Free Full Vessels by Brian Blose Page B

around. Boring
ass conference room, right? What's beyond that? Old-timey hotel
still bragging about running water. An island sitting around an
angry fucking volcano. A sea. A whole world. A whole fucking
universe.
    “You see, dumb asses, the Creator don't do
half measures. This place exists a single week. There's hardly any
reason to try. Yet we find ourselves in a complex, self-consistent
universe. That's beauty. Every moment is a miracle. A real deal
miracle.
    “The pathetic creatures don't get that.
Suicides were the thing that opened my eyes. I couldn't fathom why
anything would want to punch the clock. I mean, I used to feel
sorry for the bastards' short lives and I didn't even like 'em. So
anyways, people were looking at their options and voting no on
proposition existence.
    “I'll admit, I went a teensy bit extreme at
first. Then I got the idea of a lifetime. Started on a methodology
I kept up until last Iteration. I abduct someone and do the torture
bit until they ask me, without prompting, to kill them. Badabing,
badaboom, I'm done. Just gotta ask one question and I'm dumping a
body somewhere.
    “The things I learned were grade A
observation. Pampered people put up less of a fight than the
downtrodden. What the fuck, right? I mean, you'd expect them to
have more to live for and all that. Nope. And age does weird shit.
If you graph out quickness to embrace oblivion, with age as the
independent variable, it looks like a sine wave. Kids are fighters.
Teenagers got a death wish. Adults wanna live. Old fucks are ready
to go.
    “Course, that's averaging out a lot of
distinct individuals. I seen some interesting shit. Caused a
lot of interesting shit, to tell it straight. That graph, though,
really got me thinking. It's not a straight line up or down. So the
big factor's gotta be life stage. Here's how I reckon the
facts.
    “Children are going off of what the Creator
programmed into their biology. Body says live, so they live.
Teenagers got more brains, so they can override the program when
their shorts give them a wedgie. But then adults get a jolt of
self-preservation hormones when they have cum-stains running
around. Then the inconvenience of getting all decrepit makes them
ready to give up. Deep shit, right?”
    Ingrid slapped the table. “Do we really have
to listen to this? Your insights aren't deep Erik. They're sick.
They're twisted. They're simple-minded .”
    “Aw, honey, are you ragging it? Cause if you
are, I still do not give a shit . I will start doing things
if anyone interrupts me again. Try to get some objectivity! You're
Observers, not people.
    “Anyway, here's some fascinating factoids.
Men last longer than women. Soldiers do fantastic as a segment.
Malnourished or diseased people got no will to live, but that's
mostly biology, I think. Hoodlums probably win. They're survivors.
Mostly, that is. They never survive some quality time with moi .
    “So the moral of the story is that creation
despises existence. Which, I suppose, the lot of you suiciding
turd-suckers already knew. But wait, there's more!
    “See, before I killed anyone, I asked a
question. Why do you hate Creation? They told me some
bullshit, I gave em a quick finish. Then, last Iteration, I made a
friend while the Church of the Demiurge kept me in their lovely
torture hotel. Made lots of friends, actually, but this one was a
friend friend. Not a real friend – I'm still being ironic. But not
like a gonna-hurt-you-so-bad friend. More like a
wanna-see-how-you-react friend.
    “Anyway, bitch was quite the
conversationalist. I told her all about my routine. Then my main
man Hess broke me out of the slammer. So I reconnected with my
friend friend from the inside. And before I even got started with
my thing, she blows my fucking mind.
    “Said some stuff about fear taking over
people. Then the big reveal. The people don't have a
purpose. ” Erik brandished his hands as if he had performed a
magic trick. His eyes darted from face to face.