Every couple of months.

Now and then.

On whim – or when the addiction scratches through – from my brain to my belly.

I kill someone.

It’s not often quick. More than likely, I stalk the periphery of their lives for a while. Slowly picking at loose strands so that things in their lives begin to unravel.

Sometimes it can take months.

I rarely do it for good reasons. Sometimes I’m depressed and it’s a way of acting out. As if I’m punishing myself through a gluttonous answer to my secret desires. Sometimes, I’m rushed and the whim just takes me. Though when it’s rushed, it’s worse as the guilt is joined by the physical aftermath of the experience. Something I can only call, the sickness. Premeditated, the sickness is less, maybe because the experience is larger and more drawn out.

Pick, pick, pick. It begins with the careful erosion of their support systems. In this way, I can stretch my reach further and maybe with a bit of luck touch more than one life. Maybe I won’t destroy them like I will my target, but when the clouds have passed they will all be a little worse, a little closer to death than they were before I turned my attention to them.

Often it begins by gradually turning their community against them. I use empty promises, false positives and rumors. In the beginning it is uncomfortable and often they’ll react in protest, but as time wears on they’ll learn the silence of defeat. Forced quiet against the weight, they won’t know it, but my reach is far enough that I’ll be busy turning their relatives, their families, their own children against them without them ever knowing until the very end.

Once tugged loose, those threads will unravel themselves fast and easy enough that I can turn my attention to the rest of their life.

Not content with just the slow social death, my eyes move toward the economic. By the twisting the screws, I insinuate myself into that side of their life. Picking, always picking, at the things they want, at the things they need. I often play this one by ear, watching the way the community breathes, though even as I say that, more often than not, I’ll take their job. If, for some reason, I can’t, I will make them powerless within it. After which I will make their job seem useless – if only in their own minds.

Unless rushed – I do my best to pick those with a smallholding. If only for two simple reasons, they have more that I can take away from them and honestly, I hate animals. Where funds permit, I’ll purchase the land around theirs and homogenize it. In this way, I make their efforts pyrrhic and sap away the beauty around them. They should have no light left in their lives when I finally come for them.

I would hope that through the sterilization of their surroundings that their animals sicken and die. If not, I will twist the knives just enough to make possessing them not just a difficult task but also a pointless and wearing one.

With any luck, as I watch them wither slowly, I will be able to turn a tidy profit from my campaign of slow tragedy. It’s a small side note yet one that makes it all the more satisfying.

Sometimes they’re smarter than average and will try to use ways and means to block my slow constriction of their lives. A quick twist of the hook and their tongue is wrapped up neat and useless. I often think I enjoy those the most. The cunning opponent suddenly strangled – the only sign of their indignance, wide-eyes screaming.

In the final stages, I will turn my eyes back to the things most dear to them – their children. Unless rushed, I will always pick those with – if only because the knowledge I have hamstrung a further generation proves a fitting dessert. Even if they are not wise enough to know I’ve turned their children against them, that their children are almost more pro-me than them, I know it and it is beautifully perverse.

They’re almost gone now.

It’s close to the point where I can move in with my kill hand. The method is different each time, the result always the same. I don’t keep records and they’re not worth my memory, within weeks they become just another number. The vague lingering memory of an aftertaste that is the far away memory of a meal I once consumed and in retrospect, didn’t even really enjoy.

Every couple of months.

Now and then.

On whim – or when the addiction scratches through – from my brain to my belly.

I eat McDonalds.