On The Couch
By
Jason Krawczyk
She shouldn’t be awake. Is the time on my phone wrong? Shit. The clock on the wall confirms it. That’s the actual time. But I saw her drink it? Just watching her awaken is unlike anyone I’ve experienced. Most are groggy. Not her. Some start to mumble half-thoughts or faint memories of where they were. She doesn’t. I think she starts to say “where,” but then sees the restraints on her wrists and just starts surveying the room. She’s so quiet. She hasn’t even looked at me. This is odd. Maybe this will raise her heart rate?
She does look at my unraveled equipment, but there’s no fear. Those eyes are merely digesting information. She then looks up to me. Damn. That’s a predator stare. This is the first time we made eye-contact since she’s been in my basement. She looks at me with the same interest as her restraints or my tools. They’re merely starring through me. I’m just another object.
“I have to say. You’re pretty mum” I will break her.
“Nothing’s happened to warrant me speaking.” I was blindsided by that answer. There was no inflection on it either. It was a totally neutral sentence.
“Really? You woke up restrained to a couch with me brandishing pointy things. That does nothing for you?” Ah, I love this. This is where we unravel.
“Are you implying that my life is in danger?” Really? Isn’t it obvious? Should I ask her that? I’m not sure what else to say.
“That not obvious?” I say with a fillet blade in my right hand.
“It’s obvious you want me to react?”
“Yeah!?” I sprint over, grasp her throat, and hold the point of the blade inches away from her eye.
“How about if I stick this through your fucking eye! Hit the back of your skull? Hm?” I growl the words out as my grip tightens. Fuck. She didn’t even blink. And I can feel her pulse in my palm. It’s steady.
“Then why haven’t you?” She asks with the same level of enthusiasm you would use to order coffee. It wouldn’t even be a gourmet coffee. Just something you’d order before work to get through the day.
“Because it’s not apart of my routine. I have plans for you.” I say as I stand and walk back to my work station.
“Hm.” She says. Fucking Hm. That’s new. Who is she? She’s just processing the information. That’s all.
“So you have a routine?” She asks.
“Yes. I will most certainly do.” I don’t even look at her as she asks. I'll just prepare.
“How long has this been a part of your lifestyle?” She has yet to say anything I was prepared for. Everything she’s done so far is surprising.
“Years.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. About three.”
“Three. Give or take?”
“Sure.”
“And you’re what? Thirty-one?”
“Ha, thirty-three. Good eyes though. People usually think I’m younger.”
“You have a young face, but your body gave you away.” Why did that strike a nerve with a sledgehammer? That line’s going to haunt me for a minute.
“You may want to choose your words more carefully from now on.”
“But I’m assuming you murdered before twenty-nine” she asks. That threat didn’t do anything.
“Of course.”
“Maybe just the once? Most likely out of necessity?”
“I respond to your maybe with a maybe.” How did she know that?
“Right.” Right. She said right. She’s a therapist.
“You a therapist?”
“No.” That’s it. No follow up.
“Then what are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Wow. That response gave her power. I should just kill her now. I can lose this.
“Do you consider this a compulsion?”
“What?” I squared myself up to her as I responded. Even though I’m looking down at her, I don’t feel like I am.
“The murdering. Do you consider it a compulsion?” She asks. Is she implying it’s not? It’s murder. Why else would I do it?
“It’s what I am. I can’t help it.”
“Hm.”
“What is that? Like, what are you trying to imply.”
“Your actions are contradictory to what you’re attempting to project.” Alright, I’ll bite.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Please enlighten me.” There is no blade on my table that would be able to cut through that density of sarcasm.
“I’m not dead yet, you’re fairly old to start a compulsive serial killing routine, and this facility is immaculately clean. “
“You will be dead soon if that helps your diagnosis.”
“Most likely, but you need me cognizant. You want a reaction.”
“I do enjoy the fear.”
“You most likely enjoy the attention. That and you enjoy stimulating an emotional response.”
“Sure do. Shit gets me off.”
“You’re also a woman.”
“We come in all shapes.”
“True, but you picked me.”
“Why’s that significant.”
“I’m older than you. I was also alone and reading a book with no interest in talking to anyone. Am I your typical mark?”
“Your probably the oldest” but not by much.
“Are they usually alone?"
“Yep.”
“Male? Female?”
“Both.”
“Content?”
“What?”
“Do they seem satisfied in solitude?” Her question forces me to reflect.
“…I guess so.”
“If I had to make an assumption, I would assume this is a coping mechanism for your loneliness.”
“…loneliness?” Oh, this is rich.
“Yes.”
“You’re insinuating that I’m using murder to compensate for my excessive loneliness?”
“You even said “my loneliness,” and yes. I’m sure there’s a great deal of self-loathing, insecurity, and depression. You use murder to justify why you’re alone. You can blame murder instead of a crippling fear of interaction.”
“Heh, you’re fun” I hate this.
“Then why wait? Why not kill me in the parking lot and move on? Why bring me home and have a conversation?”
“I enjoy having you cower.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
“You’ll know fear soon enough” Ugh, that line is hackneyed, but I will destroy you.
“Do you think you would get the same emotional response by causing joy?”
“Ye-I…” I didn’t even think before I spoke. I realize I’m not even looking at her anymore. I’m starring into the middle space. I can’t keep my focus. I keep reflecting. The body gave you away line came back to sting me.
“When someone is in a state of self-loathing they do things to distance themselves from others. You can shed yourself from responsibility. ‘I’m not alone because of myself, but because of an uncontrollable compulsion." You provide yourself a reason. In most it’s drugs, neglect, or an affair. In your case: murder. Do you feel as if you don’t deserve companionship? Romantic or platonic?”
“Why would you say that?”
“You sound and act pathologically sane. You know the difference between right and wrong.”
“How’d you come to that bumper sticker of a conclusion?”
“You don’t have a shrine. No collection or monuments to your pathology.”
“Do I need one?”
“You’d want to show off.”
“I’ve killed. I like it.”
“But when you grasped my throat, you did it gently. It was for show. You wanted me to speak, which I now am. I would assume you don’t even enjoy the act. You just think it’s what you deserve” she’s right. My grip wasn’t even tight enough to leave a bruise.
“Maybe I’m just evil. Why can’t that be it?”
“That’s not a tangible classification. It may help to classify a finite act, but evil’s not a state of being. You murdering people to justify your inability to connect: evil. You yourself are not evil.”
“Then why would I do this?”
“You were damaged. I am certain. So you don’t value yourself or believe you deserve value but long for self-worth. You are so desperate for validation that provoking emotion, any emotion, will suffice. I’m assuming it just recently escalated to murder, but I believe you would feel the same form of elation from volunteering at a soup kitchen or having someone tell you they loved you.”
“That’s fucking stupid. That has to be an over simplification.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you afraid to be known? To know what people actually think of you?”
“By what? People? Why would I want that? They’re assholes.”
“Now that’s an oversimplification.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s why you picked me. Envious of my ability to be alone.”
“AH!” It just happens. I bark at her and lunge. I swipe at her head with an open hand. She tilts her neck to one side, takes a deep inhale through her teeth, and exhales gently through her nose. Once I’m aware of my outburst, I retreat back to my workspace; ashamed. She stays quiet and continues to look through me.
“You will not garner any satisfaction from killing me” she tells me. I already know that.
“Yeah, why not?” but I keep up with my dissolving lie of a persona.
“I won’t emote, defeating your catalyst.”
“I want to.”
“No you don’t. You didn’t even enjoy swatting me.” She’s right. I didn’t.
“What’s with you? Why are you like this?”
“I’m a sociopath.”
“Heh, seriously?”
“Yes. Far right of the spectrum.”
“Then why aren’t our roles reversed?”
“Being free of guilt doesn’t give an innate proclivity toward murder. The vast majority of Sociopaths aren’t killers. We’re mostly corporate leaders, doctors, or military.”
“Free of guilt, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds…practical.”
“It has its perks.”
“What are you then? I’m going to go with surgeon?”
“I just received tenure.”
“Professor?”
“Yes. Law.”
“Heh, figures. The guilt-free thing must help then.”
“Remarkably so.”
“So, what should I do with you?” I’ve reached my limit of dealing with this thing.
“Whatever you want.”
“I can’t let you go. You’d talk.”
“Most likely.”
“And this chat hasn’t exactly put me in the mood.”
“You might want to kill me” was not the response I was expecting.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If you did, I might be the last person you would kill” how can she say that with that amount of confidence?
“Stop fucking with my head.”
“If you killed me, you wouldn’t have the same sense of elation because of my inability to emote, thus proving my theory correct. You would ostensibly have a base to work from in which you can build a life toward companionship.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“It sounds right on my end.”
“Why would you even pitch that? Your own death?”
“Don’t believe me to be an emotionless automaton. I value my life. My vapid personality does not negate the fact that I have a family. That I have likes and dislikes” I have to say I wasn’t ready for any of this. I just gawk at her blank expression for at least four minutes. It’s only uncomfortable for me though.
“And what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Whatever you want?”
“Cut that shit out.”
“But it’s your choice.”
“Tell me what I should do!” Please. Anything. Guidance.
“I’m restrained. You can either finish what you had planned and have your belief system crumble or let me go to continue your false projection of reality and self-loathing until I most likely tell the authorities.”
“Those are two very horrible options.”
“One of them has the potential to live a fulfilling life.”
“But you’d be dead.”
“Indeed.”
“And you don’t want to be.”
“In the long run, it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t want to kill you. Not anymore.”
“Then you’re not a sociopath.”
“I thought the vast majority of sociopaths didn’t.”
“They don’t. But they would be in your circumstances.”
“Ugh. So if you were me, you would kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh.” I sigh as I look down at my tools of death. Whatever phoney desire I told myself I once had is gone. It’s only been a handful of people. I did reach a new peak of sadness about a week later. My life plays behind my eyes. There’s a clarity that wasn’t there before. A solace in the shame. Every assumption she made has a face and an act attached to it. “Do you have any interest in hearing what my damage was?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you were” man, she is cold.
“How about my name?”
“I would just use it to aid the authorities”
“You’re not very good at this self-preservation thing.”
“The circumstances are what they are and the stakes have been presented. We’re in the confines of your environment so it is your responsibility. To me, whatever happens happens. ”
“Jesus. Fine.” I pick a blade and get lost in its reflection. I look over to her. I look for anything in her to help me decide. A bead of sweat? A lip quiver? Nothing. She is who she claims to be. “What’s the right answer here?” I say to myself.
“There’s no wrong answer. One just benefits me and one that benefits you” ugh, life in two sentences.
“But I still have to choose?”
“Yes…yes you do.” I’m not the same after today.
Finding high-school physics exceedingly difficult, Jason Krawczyk decided to pursue his passion for filmmaking. Jason directed his first feature-length project, The Briefcase, in 2011, and in 2015, Jason wrote and directed the Henry Rollins horror-comedy He Never Died, which premiered at SXSW and is currently streaming on Netflix and Sunset Superman, starring Michael Jai White, premiering in 2024. Along with directing, Jason Krawczyk has written, punched up, and ghostwritten several screenplays, novels, and novellas, including It Looks Like Dad, Roots Run Deep, and Reality Squall. His passion for writing led him to co-own Little Ghosts Books, an inclusive cafe, publisher, and bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, with his husband, Chris Krawczyk.
By
Jason Krawczyk
She shouldn’t be awake. Is the time on my phone wrong? Shit. The clock on the wall confirms it. That’s the actual time. But I saw her drink it? Just watching her awaken is unlike anyone I’ve experienced. Most are groggy. Not her. Some start to mumble half-thoughts or faint memories of where they were. She doesn’t. I think she starts to say “where,” but then sees the restraints on her wrists and just starts surveying the room. She’s so quiet. She hasn’t even looked at me. This is odd. Maybe this will raise her heart rate?
She does look at my unraveled equipment, but there’s no fear. Those eyes are merely digesting information. She then looks up to me. Damn. That’s a predator stare. This is the first time we made eye-contact since she’s been in my basement. She looks at me with the same interest as her restraints or my tools. They’re merely starring through me. I’m just another object.
“I have to say. You’re pretty mum” I will break her.
“Nothing’s happened to warrant me speaking.” I was blindsided by that answer. There was no inflection on it either. It was a totally neutral sentence.
“Really? You woke up restrained to a couch with me brandishing pointy things. That does nothing for you?” Ah, I love this. This is where we unravel.
“Are you implying that my life is in danger?” Really? Isn’t it obvious? Should I ask her that? I’m not sure what else to say.
“That not obvious?” I say with a fillet blade in my right hand.
“It’s obvious you want me to react?”
“Yeah!?” I sprint over, grasp her throat, and hold the point of the blade inches away from her eye.
“How about if I stick this through your fucking eye! Hit the back of your skull? Hm?” I growl the words out as my grip tightens. Fuck. She didn’t even blink. And I can feel her pulse in my palm. It’s steady.
“Then why haven’t you?” She asks with the same level of enthusiasm you would use to order coffee. It wouldn’t even be a gourmet coffee. Just something you’d order before work to get through the day.
“Because it’s not apart of my routine. I have plans for you.” I say as I stand and walk back to my work station.
“Hm.” She says. Fucking Hm. That’s new. Who is she? She’s just processing the information. That’s all.
“So you have a routine?” She asks.
“Yes. I will most certainly do.” I don’t even look at her as she asks. I'll just prepare.
“How long has this been a part of your lifestyle?” She has yet to say anything I was prepared for. Everything she’s done so far is surprising.
“Years.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. About three.”
“Three. Give or take?”
“Sure.”
“And you’re what? Thirty-one?”
“Ha, thirty-three. Good eyes though. People usually think I’m younger.”
“You have a young face, but your body gave you away.” Why did that strike a nerve with a sledgehammer? That line’s going to haunt me for a minute.
“You may want to choose your words more carefully from now on.”
“But I’m assuming you murdered before twenty-nine” she asks. That threat didn’t do anything.
“Of course.”
“Maybe just the once? Most likely out of necessity?”
“I respond to your maybe with a maybe.” How did she know that?
“Right.” Right. She said right. She’s a therapist.
“You a therapist?”
“No.” That’s it. No follow up.
“Then what are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Wow. That response gave her power. I should just kill her now. I can lose this.
“Do you consider this a compulsion?”
“What?” I squared myself up to her as I responded. Even though I’m looking down at her, I don’t feel like I am.
“The murdering. Do you consider it a compulsion?” She asks. Is she implying it’s not? It’s murder. Why else would I do it?
“It’s what I am. I can’t help it.”
“Hm.”
“What is that? Like, what are you trying to imply.”
“Your actions are contradictory to what you’re attempting to project.” Alright, I’ll bite.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Please enlighten me.” There is no blade on my table that would be able to cut through that density of sarcasm.
“I’m not dead yet, you’re fairly old to start a compulsive serial killing routine, and this facility is immaculately clean. “
“You will be dead soon if that helps your diagnosis.”
“Most likely, but you need me cognizant. You want a reaction.”
“I do enjoy the fear.”
“You most likely enjoy the attention. That and you enjoy stimulating an emotional response.”
“Sure do. Shit gets me off.”
“You’re also a woman.”
“We come in all shapes.”
“True, but you picked me.”
“Why’s that significant.”
“I’m older than you. I was also alone and reading a book with no interest in talking to anyone. Am I your typical mark?”
“Your probably the oldest” but not by much.
“Are they usually alone?"
“Yep.”
“Male? Female?”
“Both.”
“Content?”
“What?”
“Do they seem satisfied in solitude?” Her question forces me to reflect.
“…I guess so.”
“If I had to make an assumption, I would assume this is a coping mechanism for your loneliness.”
“…loneliness?” Oh, this is rich.
“Yes.”
“You’re insinuating that I’m using murder to compensate for my excessive loneliness?”
“You even said “my loneliness,” and yes. I’m sure there’s a great deal of self-loathing, insecurity, and depression. You use murder to justify why you’re alone. You can blame murder instead of a crippling fear of interaction.”
“Heh, you’re fun” I hate this.
“Then why wait? Why not kill me in the parking lot and move on? Why bring me home and have a conversation?”
“I enjoy having you cower.”
“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”
“You’ll know fear soon enough” Ugh, that line is hackneyed, but I will destroy you.
“Do you think you would get the same emotional response by causing joy?”
“Ye-I…” I didn’t even think before I spoke. I realize I’m not even looking at her anymore. I’m starring into the middle space. I can’t keep my focus. I keep reflecting. The body gave you away line came back to sting me.
“When someone is in a state of self-loathing they do things to distance themselves from others. You can shed yourself from responsibility. ‘I’m not alone because of myself, but because of an uncontrollable compulsion." You provide yourself a reason. In most it’s drugs, neglect, or an affair. In your case: murder. Do you feel as if you don’t deserve companionship? Romantic or platonic?”
“Why would you say that?”
“You sound and act pathologically sane. You know the difference between right and wrong.”
“How’d you come to that bumper sticker of a conclusion?”
“You don’t have a shrine. No collection or monuments to your pathology.”
“Do I need one?”
“You’d want to show off.”
“I’ve killed. I like it.”
“But when you grasped my throat, you did it gently. It was for show. You wanted me to speak, which I now am. I would assume you don’t even enjoy the act. You just think it’s what you deserve” she’s right. My grip wasn’t even tight enough to leave a bruise.
“Maybe I’m just evil. Why can’t that be it?”
“That’s not a tangible classification. It may help to classify a finite act, but evil’s not a state of being. You murdering people to justify your inability to connect: evil. You yourself are not evil.”
“Then why would I do this?”
“You were damaged. I am certain. So you don’t value yourself or believe you deserve value but long for self-worth. You are so desperate for validation that provoking emotion, any emotion, will suffice. I’m assuming it just recently escalated to murder, but I believe you would feel the same form of elation from volunteering at a soup kitchen or having someone tell you they loved you.”
“That’s fucking stupid. That has to be an over simplification.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you afraid to be known? To know what people actually think of you?”
“By what? People? Why would I want that? They’re assholes.”
“Now that’s an oversimplification.”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s why you picked me. Envious of my ability to be alone.”
“AH!” It just happens. I bark at her and lunge. I swipe at her head with an open hand. She tilts her neck to one side, takes a deep inhale through her teeth, and exhales gently through her nose. Once I’m aware of my outburst, I retreat back to my workspace; ashamed. She stays quiet and continues to look through me.
“You will not garner any satisfaction from killing me” she tells me. I already know that.
“Yeah, why not?” but I keep up with my dissolving lie of a persona.
“I won’t emote, defeating your catalyst.”
“I want to.”
“No you don’t. You didn’t even enjoy swatting me.” She’s right. I didn’t.
“What’s with you? Why are you like this?”
“I’m a sociopath.”
“Heh, seriously?”
“Yes. Far right of the spectrum.”
“Then why aren’t our roles reversed?”
“Being free of guilt doesn’t give an innate proclivity toward murder. The vast majority of Sociopaths aren’t killers. We’re mostly corporate leaders, doctors, or military.”
“Free of guilt, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds…practical.”
“It has its perks.”
“What are you then? I’m going to go with surgeon?”
“I just received tenure.”
“Professor?”
“Yes. Law.”
“Heh, figures. The guilt-free thing must help then.”
“Remarkably so.”
“So, what should I do with you?” I’ve reached my limit of dealing with this thing.
“Whatever you want.”
“I can’t let you go. You’d talk.”
“Most likely.”
“And this chat hasn’t exactly put me in the mood.”
“You might want to kill me” was not the response I was expecting.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“If you did, I might be the last person you would kill” how can she say that with that amount of confidence?
“Stop fucking with my head.”
“If you killed me, you wouldn’t have the same sense of elation because of my inability to emote, thus proving my theory correct. You would ostensibly have a base to work from in which you can build a life toward companionship.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“It sounds right on my end.”
“Why would you even pitch that? Your own death?”
“Don’t believe me to be an emotionless automaton. I value my life. My vapid personality does not negate the fact that I have a family. That I have likes and dislikes” I have to say I wasn’t ready for any of this. I just gawk at her blank expression for at least four minutes. It’s only uncomfortable for me though.
“And what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Whatever you want?”
“Cut that shit out.”
“But it’s your choice.”
“Tell me what I should do!” Please. Anything. Guidance.
“I’m restrained. You can either finish what you had planned and have your belief system crumble or let me go to continue your false projection of reality and self-loathing until I most likely tell the authorities.”
“Those are two very horrible options.”
“One of them has the potential to live a fulfilling life.”
“But you’d be dead.”
“Indeed.”
“And you don’t want to be.”
“In the long run, it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t want to kill you. Not anymore.”
“Then you’re not a sociopath.”
“I thought the vast majority of sociopaths didn’t.”
“They don’t. But they would be in your circumstances.”
“Ugh. So if you were me, you would kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Ugh.” I sigh as I look down at my tools of death. Whatever phoney desire I told myself I once had is gone. It’s only been a handful of people. I did reach a new peak of sadness about a week later. My life plays behind my eyes. There’s a clarity that wasn’t there before. A solace in the shame. Every assumption she made has a face and an act attached to it. “Do you have any interest in hearing what my damage was?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you were” man, she is cold.
“How about my name?”
“I would just use it to aid the authorities”
“You’re not very good at this self-preservation thing.”
“The circumstances are what they are and the stakes have been presented. We’re in the confines of your environment so it is your responsibility. To me, whatever happens happens. ”
“Jesus. Fine.” I pick a blade and get lost in its reflection. I look over to her. I look for anything in her to help me decide. A bead of sweat? A lip quiver? Nothing. She is who she claims to be. “What’s the right answer here?” I say to myself.
“There’s no wrong answer. One just benefits me and one that benefits you” ugh, life in two sentences.
“But I still have to choose?”
“Yes…yes you do.” I’m not the same after today.
Finding high-school physics exceedingly difficult, Jason Krawczyk decided to pursue his passion for filmmaking. Jason directed his first feature-length project, The Briefcase, in 2011, and in 2015, Jason wrote and directed the Henry Rollins horror-comedy He Never Died, which premiered at SXSW and is currently streaming on Netflix and Sunset Superman, starring Michael Jai White, premiering in 2024. Along with directing, Jason Krawczyk has written, punched up, and ghostwritten several screenplays, novels, and novellas, including It Looks Like Dad, Roots Run Deep, and Reality Squall. His passion for writing led him to co-own Little Ghosts Books, an inclusive cafe, publisher, and bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, with his husband, Chris Krawczyk.
