"Checkmark"
by
Christopher A. Kouse
You wake up blindfolded. Your mouth held
closed. After a moment passes you come to the conclusion that your bonds are
made entirely out of duct tape; you would know that rubbery taste anywhere even
if it were coated with sugar; that pungent stench still finds a way to seep
through your nostrils. Your wrists, your ankles, all held firm to the chair.
The texture of the bonds leads you to believe they are from the same material
wrapped around your mouth. A slight pain begins to tingle through the amnesia
in your arms and legs. Even the front of your neck has a slight tickling
sensation that sets you off into borderline madness. The Who’s, What’s, and Where am
I’s are the only thing you have left to call your own-- other than to
listen for the approaching footsteps from beyond the barrier of shrouded sight.
“If you had to, could you recognize
yourself?”
The
blindfold is rushed off of your head with a disregard for comfort. The light
billows down from a single lamp that’s light makes up your world. You notice
that beyond what the light touches there is nothing; only darkness. The hand of
the mysterious speaker reaches out from within the darkness with a gloved, open
palm. Within his hand rests a porcelain mask with the same features of your
face. You immediately recognize this mask as one you created a long time ago,
somewhere, in another time and place. How
did he get his hands on that?
“So,
I see you do recognize yourself. Hard not to, it’s almost an exact likeness. It’s
well made. The work of someone with skilled hands no doubt. However, there is
one flaw,” the speaker turns the mask over to reveal it’s hollowed out self. “It’s
empty.”
With
an effortless and precise twist the hand crushes the mask, allowing the shards,
now covered in blood, to fall to the ground. One by one the tiny orchestra of
bouncing porcelain fragments echoes off of the floor; and in hearing them your
world grows by momentously into the darkness, but only to be twisted with the
maniacal laughter of the figure looming just beyond the shroud.
“Oh,
don’t look so sad. You can always make another one, but still- perfection is
long far off.”
Your
eyes wander away from the hand and look towards the source of the voice; and as
the hand retreats beyond the beam of light and back into the realm of dark, a
face emerges to meet yours. It’s the eyes that first grab your attention;
black, nocturnal, void of emotion-- except that of maybe pleasure. The face is
covered by a thin material; silk perhaps, and although you have no idea of who
is behind this mask, you know exactly who it is, and your hope of getting out
of this alive dissolves within the cold recesses of his eyes.
“I
can hear those cogs turning as loud as church bells in that little head of
yours- at least you’re using it for something other than a…”
You
try to give a rebuttal but the words are swallowed by the gag.
“What’s that?” the figure leans in closer with
one ear as if sarcastically trying to listening. He then sharply pulls away.
Although you can’t see it clearly, you can make out the line of his smiling lips
through the mask.
“No,
you don’t get to speak. You’ve been doing that for years. Your logic has made
me sick and now I have the stage—or at least…”
He
reaches down to your legs which bring attention to the two on your arms and two
on your legs. You can’t see it, but you assume there is a third on your neck
where the pain sensations have been coming from. The figure grabs and quickly
rips the bandages that were wrapped around your legs off. The sharp ripping
sensation exposes the hidden flesh to the pungent air.
The
sharp sudden pain of the adhesive is mild in comparison to what you expect is
to come. You know this creature and the torments he is capable of. In your
thoughts, one word becomes clear to describe this vile person, the only word- Checkmark. You look down; see the
freshly completed work of a master. On your left leg you make out the word Death, and on your right leg it reads the word Experience. Above each word rests the outline of a box looking to
be filled with regret. Immediately, Checkmark lowers his head to your thigh
where he can catch your gaze.
"Beautiful,
isn't it?" His head cradles the leg marked Death and kisses the box through his thin veil with a promiscuous
embrace. He rises from your leg and adjusts his gloves to regain the tight feel
in the fingertips. As he turns from you he walks back into the darkness from
whence he came.
"Your
eyes give you away, you do realize that don't you?" You hear a shuffling
of metal sliding along metal in the darkness. Your heartbeat becomes quicker as
the footsteps begin to pace forward in your direction again. God! Somebody help me.
"God
cannot help you now. This is for your own good and you fear your own death to a
fault. Always wondering when your time will come; could it be today, could it
could be tomorrow- but now I will release you from your burden."
You
are blinded for only a moment by the reflection of the light as it bounces off
the sword. You wince twice, the first time to protect your eyes from the light,
the second, to mask your scream as it is stifled through your gag. You open
your eyes wide to the sound of metal piercing flesh. Your eyes wide and your
heart beating outside of your chest as you feel the cold steel begin to cool
off the meaty interior of your leg.
"You
fear me...although I would too if I were in your position, but you know what I
am capable of; you know who I am and what tonight is all about." Checkmark
slowly twists the blade at an angle and drags it through your flesh. His skill
is perfect and his strength inhuman.
The
pain is only bearable because of your restraints; if not for them you would be
pouncing and kicking and screaming and, Oh
God make it stop! With a tightened grip around the hilt of the blade,
Checkmark removes it oh so delicately from your flesh. You jerk in your bonds
trying to get free, but they are unforgiving, much like your captor. It takes
only a moment for the stinging pain to subside and as you begin to feel the
warm red liquid ooze from your wound, it brings a sense of understanding and
calm washes over you in waves. It’s impossible to make the distinction between
ecstasy and endorphins. You examine the artist’s handiwork for the first time
and it is painfully beautiful. No jagged edges, no flesh missing, just a clean
cut in a perfect V like fashion with one line longer than the other. You tell
yourself the worst is over...isn’t it?
***
An
hour passes; maybe more. Time begins to have no meaning when you lose control.
The slow burn in your left leg where the cut was made just a while ago has
become numb from the loss of blood. Your vision, the only thing that you can
control, begins to deceive you. Left alone with your thoughts, your vivid
imagination about what Checkmark is planning when he comes back sends chills
down your spine. Perhaps he never left.
Between the loss of blood and the constant state of shock you have been in, at
one point in time during the last hour you could have sworn that you saw his
face staring back at you from the darkness. That was the difference between
your world and his, the dark is always more readily, and easily accessible; he
resided within the dark, and it’s always easy to see those in the light when
looking from the shadows.
“…(whistling
your favorite tune)…”
You
hear the slow tapping of shoes touching the floor; the sound moving towards
you. It seems so far away. How big is
this room? Next comes the sound of a slow drag of steel gliding along
concrete. Your breathing begins to increase. The memory of the pain in your leg
begins to return. You know he is coming back and there is nothing you can do to
stop it. You look down at the tattoo marked Experience
on your right leg and wonder what gives him the right to judge. How does he know? The skin under the
bandage on your chest begins to itch again, sure to be the last to be revealed
in this sick and twisted game. What could
I have done to deserve this? You are sure that anyone in your position
would be asking the same question, but instead of an answer, you know that no
one believes that they deserve this kind of punishment, when in fact, maybe…
just maybe they do. Do I?
“Sorry
about the hold up.” Checkmark emerges from the darkness before you. “I hope I
haven’t kept you waiting for long. I know you hate me and believe me I do know; but you can’t really blame me for
showing you the flaws in yourself.”
Checkmark begins to circle you
counterclockwise, still dragging the tip of his sword along the floor. “Tonight
is about a purging of sins,” he comes to a halt behind you. “-and after tonight
you will thank me.” You see the blade come from above your head slowly and rest
its tip in the middle of the square tattoo on your right leg. As the tip
presses ever so lightly on your skin you see a tiny teardrop of crimson roll
down the side of your leg. You know the judgment is coming, and you hold your
breath with quick fleeting hope.
“You lack experience.” Checkmark
begins to tease your skin by turning the blade as if trying to make up his
mind. “What have you done with your life? You have nothing to show for the way
it has been lived so far.” You feel pressure being applied to the blade and
your senses run wild with the loss of control. “You have become content with
your life and that cannot be tolerated.” The blade is surgical this time.
Slowly piercing and twisting. Your eyes roll back in your head as you let out a
moan of agony from behind the gag. The muscles tighten as you try to pull
yourself off of the blade as it is masterfully turned to make the intersecting
point of the checkmark into your flesh.
The blade is slowly pulled from you
and you wish for the numbing sensation that you have in your other leg to set
in quickly. Checkmark rotates your chair to face him and he kneels so that his
eyes meet yours. “You are being such a good sport about this. I know you would
just love to get your hands on me, but really—what would do? Soon you will see
what a great friend you have in me.” You notice a smile form behind his mask
again. A different word comes to your mind other than friend to describe him,
and you convey that message through the look in your eyes. “I can see you need
some time to yourself, but first let me give you something to dwell on.”
Checkmark grabs a hold of both
bandages on your arms and with little effort he rips them from your body. The
pain this time pales in comparison to that which courses through your legs.
Checkmark drops the bandages and slowly walks backwards into the darkness, his
right hand up giving a tiny wave of goodbye. You look down unsurprised to see
two new tattoos; one on your left arm, and the other on your right. Your heart
drops seeing the words Ambition and Responsibility beautifully designed with
two empty square boxes just waiting to be filled. Although you fear what comes
next, the location of the last bandage is still what scares you the most.
***
The coolness and
the drowning sensation of a glass of water being poured onto your head wake you
from the safety of a dream. Waking from a fantasy to a nightmare is the only
comparison you make in this situation. The lack of blood running through your
legs has left them limp and motionless. You realize that even if you were to
manage to get out of this situation, there are no guarantees you would be able
to walk again. Your eyes are blurry from the blood loss and the figure of
Checkmark before you is a skewed one. What
now? The thought runs through your head, what more could he do to you? But,
you know the answers to all of your questions. You even know why you are here.
Some part of you is able to make sense of all of this, and yet even though
futile, you still resist him to the last drop of your essence.
“Still with us I see.” The image of
Checkmark tears through your dilated eyes like removing a pair of prescription
glasses.
“Although, I don’t think you have
much left in you so, I tell you what I am going to do. As much as I have enjoyed
your company, the night is so very young and I have other places to be, more
art to make and other lives to save. So, let’s speed this up.” Checkmark
reaches behind him into the dark. You hear the grinding of steel on concrete
first, and make out the frame of a chair being pulled towards you. The chair
spins effortless on one leg in Checkmark’s hands; and even before the chair
becomes firmly planted, he falls upon its seat, legs spread as his arms rest
upon the top of the high back chair facing you. Your eyes rise to meet his, and
his head turns to meet yours. You let your eyes do the speaking for you.
“Ambition and responsibility,”
Checkmark gives a grunt to acknowledge the heft of those words. “I want you to
understand that it is you that give these words meaning. One person’s flaws are
never the same as another’s. And if you were in my position you would be doing
the same for others who are slaves to themselves. The truth is that people hold
themselves in contempt-“He reaches behind his head with both arms and frees two
blades from their sheaths. “- and I set forth to free them of this
self-loathing nature.”
“Responsibility,” Checkmark aims the
tip of one of his swords at the square box on your upper left arm. “You refuse
to take it. All your life you have failed to live up to your own expectations.
Consistently, you have blamed others for your faults and have refused to take
the responsibility of your actions.” He produces the second blade in his left
hand and points it towards your left arm marked Ambition. “Ambition- you have
none. What a worthless corpse your life has become; an empty shell of regret
that you have allowed to consume your life. What happened to the hopes you had
as a child- what things you could have seen, the places you could have went and
the person you could have become. Let me show you.”
You try pleading a case with
Checkmark with muffled sounds, but he would not hear it. Checkmark rises to his
feet and with one firm kick, he sends the chair he was sitting on flying back
into the dark. Your attention is so focused on the mad man that you almost fail
to notice that there was no loud crash from the chair hitting the floor. With a
single thrust from both of his hands, Checkmark sends the blade perfectly into
each of your arms with such a strong force that your chair tips over and your
head collides with the ground causing you to blackout.
***
Some time passes until you regain
consciousness and it dawns on you that you are sitting upright again and alone.
By the time your eyes readjust, the nerve endings in your arms finally send the
signals of pain into your brain. Looking at both arms you notice a perfect
checkmark shaped sign engraved into each tattoo box. Blood is still seeping
from the wounds, but the initial shock of metal penetrating flesh subsided when
your head slammed into the ground. The ache in the back of your head causes you
to stretch your neck muscles. You are unsure of which was worse, feeling the
slow cuts or dealing with a possible spinal injury.
You notice that the itching just
below your neck is gone and you feel a cool breeze brush past the freshly
exposed area. Reality begins to sink in that the end is coming, and you
struggle to see the tattoo. You know it’s there, it has to be. Why would he do anything different this late
in the game? Anxiously you struggle to twist your head to see, but your
neck isn’t forgiving. It’s a trick; he wants me to go mad. You calm yourself to
make it appear that you aren’t falling into madness. He has to be watching.
Time seems to slow down and you
begin to examine your predicament and all that has happened to you tonight. You
notice the pool of crimson at your feet; it has almost entirely blanketed every
part of the floor that the light touches. Your world is drowning in blood. I deserve this. You struggle to find
some lie in the truth that Checkmark has been preaching tonight, but fail. You
are afraid of death, you do refuse to take responsibility, you do lack experience
and you don’t have any ambition. What is the final piece of the puzzle!
You see a light twinkle within the
darkness. The light appears to be coming closer and as soon as it reaches the
threshold of blood pooled out on the floor, you make the light out to actually
be a mirror. You look into the mirror and your heart drops as you read the
final tattoo inked into your neck; Martyr,
with a square box above it. You feel a vibration run along the back of your
chair and realize that your bonds holding your hands have been severed. Within
seconds you feel the same sensations cut through the tape on your legs, and
they fall free away from the stiff chair. You struggle to reach up to remove
your gag, but your head tilts down to meet your hand half way; and although
hard to move, you remove the remainder of the tape on your wrists and wait for
Checkmark to make himself visible one final time.
***
His voice pierces from the darkness.
“It seems we have a mutual understanding.” You hear him giggle slightly in a
disoriented manor. Checkmark walks into the light and you notice the dark
outfit he wears is now soaked in his own blood and torn in areas. Cuts are in
the form of checkmarks and have been made into his flesh in the exact same way
they were impressed upon you. The tattoos are the same as well. You watch as he
pulls both blades from his back and looks at them for a moment. “I can find no
fault in you for this last test. You cannot force someone to become a martyr.”
He fluidly rotates one of the blades in his hand and presents it to you. You
struggle from your chair and catch yourself a few times from falling. Your hand
reaches out and claims the blade for your own.
Checkmark reaches up with his blood
soaked glove and begins to pull back the mask that shrouds his face. You stand
there and face him, the real Checkmark. It is as if looking into a mirror. His
face is yours, or my face is his. He
presents his chest to you and the tattoo marked Martyr.
“You have a choice. Take my life and
end this momentary torment, or ask me to end your personal hell.”
You consider his words carefully and
search yourself for what you really want. The mark on his chest looks so empty,
and the itch returns on your own chest—an itch needing scratched. You rotate
the blade towards his chest, and Checkmark readies himself for the final blow…
…
…
…
You turn the blade on yourself and
pierce your own chest, squarely center of the empty box marked Martyr.
***
You wake up lying on your bed. The
nightly breeze from the open balcony of your apartment chills the sweat
droplets on your body. You reach up and remove the porcelain mask from your
face and sit up right. Directly ahead of you across the room, past the dark,
lies a mirror staring back. You see the scars of the self-inflicted wounds
within the tattoos marked Death, Responsibility, Experience,
Ambition,
and Martyr.
All filled with perfectly carved checkmarks.
Lying next to you on the bed is your
tattoo kit, on the other side your weapons of choice. You pull the satin mask
over your head, pack up your things and head out into the night searching for
lives to save.
#
