Anger. While it's what destroys you, today, it’s what drives you.
You feed on it and off of it. It strengthens you. Quod me nutrit, me destruit. What nourishes me, destroys me.
You feel it clothe you. It gives you the shakes, even the timbre of your voice has changed. You can’t speak normally, your voice and words come out with gaps. Splintered. Broken. Like a scratched record. It’s as if there’s an electric shaver buzzing in your mouth.
And in the midst of all the madness, more than anything else, you are dying to do just one thing: I need to get my hands on my enemy. And choke them to death. I need to get my hands on my enemy.
You pace up and down in your office, thinking up ideas of how best to hurt the one who has hurt you the most. They say that there’s an invisible line between love and hate, and now you agree with them, whoever they are. Because the one you now want to kill is the one you loved. The one who claimed to love you back.
The one you trusted with your life but they demeaned every good thing in you. The one who came so close, sweetly talked their way into your life, but then crushed you like a roach under the sole of their shoe. This person that you readily shared your dreams and fears with. Now it’s clear that what you did was put in their hand the very blade they used masterfully, to stab you. There’s an unseen blade stuck in your back; because that’s what they did— stabbed you in the back. Betrayed you. Used you. You are bleeding out, but before this becomes the death of you, you must revenge. If it’s the last thing you do.
Your phone vibrates on your desk and it jars you. In a huff, you are there, hands firmly placed on the desk, flanking the phone on each side. You lower your head and stare at the lit screen. A text message has come in.
The person you want to so much hurt is in town. Pride Hotel. Room 107.
You pick up the phone to type back, you almost drop it because you cannot still your hands.
Thank you. I’ll take it from here. My assistant has instructions to deposit the rest of your money.
It’s a private investigator that you are corresponding with. You hired him three years ago to track down the loser, and you must admit that at some point, you lost trust in his talents. Three years. That’s how long it has taken this private eye to locate the one who hurt you the most. Clearly, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t want to be found, even when you employ the best of talents and resources. But now you are here, you have a location, and you have that which nourishes your strength: Anger.
Quod me nutrit, me destruit
You swipe your coat off the hook of your coat rack, grab your keys, and bolt out the door.
“Angie, cancel all my appointments for today!”, you yell at your receptionist and blitz past her, wriggling into your coat.
“But..the investors are on their way,” she frantically tries to say, but to a slamming door. You impatiently stab at the elevator button, as if the more you do it, the quicker the thing will ding and slide open. But no. It won't.
There’s a wall clock above the elevator door, which tells you it’s 2.10 p.m. Will you miss your chance to avenge? You can’t miss the loser. The idiot has to die, and it must happen now. It should have happened the very day you met them, before they had damaged you to this ugly extent.
The next minute arrives to find you bounding down the staircase. Like a madman. Your heart thuds in your chest, you hyperventilate, ragged breathing. At this point, your legs seem to know where you are going.
When you get to your car in the parking lot, you hit yourself with the driver's door while forcefully swinging it open. You are drunk; high on anger. When you get inside and slam the door shut, there’s no time to waste. You rev the engine and then dangerously back out of your parking spot, one hand on the wheel, the other wrestling to snap your seat belt in place. You can see a few people shout at you, but it’s all indistinct. Anger has blocked your ears. You then engage drive gear and gun the vehicle. It fish-tails and joins the main road before peeling away.
This is the day you exert your revenge. All your life, you’ve wondered what fuels psychopaths to kill, but not today. You now understand them; you have become one of them. You're about to ram into the back of a truck when you slam on the emergency brake. Your body is thrust forward before being forcefully pushed back by the seat belt. You curse and hoot.
This afternoon you are driving to Pride Hotel, and you are nothing else if not…homicidal.
At the hotel, you walk past the reception area, lowering your head against the cameras. You hope; pray, that no one will notice you. Riding the elevator up, you are restless. A sweaty palm massages the curtain cord in your coat pocket. The cord you intend to use to garotte your enemy. This murder is so personal to you, and it’s the reason you decided on strangling them. You want to see their legs kick and fight, their eyes bulge out, ugly veins push against their face. And just as life is seeping out of them, you hope that their bowels will give way. They will cream their pants. That’s how a betrayer should die!
And then you will leave a note stuck in their open mouth; a lifeless open mouth with a wordless scream. This note, you penned last night when your private sleuth called with the promise that the next day in the afternoon, you would have your oppressor’s location. You kept it short, written in pencil, the final full stop heavily coloured and disfigured because you pressed the tip of the pencil hard and broke it.
This loser deserved to die. Scum bags like this, do not deserve to live. How could they turn me into everything that I did not want to become? How could they take away all my power, and like powder, scatter my dreams; my life, to the winds? I killed them, and I would do it again, and again, and again.
You’re now standing outside room 107. The hallway is deserted, oh, thank the gods of fate. There’s no one to stop you now. You stretch your hand and reach for the knob. Meanwhile, the other hand ends in a fist. You clench your teeth. This is it. Death of the oppressor. Death of the enemy. You will beat them with your bare hands. Repeatedly drive blows into their face until blood mates with brain matter and hair. But you’ll be sure not to kill them; not before you loop the cord around their neck and strangle them. Scream your pain away while at it, so that it leaves you and inhabits their departing soul.
An instinct stabs you. It’s like a flash. Déjà vu. It feels like you’ve been here before, coming to kill your enemy, but then you can’t remember what happened. Only that…things didn’t turn out well for you. You have a feeling, no, you know, that the door is not locked. The feeling that you are reliving a terrible event quickens in your heart and mind when your palm wraps around the knob. It’s a foreboding hunch. It screams at you to turn and flee for your life. What’s it? Why is fear creeping into you? Have you been here before?
But no, you’ve come too far to turn away now. Anger is your driving force, and so you silence the hunch. True to your instincts, the knob twists without offering any resistance, and the door opens when you push it…
What you witness when you step inside the room hits you hard; you reel backwards. Oh, no. It can’t be. Your enemy is standing at spitting distance, their eyes burning into yours. It’s like they knew you were coming and they had been waiting for you. They look like you. Because they are you…
It can’t be. Am I my worst enemy? Did I betray my own dreams? Was it me who pushed away the people that I loved the most? Am I the one who stabbed myself in the back, stopped myself from becoming and achieving every goal I ever set out to achieve? Oh, Lord. This bile; this hate, it’s all directed to…me?
You double over, hands on your stomach like you are about to get sick. The floor rushes to your face and you feel woozy. Calmly, the other you ambles to you and places a hand on your back.
“Welcome. What took you so long, tough human being? I've been waiting for so long. It’s about time you had a chat with your worst enemy: Yourself.”
I am my own best friend and my own worst enemy
-Paulo Coelho
