That Last Night

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 26; the 26th Edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The topic for this month is 'That Last Night'.

Oedipus Complex by Iustinian Ghita

He awoke with a start. Staying in bed, he looked up at the ceiling. He looked at the shadows of the world outside reflected inside his room. He had been having a rather strange dream for a long time now. His girlfriend had recently broken up with him. There was a lot of yelling. She seemed to think he was mad. He didn’t care. Her going away couldn’t bother him any less. The truth is, he didn’t know what he was. He didn’t know what he wanted. Or maybe he did, but couldn’t ask for it. He just couldn’t sleep. Every morning, he woke up feeling lost and delirious nagging himself for not doing it already. He felt the deprivations of the carnal type. Patrick thought of the previous days flying through and the nights that he passed day-dreaming as he looked at the shadows.

The moon had an unusual quality that night. The pale waxy glow could mean anything. Beauty, immortality, death. Patrick couldn’t quite steer himself away from the edge of the window as he sat holding the bars like a prisoner in a cage. The moon seemed to call out to him. The shadows seemed to ask him to stop dreaming. It’s like a desperate man needed to do what he longed to. As his hunger grew beyond measure, he stood up, balancing his tired legs. He walked to the bathroom in the dark, washed his face and stared awhile at the reddenning eyes that looked back at him. They were devoid of every emotion but hunger.

Patrick changed his clothes into something clean and wore the rubber-soled boots that he so liked. The door to his room creaked open as he pushed it wide open. He walked into the kitchen and opened the drawer where they kept their knives. He had always liked the knife they used to carve the meat. Taking it in his hands, he smiled slightly and admired at the beauty of his own little reflection in the blade glimmering in the moonlight. The pale waxy glow seemed to have transcended into his skin. He looked far beyond his years. He looked almost like a corpse. But not yet, he thought. 

Gripping the hilt of the great knife firmly in his hands, he walked to his sister’s room. He opened the door quietly and crept into the shadows, lurking like a predator. He walked to her bed where she lay curled up, inside a blanket, lost in some dream in a faraway land, thinking of a man who would someday rescue her from the world. She was fifteen. She would never grow older after Patrick held her smiling mouth in his firm hands and, with the steady unswaying hand of a surgeon’s brought it down into her chest. The pain opened her eyes but she spare no thought or voice a scream. The knife came slowly as she gasped and heaved and went down again inside her mouth. The blood didn’t spurt everywhere. It just flowed. Just like a great red river, it washed the sheets and Patrick’s hands. He never did like when she talked so much. With a calm face like that of a mask, he carried himself steadily outside the room and stood outside the room where his parents’ slept. He put his ears to the door to make sure they were not indulging in sex. It seemed that they were indeed asleep. He grasped the doorknob and pushed it open. He stepped inside their cave and walked to the side of the bed where his father lay, fast asleep. Standing beside the father he so hated, he looked down at him with the tormented calm in his twisted face. He didn’t waste time. With the bloody knife, he slit his father’s throat and sooner than the body could start thrashing, he plunged it deep inside the cavernous heart that beat furiously for only a few more moments. His mother faced the other side and remained asleep. He pulled his father’s body and let it fall quietly onto the floor with a light thud.

He climbed onto the bed, staring at his mother, as she shifted in her sleep. Still wearing the mask, he touched her neck with the blade in his hands. Feeling the warm wet blood on the cold sharp edge, his mother woke with a start and stared into his eyes. She could see nothing.

“Don’t move.”, said Patrick. He then knelt down beside the bed and opened the cabinet where his parents kept their handcuffs. He immobilised her, cuffing her to the bedposts.

“Patrick, why? What’s wrong with you, honey? What do you want?”, asked his mother in horror her eyes moving from her son’s face to the blood on the other side of the bed.

Patrick gently moved her nightgown up with his knife, letting her feel the blunt edge as he moved it, to reveal her breasts. With sudden force he grabbed them and with his other hand, tore off her drawers.

With the calm gone and replaced by rabid madness, he said, “Mother, my life is fucked too bad and far too long. You deserve this. You asked me what I want. I want to fuck you all night long, woman.” With a huge grin on his face and his red eyes open in fury, he pushed himself inside her scared, quivering body in the bright moonlight that shone through the window.

-------------------X---------------------X-------------------X---------------------

Several weeks later, in a psychiatric ward, the Dr Newman looked at Patrick’s case file and thought at the horror the boy must be going through now. He had killed his sister and his father. Then he had proceeded to rape and stab his mother until every inch of his own face was covered in blood. He kept the file down on his desk and saw the boy in front of him looking out the window at the trees swaying in the wind.

“Patrick, do you remember anything at all about that night?”

“No, sir. I keep telling them that I was asleep. I found my parents like that and I called it in. Nobody believes me.”

“You maintained a diary where you wrote and drew many things people would generally consider, well, rather scary, to put it simply.”

“I wrote about my dreams. I used to have these dreams where I killed my parents and my sister and I could never sleep properly. I always woke up tired. So I thought I’d write about it all. It was always the same, though.”

“Do you sleep well now?”

“Better than ever.” Patrick said, faintly smiling, with a shadow of the mask that he had now fully embraced. 

PS. This story is a re-enactment of Greek mythology (The Oedipus Complex) and inspired from The Doors' legendary song, "The End". Turning thoughts into action takes courage. And even people who are unstable or even pure evil need to be understood. That may be used to catch them, prosecute them or at the very least, understand that at the very core, every healthy human being is born with a sound mind. Circumstances change people and the way they think. But that doesn't make them any less human. I have not shown the reasons for Patrick's madness for this very reason; that as an intelligent being, we need to understand him before we become judgmental. He may not have had a reason at all. Every abuse, every torture or murder that one inflicts on another has a reason. Some may be worthy of execution, some of life-long imprisonment, and some may need some fresh air in a psychiatric facility. A small number may even be justified. It's knowing the difference that matters.

The End by The Doors

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