This is your last year of elementary school," his mother explained, "next year you'll be in middle school and surrounded by completely new people." She smiled, kissed him on his forehead and shoved him out the door, towards the school bus in the front of the house.

Matthew knew better, though. His parents insisted every year that things would be different. But they never were. It started the first day of school and didn't stop until summer break. Even then, at the pool, at the mall, if he ran into one of the popular kids, the noise continued.

"There's Yuckystall!" they would say. They would point. They would laugh.

There was nothing he could do about it. The teacher always ran down the roster first thing to learn the students' names. His was at the end, the one everyone would remember.

"Matthew," the teacher would invariably say, "ah," her eyes would narrow, attempting to decipher the rudely un-American name. "Ah, Matthew, ah," more pause.

The entire cla.s.s would figure out who the only uncalled name belonged to and stare at him expectantly. Matthew refused to help the teacher. She should be able to read, he reasoned, she should be educated enough to put together the letters in a logical manner that fits the rules of English.

"Yutzenstal?" She would say it, but somehow never p.r.o.nounce it correctly.

"Yutz-en-stal," he would explain, as though he were speaking to a monkey in the throes of worthless linguistic training.

This annoyed the teacher, who would then allow the students to make remarks about his name.

"Yutzenstal," they might say, "what kind of creepy name is that?"

When he was younger, he explained that it was Jewish. Few elementary students understood what that meant. One or two, however, would lay into him.

"My dad says Jews have to control everything."

"Is it true your people like to start wars?"

Moronic questions to which there were no satisfactory answers for the drooling youth of ignorance. They accused Matthew of having all the power in the world, to which he would respond, "I have nothing."

This was almost true. His father was a public defender. He made no money outside of that which he needed to keep them in a small apartment in the housing projects near 25th and Keystone. They lived on the border of the worst ghetto in Indianapolis. His mother was a medical a.s.sistant at a Clinica Medica, catering to the newly arrived Mexican and Latino population of the city. She spoke four languages. She had been offered translating work with Eli Lilly. She chose eight dollars an hour working for people who called her *gebacho' behind her back.

Their apartment was filled with enough rodents and insects to start a miniature zoo. Matthew watched his father set new traps for the mice and rats every night. As the early morning hours rolled around, he could hear them going off in the kitchen.

Snap!

The sound echoed through the apartment. It woke him up every morning and he began to take a liking to it. He knew when he walked into the kitchen there would be another reminder of his family's poverty, killed during the act of trying to take what little they had.

Matthew got on the bus. The snickers and giggles started. He tested high on the moronic a.s.sessment check-ups the state insisted all students submit themselves to. The questions were an insult to his intelligence. Because the state was convinced he was a genius, he was bussed to a public school in Carmel, the last hold-out of white yuppie hegemony in the entire state. The other students, no matter where they were bussed from, had money. It showed in their clothes, their school supplies, their shoes, their teeth.

"You don't want to be like everyone else, do you?"

This was what his father said to convince him that wearing a nine dollar pair of sneakers made him superior to his cla.s.smates. He knew better. Even in the ghetto, the kids understood that a flashy brand name printed on the side of a shoe was a *get out of being picked-on' free card. The Nike emblem was worth the price of gold in the hallways. In some neighborhoods, children actually killed each other for a pair of trendy shoes.

But Matthew was expected to *make do.' His clothes were from Goodwill. The logos on his t-shirts were faded. Probably for the better. While some might find great value in an original tour shirt from a 1973 Black Sabbath concert, in elementary school, it was just another badge of economic failure. Most kids never got around to making fun of his shirts, however, since the hand-me-down pants he wore were riddled with holes, many times in the most embarra.s.sing of places.

"You guys run out of food or something?" Jason Bugle said as Matthew sat near the back of the bus.

"What?" he asked, letting his guard down. He actually thought Jason was asking a serious question.

"Looks like you've been snacking on your jeans!" he laughed and pointed to a severe tear down the side of Matthew's pants.

As the other students howled with delight, Matthew looked away. He wasn't sure why, but he thought about the ants that had invaded his bedroom at the beginning of the summer. A line of them traveling from a hole in the wall to a piece of birthday cake he had brought back from his cousin's house.

His parents were atheists, and they often spoke of Darwin. Matthew decided to read "The Origin of Species" in the spring. He had befriended several spiders that had built their webs in the corners of his room. He named them all-Darwin, Nietzsche, Camus, and the biggest of all, Hume. When the ants arrived, he decided to run an experiment on survival. Catching a few ants in a jar, he walked over to the corner where Hume had built a ma.s.sive web in, and sat down.

"Hey buddy," he said, then opened the jar of ants and dumped them into the web. They squirmed for their lives. Hume saw the offering and rushed down to go to work on the weakest. Matthew watched, with tremendous fascination, the process of paralyzing the ant and then encasing it for later ingestion. He focused on the other ones. Their struggle set off a warm sensation deep within him. He could not help but smile as the little creatures frantically tried to break their way free of the sticky web.

Long afterwards, he dreamt of the terrified ants the way a normal twelve-year old boy dreams about the girl next door. He was just as small as they were, but he was not trapped in the web. It was a show, a burlesque, almost. The ants cried for help. Matthew took pleasure in refusing. Then, Hume or Nietzsche would swoop down and begin the horrifying process of ending their lives.

These const.i.tuted Matthew Yutzenstal's first wet dreams.

"Our little boy is growing up," his mother quietly told his father in the most normal, cliched manner possible.

"Thank G.o.d," his father said, "I was beginning to think, you know," he waved his hand in an effeminate manner, "he was, you know," he couldn't even say the word.

Matthew's mother took tremendous offense. "Not my son," she insisted, "never."

At some point in the future, Matthew's parents would look back fondly at the day they actually worried that the worst thing that could be wrong with their little boy was s.e.xual confusion.

In the meantime, the rats had gotten wise to the steel traps in the kitchen and had stopped being fooled by them. Matthew's father switched to giant glue cards. He put peanut b.u.t.ter in the middle. This worked beautifully.

One night Matthew was dreaming about the ants when he heard a hideous cry come from the kitchen. It was a rat, stuck, screaming at the top of its little lungs. The sound of its fear and desperation was like music. A fantastic calm washed over Matthew. To listen to another creature suffer, he realized, is the most wondrous sensation an animal can experience. He had to go look at it, to allow his eyes the pleasure his ears enjoyed.

He crept through the hallway, into the kitchen. He turned on the light and the rat, seeing a giant human to add to its other miseries, screamed louder. It tried to wiggle itself free, arched its back and made every effort to tear itself off the glue card.

"You must be really scared," Matthew said, "you must know that very soon you will no longer exist. I envy you." He looked around. He wanted to find other ways to make the rat suffer.

Water dripped from the faucet on the kitchen sink. An idea flashed through Matthew's mind. Warmth is nice, he thought, scalding heat is torture. He grabbed a dirty pan left out on the side of the sink and turned on the hot water.

"Yes," he whispered to the rat, "things are going to get worse." Happiness had never been closer, he realized. This was what Darwin intended. These creatures, these little creatures, they had no right to exist in the same s.p.a.ce as him.

The water was steaming. He put the pan underneath it. As it filled, he tested it with his finger. It was hot enough to make him draw back. Perfect. He turned the faucet off and carried the pan over to the corner.

When Matthew looked into the rat's black eyes, he saw, for the first time, how obvious fear is to another animal. No wonder the bigger, more popular kids had such an easy time picking on me, he realized, I must have been showing the same thing. His weakness made him angry, even a little sick.

"How about some water, scarecrow," he tilted the pan ever-so-slightly, allowing a thin stream to trickle down on the rat's head, directly into its eyes.

As soon as it hit, the rat twisted from side to side violently and ended up getting stuck right up to its chin. It was now completely helpless. Matthew increased the stream of water. The rat tried to scream again, but could barely open its mouth.

It was clear that the rat was in pain, but it could no longer express it. The process had become boring. Matthew put the pan back, then noticed a steak knife on the other side of the counter. He realized the next logical step was to cleanse his hands in the bath of another's misery. He grabbed the steak knife and walked back over to the rat.

"Would you like me to set you free?" he asked in a charming tone one might normally use to invite a pretty girl to the dance floor.

Matthew bent down, picked up the rat's tail and sliced through it with the steak knife. The material making up the tail gave way to the knife with absolutely no resistance. Again, this quickly bored him.

It did not bore the rat, which had managed to rip its head off of the glue card, leaving fur and patches of torn flesh. It shrilled in short bursts, between quick breaths, as it attempted to rationalize the sudden, violent loss of its tail.

There was a little blood, but nothing spectacular. Not according to Matthew. He brought the knife down over the rat's left hind leg and began sawing through it. Now he had something. A smile spread across his face as blood washed out around the cut he was making. There was a little resistance when he got to the bone, but he was able to force the knife through and in no time he had separated the little leg from the rat.

At this point, the rat could no longer breathe in any normal fashion. Its body heaved up and down as it struggled to maintain its life.

Matthew looked into the rat's eyes one more time. The message was clear. Death. The rodent wanted nothing else at that point. What doctors would refer to as a s.a.d.i.s.tic impulse ran through Matthew's mind. He considered leaving the rat just like that, bleeding on the glue card. It wouldn't be much different from what the glue card normally did, which was starve the animal to death.

But curiosity and a senseless rush of guilt prompted Matthew to decide to cut the rat's head off and end its misery. He brought the knife up and prepared to slice through its neck.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

It was his father. The man who made sure killers and thieves who were too poor to afford the Johnny Cochran's of the world had a fighting chance in court. He was standing over his son with a terrified look on his face.

"I'm putting it out of its misery," Matthew explained in a manner that did not suggest he was lying.

"Wash your hands, thoroughly," his father directed him to the sink. "You'll get rabies playing around with rats."

This was a cla.s.sic case of what those familiar with psychology would call *denial.' Matthew's father had seen what his son was doing. He knew very well what it ultimately meant, and his brain had quickly sidetracked him so that he would not think too much about it.

Matthew went back to bed feeling as though he had grown a foot taller. Certainly, in his mind, he had proven to nature that he was better at surviving than a filthy little rat.

The bus made an unusual turn. This was not strange for a first day, but the fact that the street it rumbled down was populated by those who had even less money than Matthew's family was of note.

Out of a broken down, one-story house, a skinny fourth grader with the most stereotypical thick gla.s.ses resting on his nose walked to the bus. Everything about him was awkward and clumsy. He had, apparently, just finished breakfast, for a white mustache peppered with small chunks of cereal still stuck to his face. It looked on more than one occasion as though he might stumble over his own feet.

"Get this dork," Jason Bugle said.

The others laughed as ordered.

"He looks weirder than you, Yuckystall!" It was a girl, which made the ridicule all the more upsetting.

The new boy climbed onto the bus. He was smiling. How unaware he must be, Matthew thought, of the h.e.l.l these kids are about to put him through.

"Good morning!" The new boy directed his greeting at everyone on the bus.

Tony, the driver, was a greaser who still craved the validation of the *cool' kids. Being in his early thirties did not deter him from doing childish and stupid things. Ignoring friendly nerds like the new kid was one of them.

"Sit down, geek," he said.

The entire bus laughed. Several bullies looked at Matthew.

This was it, he realized, this was the ticket out of h.e.l.l. He smirked and shook his head in disgust. "What a tool," he said.

The bullies were satisfied. They joined in the laughter as the new boy walked, head already sunk, to the back of the bus. He saw Matthew, recognized a fellow genius and looked for support.

Matthew turned his eyes towards the window.

"h.e.l.lo," the new boy said, "I'm Brandon." He offered his hand in the most polite manner.

Matthew continued to ignore him. A rage was building inside. Why the h.e.l.l do the dips.h.i.ts always find me for support? He curled his lips in to keep the angry air he was breathing from escaping.

Brandon gave up and sat down in the seat just in front of him.

The bus started again. Most of the kids returned to their previous conversations about sports and shoes. Matthew looked at Brandon. He was reminded of a small cat he had played with just a few weeks earlier.

Walking through an alley near 38th and Keystone, he had come across a homeless kitten. It was white with little black spots all over it. Under its chin was a black triangle, reminding Matthew of the Tom from the Tom and Jerry cartoons made during World War II. But this cat didn't look mean like old Tom. It was cute and cuddly, despite the fact that it had obviously been abandoned. When it saw Matthew, it cried with its little lungs for love and, more than likely, food.

The dying weakling in Matthew thought to himself, what a cute little kitty. I should take it home. He got as far as thinking how he would sell the idea to his dad, who constantly had to set traps for the parade of rodents in their apartment. A cat would get rid of them all, he practiced in his mind, why the very scent would scare off the mice and rats.

He picked the kitten up and started walking towards the projects. It purred and rubbed its little head against his arms in the most endearing fashion. Matthew wondered if the kitten was smart enough to show him affection based on the supposition that he was going to feed it. He held it up in front of his eyes.

"Are you being a prost.i.tute?" he asked the little creature.

The kitten stared back at him, occasionally looking up when cars went by, then returning Matthew's gaze once more.

Matthew's stomach began to turn. It was a physical pain, complemented by a harsh voice in his head. What a pathetic existence, he thought, a tiny, fragile little animal that has the gall to call itself a killer. He needed to ill.u.s.trate just how meek the cat was.

Rummaging through a trash can at the corner of Keystone and 38th, Matthew found a st.u.r.dy plastic bag from Osco's and put the kitten inside it. He walked back to the bridge over Fall Creek and climbed over the guard rail. A concrete embankment made the journey to the side of the creek effortless. Once he was by the water, he told the kitten, "Life is only pain." He knelt down, holding the bag over the creek, "You will thank me for this, just before it's over."

He dunked the bag into the river. The cat squirmed and fought for its life as water crept into the tiny s.p.a.ce Matthew had allotted at the top. It could not fit through the hole, just watch the deadly water pour in.

Again, Matthew decided simply killing the creature was not enough. His satisfaction, what the rest of us might refer to as an o.r.g.a.s.m, could only be derived by the cat believing there would be a pardon, and then realizing that no, this was the day all things ended.

Pulling the bag out of the water, he let the cat poke its head through the top. The kitten scratched at the side, looked at Matthew with horror and disgust. If it physically had the capability, the boy realized, this thing would tear me from limb to limb. He shoved the cat back down into the bag and dunked it once more.