Erwin: The Enigma

At the prominent age of nine, exceptionally early on in his life, young Erwin knew he wanted to be a writer/ director for plays and shows on broadway. He was obsessed with writing, repetition, and patterns. He also, unfortunately had a very bad ticking problem. Unable to diagnose him properly in the early 1950s as a child, he struggled with behavioral ticks all his life. He could not understand why, when he closed his books during class he had to close it exactly three times before he could put it away in his backpack, and zip his backpack three times as well before throwing it over his little hard working back. Patterns like this continued to blended into everything adjacent to his life—every single thing had to be perfect. If not, his tickings would become unbearable and rabid behaviors would pounce out of him, like an unholy creature possessing a body. Eventually he learned, at a certain age, when things did not go as he wanted, killings where his only solution. And with that, he found his only sense of relief, easing all of his ticks and abnormal behaviors. In his early youth in the 1950s, he was called a freak, a kook, a wack-job, never anything pleasant. Causing his frustration to consequently turn into violent scenes. His adolescents were a strange time of turmoil, sadness, and mystery. He had no father, no mother, just a foster father that tried his best, but ultimately failed in his endeavor of everlasting parenthood. To Erwin, the biggest mystery, was himself.

Now it was the 1980s, and he was an older man in his mid 30s. Erwin, now had become a unique kind of killer. He thought of himself as an organizer of complete ecosystems, and called himself, The Justice System. Whenever he felt his ticks progressively coming back, he did what the law simply couldn’t do: kill. In order to control his emotions. Erwin, traveled city to city all over the U.S. to find women and children that looked particularly hurt, with bruises, scars, low down demeanors and low self-esteems. He would find their husbands, mothers, boyfriends, sometimes even other family members, and spy on them for days, sometimes weeks. Planning on their demise and taking matters into his own hands. It was a win-win in Erwin’s mind. But most importantly, while observing his targets, he’d also proceed to write a play about a boy, grasping to find his escape from his estranged obsessions with patterns, infinity, and reality-itself. He compared his obsessions of escape, with the victims attempting to escape their own truths. This play, was going to be his big break, his masterpiece, his legacy. This was his dream. In his play, there was going to be a happy ending, a final farewell of misery to the never-ending chaos of pleads and sorrows and excuses; an antidote for all the drug inducing habits and bad he’s ever done. The ending of his play was going to be glorious— something the world would never forget.

Ernest: A Mysterious Place

About a month after one of his total inducing killings, he was looking in a new place to find a victim. Ernest Town. This was a quiet place, where the kind of people leave all their doors unlocked and windows open; even at night. Fortunately for him, he lived close by in a small home he rented for dirt cheap. Now, Erwin was having his regular cappuccino at his favorite cafe called, RedEye. It was the small and intimate type. He could hear all the conversations echo though his head and through his pencil as he wrote. This time he was there for what people call, “people watching” but really he was looking for his new needle, to inject his solace. He began ticking and this made Erwin’s body twitch. He needed to find someone fast. Astonishingly enough, today was different at the cafe. He noticed a specific voice, and this was the third time he’d heard it in a row, at the same time of day. It sounded, heavy, weathered, and corroded.

Erwin turned to look at who it was, and to his surprise he saw a very well dressed old man. His tie was a polished grey that changed colors with the light, and his suit was matching his pants: both dark grey constructed with linen stripes and remarkable flowing fabric. This man, ordered the same drink at the exact time of day everyday. And he even used the same greeting, “Good day.” to the barista, everyday. And always left the same amount of tip, five dollars—the bill never wrinkled. Erwin wondered to himself, “What if this man could maybe be like me? Perhaps I’m not alone in this mysterious world, maybe he was looking for a remedy too? Or did he find a cure already?” The patterns this man was outputting was exhilarating Erwin. The mysterious old man thanked the barista and walked out the shop. Erwin thought, “Someone like me alas…”

A Place of All Historical Facts: The Library.

He rapidly gathered his notebook and pencil to follow the bizarre human being he just procured, he was marching to the library down the street. Erwin made sure to keep his distance from him, never staying to close nor too far. He hid behind the trees, and tried to move swiftly across the street to appear less noticeable, but his ticks began to make him more and more conspicuous as his neck and head started to twitch back and forth as he walked. And his shoulders would also twitch making him walk weird, drawing attention from the people on the street. Eventually, the old man heard the voices of someone displaying strange behavior and stopped to turn around. The mysterious old man scanned the perimeter to observe his surroundings. But saw nothing. After a couple seconds he proceeded to walk to the library, and Erwin followed even more cautiously. They finally reached the halls of history, the place that started it all for Erwin’s love of plays. The Library.

The young killer observed the old man walk all the way to the back of the library never once looking anywhere but straight, displaying only hyper focus to his destination. The basement. Erwin saw him walk straight into the wooden double doors and disappear like nothing happened. His ticks now slowly calmed down too. Everyone just walked past by those doors, living and experiencing life in their own levels of adulthood and childhood. He wanted to go down there too, but he didn’t want to expose himself to the old man just yet. He had a plan. First he was going to count the time he spent down there. Second he was going to see what he was maybe doing in there. And finally he was going to follow him home the next day to look for a remedy to cure his life altering sickness.

Erwin, waited and waited and waited. Tirelessly, looking at his watch every five minutes to see how much time had passed by. He didn’t want to get up to find a book for fear of not measuring the exact time the old man left the basement. He needed to know the exact time, because if he was anything like himself. He would continue to repeat this pattern as weeks passed on, and Erwin needed to know when to leave. He took out his notebook and began to write write the ending of his play, “The captain, had finally sailed into the deep ocean sea, but the abyss of darkness swallowed his small boat, waves still beating with fury attempteing to defeat the bent wooden structure in the pitch black darkness.” BOOM, the doors finally opened. The time measured: two exact hours. He saw the old man, pacing to the exit, glazing over the crowds of people. The old man look precisely just as he left, like when he first walked in. Unchanged. Like a bird flying away, he was gone in an instant. Immediately, Erwin grabbed his belongings and stepped into the basement of the library.

A Way Somewhere: But Where?

  The young killer stepped into the basement and saw no one was there, expect more rows of books. He desperately looked for a clue, a substance, anything for a life altering remedy. He needed it, he wanted it, and everywhere he looked he couldn’t find a damn thing. He just wanted to be normal like everyone else and this man was the bridge to that reality. He looked around some more and everything looked, normal and untouched. Submerged in his frustration, he began to think that maybe this man wanted to keep his cure a secret. A selfish man, an asshole that doesn’t like to share. The malevolent creature, hogging all the treasure to himself. Inside Erwin’s mind, he began to break down and started to punch the shelves of the books down to the ground. He became an animal of utter destruction as he stomped them on the ground, grabbed the books and ripped them apart. He raged, and raged until finally he felt a odd breeze. It was coming from one of the edges of the basement. He walked slowly to the source of the breeze and pushed the wall. It made a loud thud and the wall slide open shooting air of hope to Erwin’s face. A small corridor appeared, with a flashlight on the ground, and a narrow tunnel leading somewhere.

He got himself inside the tight tunnel and began to craw all to the end. He had no idea where it lead or what was at the end of it. But in his mind. This is where the man hid the cure. It had to be there. He knew it. Finally, after doing multiple turns and crawling up and down he reached the end. There was nothing. Only a shovel at the end. Erwin exploded. He screamed to the very top of his lungs the most profound cuss words he could think of. He threw a fit that lasted nearly 2 minutes of none stop screaming and insane spasms, until he finally tired out. Erwin was exasperated, sweating and still shaking with fury. He had to find this man, he thought to himself, “I’m going to kill him! I’m going to stab him one hundred times! And I’m going to rip his body to pieces!” He was enraged again. Immediately, he started his way back to the entrance of the tunnel, walked over all the books he had destroyed on the ground, grabbed his belongings, and paced back home. On his walk back, he was irking to not twitch or spaz out, his eyes were twitching so much, he was no longer able to see even straight.

The House

Finally he reached his home, there he was finally able to have some sense of relief in his extraction of his insane emotions, by yelling and punching his bed and his pillows. The imagination of infinity was now haunting him, he did not want to be like this all his life, and now the reality of it was coming too soon. Erwin, stayed up for hours in his room writing his play in frustration, “The waves blasted down the small boat, breaking it apart. The ships captain, struggling to find a solution to prevent his boat from sinking. He thought, “If it goes down, so will I…” and thinking of solutions for his problems, the twitching and why killing calms him down. He hated that he was so different from everyone else. Why couldn’t he just like playing baseball, or working out, or just sitting on the couch and watching TV calm his twitching down. “WHY DOES IT ALWAYS HAVE TO BE KILLING!!” Erwin screamed once again at the top of his lungs. He tired himself out again and put his hands to his knees to catch his breath. Suddenly, he hears a very faint scratching sound. He stayed quiet and then he heard a loud bang sound coming from under his room. The basement.

In a flash, Erwin runs to the kitchen to grab a knife and a flashlight since there is no light underground his home, and very cautiously walks down the stairs of the basement. “Is anyone there? Announce yourself now!” he yelled. Once he was deep enough under ground he could smell the rising dust, and dirt in the air. He knew this was a sign someone was moving around down there. He aimed his flashlight to a small brown cloud and squinted his eyes to see if anything was there. Erwin said, “I know you’re down here. You’re making yourself too obvious. I’m going to find you…and hurt you very slowly. You better hide the best you can!” he moved closer. Now he was all the way at the bottom, slowly flashing his flashlight against the boxes, very carefully looking for any sign of life to terminate. “Finally”, he thought to himself, “My temporary  cure for this stupid twitch…”

Without seeing it. A large rock slammed against the back of Erwin’s head, completely knocking his whole body down, causing him to fall forward to the ground and drop his flashlight. The young kill was star-struck. For the first time in his life, he felt a new emotion. Something he had never felt before, not even in his youth. As Erwin laid on the cold ground, he feared for his life. He reached for the back of his head in pain, struggling to even move his arms, he finally touched his head and it was bloody. Blood was spilling on the ground coming from Erwin’s head, and it was a lot of blood too; this he knew, was a sign of death coming near.

“I knew you were always bad, but I didn’t know you were this bad.” The exact same corroded voice behind him. But how can it be? “I’ve been following you for a little while now, tracing all of your steps, and I’ve finally found out where you live, son.”

“Who are you? Father?” Said Erwin.

“No. I’m your grandfather, son. You confirmed it when I heard about all the recent killings in this area, and you screaming and twitching like a lunatic earlier by the library. I also heard you were calling yourself the Justice System. How stupid of you. It reminded me of him…your dad wanted to do the same thing. Thinking it was the right thing to do. That’s how I found you. Fortunately for you, your dad left you at a young age, and your mother died in childbirth. Your father and I thought that maybe if you were raised by someone else, far away you wouldn’t become like us. Turns out, we were all wrong… you ended up being worse.”

“You’re my grandfather? But how…why didn’t you ever care to see me… or let me know you even existed?” Cried, Erwin holding his head in pain. His grandfather towered over Erwin, starring at him on the ground, like a hurt helpless child.

“We did want to… but we also wanted to forget you, to forget about our past, and what we’ve done… but no, you lived your life too loud, and I had to come back to fix things. Like I did with your father too.” His grandfather’s eyes began to water rapidly. “You know that weird feeling you get, when your whole body starts to twitch, and only killing can ease it—well that started from me. Then, when your dad was born, turns out he had the same thing as me too. But my wife and I you see, we helped him control it of course, when he was younger, until he moved away and started making a mess of himself. We found this out later of course, when it was too late and we heard it on the news; he had already killed a bunch of people… So I had to kill him too.” Said his grandfather, now crying abruptly, wiping his face.

“That’s not true! Why would you kill your own son? No real father would ever do that.” Erwin was now in a fetal position on the ground, curling up shaking from the cold and the pain. He felt vulnerable and mad at the same time—betrayed. With only a small amount of light flashing on him, on and off from his flashlight on the ground. He felt his life soon equally coming to an end.

“That’s the thing, son. Your father carried my sins to this world, and let them loose. I thought I could change him, and you too… but I couldn’t. And that’s when I realized… I couldn’t let my off spring repopulate knowing that this would happen every time. So I did what any real father could of done. End my lineage, for good.” Said his grandfather. “And that means, ending all of his too.” Erwin, was now even more struck than before. He couldn’t believe that this whole time, he had family in the world. They left him, abandoned him, to figure life out on his own. How selfish of them, there were others like him too and no one let him know. But yet still somehow, this made Erwin happy, and a small tear ran down his face. He smiled like he had never smiled before.

“Finally, no more killings then, no more twitches…this is my happy ending…this is my antidote. My final play…” Said Erwin, slowly feeling his life slipping away, slowly closing his eyes.

“Shut up, son. There is no cure for what we have. Only death, and our time is up.” His grandfather, shook off his tears, lifted the large rock above Erwin’s head, and slammed it down with brutal force, killing Erwin instantly. The original, was now covered in his own blood, defeated and accomplished. He looked at his grandson’s lifeless body, and collapsed on his knees. Wishing he had killed himself sooner, so nobody would ever have to die in his blood. He whispered to his grandson, “I’m sorry.” Then pulled out a small gun, put it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

The End.