Kill Me Persuasively

Patience. That is the key. You need the right amount of patience. Otherwise, you can’t fit the lock. I should know. I have many, many keys. I know when to use each key to my benefit. It is how I go about my daily business, how I function. It is why I choose to plan everything in advance. Sometimes, even months ahead. I can remember I once planned an even a year in advance. I can lift my head high and say that plan was the most perfect execution I ever did. However, patience sometimes splits my head. It constantly knocks around, reminding me what to do. I pace restlessly in my home, wishing to do the designed task already. I know sometimes the key isn’t molded perfectly to my liking if I rush. Impatience likes to grab this unfinished key and then bring it to me. In my haste I feel not myself, not in control. I leave a slovenly mess. It takes me more than one try to fit the key. Eventually I do, but by then the event has not happened as I would like it to. That is when I throw my keys about the house in blind fury. My senses go awry and I lose my head for fleeting moments throughout the day. Then I remember I need my keys, so I calm myself as I collect them all. I organize my brain, my keys, the way I know works. Only then am I at peace.
Today is Tuesday, which means I need to prepare for my weekly speech at Westerhedge College. While I am not a professor there, I make these speeches to psychology classes, giving them insight in how people work, types of disorders, what makes them feel what they feel. Some of it is…wishy-washy, I suppose. Listening to their stories of their own struggles should make me feel empathy for them, not pity. Thing is, I feel neither pity nor empathy for any of their stories. In a way that makes me a hypocrite. Here I am, speaking about my topic of interests to students who then tell me their stories and how they connect to such things. I find my way to the kitchen, where a folder of papers I prepared the night before lie on the wooden table. I scoop it up with my right hand and then head to the front door, grabbing my phone and keys on the way.
I live in a relatively small house: two bedrooms, one bathroom, about a thousand square foot of space. All the walls are white, and each room has two paintings in it. I keep a fern in the living room; that is the only plant I have. I have never seen the need for so much decoration. A dash a color here, pose a fountain outside for house appeal; the ideas just can’t stick in my mind.
I make a quick, silent drive to the college. I’m there within ten minutes. Once again I gather my supplies and then walk into the building. I maneuver my way around wandering students that seem to be in a day haze of physically being present but their mind is wandering away. When I arrive at the auditorium door, a hand raises toward me; instinctively I do the social thing and shake with my own hand.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Tomlin,” the man says. He’s one of the psychology professors here, I recognize. I take in his serious yet joyful expression of my arrival. His thinning grey hair seems to decrease each time I see him.
“It’s no problem, Mr. Byrne,” I reply, giving a half-smile that’s become automatic for me when I greet people. “I’m always happy to enlighten people who take an interest.”
Mr. Byrne gestures to the auditorium doors. I take it as my cue to enter, so I do. I leisurely stroll down the main aisle, getting glimpses of the students. Mostly female, it seems. The audience differs each time. I make my way to the podium and test the microphone, making sure it is securely attached to my shirt and won’t fall off. Instantly the room quiets, all pairs of eyes on me. I give a few moments of silence, partly to build tension, partly to keep gazing my surrounding, wondering who thinks to attend such a lecture. I then take out my sheet of paper and place in front of me. I lift my eyes and with a sharp, clear voice, begin my lecture.
“What the hell are morals?”
Faces blankly stare at me as I begin to pace the stage, their eyes questionable with a note of intrigue.
“Are everyone’s morals the same? Different? Are they just ideas to keep us in check? Make sure we don’t do something we regret? When do we begin to lose our morals?”
I make my way across the stage slowly, wondering whose voice could break the deafening silence that usually comes in the beginning of these talks. Then, a girl in the front row speaks.
“Morals are what we consider good or bad behavior. For example, the need to kill a person isn’t a moral anyone should have. Feeling empathy and showing love towards others is a moral we all should have.”
“Compassion,” I say, nodding slowly. I raise my head and squint my eyes as I’m blinded by the lights temporarily. “That’s a good moral to have, you say. Can it ever be a bad moral?”
Silence ensures as I saunter about the stage, hands clasp behind my back.
“Too much compassion may be seen as a bad thing to others,” the same girl speaks up, prodding my interest in her. I nod for her to continue.
“If you’re enemies with someone, and after all they put you through you help save them in a life or death situation, your enemy might not be so happy to leave you alone because you helped,” she continues.
“That is indeed and interesting point,” I say. “Any other voices?”
“Compassion is what also can changes a person’s mind,” a guy in the third row speaks up. I glance over to him. He’s shaking subtly; he must not speak out loud much.
“Change enough to where their enemy would redesign their own morals?” I ask.
“It’s a possibility,” the guy says.
I nod with consent. “Fair enough.” I walk back to the podium. “Now, what about those who have lost the sensation to feel empathetic? Serial killers and psychopaths? Could compassion ever change them?”
I see a few people horizontally shake their head.
“It is almost certain that they won’t change,” I say and lean on the podium. “Those people develop different mindsets than what they’ve had before.” I pause. “What kind of morals do serial killers and psychopaths have?”
“They don’t have morals,” the girl in the front says. “Or if they have any, they are poor representations of themselves.”
“Poor in what way?” I question, walking over to her as I stuff my right hand in my jean pocket. The girl falls silent, her head tilting down.
“They could have good morals,” the guy from the third row speaks up. I glance to him and gesture for him to continue. “While they may have a moral to kill, for say revenge, they could also have their own personal morals like no robbing or no killing pets.”
I give an approving nod. “Those do seem like good morals, even for a killer to have,” I say.
“That doesn’t excuse them from whatever crime they may commit or perhaps have already committed,” the girl says bitingly, her grey-blue eyes sharp as she stares at me, her posture straighter.
“No, it doesn’t,” I say airily after a moment of silence. My eyes search through the sea of people as I choose my next question.
“Can killers be forgiven?”
The silence that the students are so good at crafting remains like invisible dust. I glance expectantly at the girl or the guy to answer, but they are silent as well. I walk back to the podium, my footsteps too loud for my liking.
“There is no judgment here,” I say, glancing about from left to right. “Speak your opinions freely. I will not judge your opinions; likewise, you should be respectful of the opinions you hear.”
“If they feel no remorse for what they’ve done, then why should we forgive them?” A new voice speaks up. My eyes travel to who has spoken. A beach guy, stereotypically speaking: blond hair, blue eyes, sunglasses on his head, recent tan, and wearing sandals. He is almost the perfect spitting image of one.
“A reasonable argument,” I say, nodding. “We can feel all sorts of emotions when something unscrupulous happens to us. Anger, fear, sadness, confusion; the list goes on.” I begin to walk across the stage again to the edge. “So, if we rightfully should feel resentment to those who commit crime without a care in the world, how can some people still forgive them?”
“Sometimes, you have to forgive,” the girl from the front row says. “When we feel strong emotions, such as anger or sadness, we don’t have a clear state of mind. We may say something down the line we will regret. We may lash out at our friends or family, and drive them away without realizing it. Then we’ll be truly alone.”
“How do you work past that sadness and anger?” I press. “How can a person seem to dismiss what has happened?”
“I don’t think it’s that they choose to dismiss the situation,” beach guy interjects. “I think it’s more the case that they put their sadness or anger into a different form to cope.”
A wave of silence falls over the auditorium. I purposefully remain silent, eyeing a few students. Would I have to ask the question?
“What form does that person put their emotion into?” the girl in the front row asks, turning her body to see beach guy.
Finally, someone with sense to speak.
From my peripheral vision, Mr. Byrne steps slowly onto the stage. I turn towards him, then down to my watch. Time’s up.
“Well, that surly was a gripping talk, wasn’t it?” Mr. Byrne asks the class as I stand beside him, hands behind my back. He doesn’t wait for a response. “I am sure you will have another riveting discussion for us next week, won’t you Mr. Tomlin?”
“But of course,” I answer, giving a nod. “I wouldn’t come if I didn’t.” I raise my hand in the air to wave to the class. “I shall see you all next time.”
Mr. Byrne and I stand while students begin to leave rather quickly from the auditorium to get to their next class, or wherever they go after my speeches. A flicker of movement catches my eyes and I glance down to see the girl from the front row standing just by the stage.
“May I have a moment to speak with you, Mr. Tomlin?” the girl asks.
Mr. Byrne waves me goodbye and then walks off. I jump down to the floor and turn to the girl. “What do you need to talk about?”
“Where do you get the topics to talk about?” the girl asks. “Do you choose them ahead of time, or do you come up with them on the spot?”
It was an interesting question, one that I almost never hear. “A bit of both, actually. Sometimes if I’m invested in a research topic I’m already doing, I plan to make a discussion about it. Other times, I make a discussion about a recent topic of interest. Why do you ask?”
The girl ponders her own question for a while. “I wanted to prepare for next week’s discussion.”
Her interest to know the topic beforehand confuses me more than anything. In all the speeches I’ve given, not one person has ever come to ask to see what next week’s topic will be. I suppose she finally has made a change of confidence and she feels the need to ask. I can’t blame her for asking then, can I?
“I don’t know at the moment,” I reply, then rack my brain for any topic. “If there’s a possibility, then denial seems like a good topic to discuss. I can’t be for certain that will be the topic, however.”
The girl nods. “That will be enough for me. Thank you, Mr. Tomlin.”
I nod back at her. “And thank you, miss-?”
“Ms. Rosalie,” the girl says. “Or you can call me Ava.”
“Well, it was nice to meet you, Ava,” I say. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Tomlin!” Ava shouts and then dashes off with a sudden energetic burst that I have no idea where she got it.
I walk out the auditorium and make the trek back to my car, all the while relishing in the fact I didn’t have to give any more speeches for the day. Yes, it was only one speech I did, but it is tiring when you go out constantly to give speeches. Besides, when I get home, I can finally start a plan to open a new lock. A lock I have never tried to open before.