A Few Swings is All That It Takes

"Why, Timothy?" George mumbled a little louder this time for me to hear. I looked at him after hearing his weakened voice as my masked audience shout and jump in unison with what I am about to do. "Why are you doing this? You're my brother, man, and will always have your back if you just say the word. You know this. We're always together. How come you've changed into something like... like what you are right now..." I could finally see a bit of a struggle in the way George squirms around like a dying tapeworm. I could even scarcely hear the sound of his bones cracking as the Ringmaster bends him even further with the unseen force that he maneuvers to keep George in place.

"Changed?" I laughed as hard as I could, but it sounded silent compared to the enthused cheering of the crowd I see on the balcony above. Although the noise of everything all around had drowned the sound of my laugh, I am relatively sure George had felt the mockery that accompanies my every breath. "Well, I didn't change, you know? What are you talking about, huh, pal? What are you trying to say, hmm? This is who I am. This is who I've always been."

"Why?" I may not be able to see George's face well, but I can still hear the sadness in his wails as he shimmies around like a disturbed termite on a wet wooden plank. "Why are you doing this?"

The way he wiggled his body might have disturbed the men around us, so the cheering of the crowd started to settle down. They instead now look at us with eyes filled with anticipation, and though I cannot see them clearly, I could feel their breathing grew heavier as the sound of their pants envelopes the hall, causing the temperature of the surroundings to be warmer.

"You need help there, Timothy?" The Ringmaster beckoned at me from below the platform with his usual gentle tone and smile, but it doesn't have the same playfulness in it. If I haven't known the Ringmaster for a long time, I would have thought he has a twinge of anxiety with the way he spoke, which is impossible for a man like him. However, I can surely tell that he is not confident that I will be able to dispose of the man in front of me successfully.

Why? Because he wiggled a little?

"I'm fine, Ringmaster," I replied softly without looking at his direction.

"Are you sure?" He said while taking a few steps towards the platform. "We could release the chains if you—"

"I said I'd be fine, Lucas!" I growled as quietly as I could in order not to alert everyone around us, interrupting the Ringmaster's words as I diverted my gaze at him. I glared at him with reddened eyes, threatening him that if he ever stepped foot on this platform, then I will never forgive him for interrupting this incredible moment of mine. Though I said none of those words, the way the Ringmaster took a few steps back after seeing the look on my face was enough for me to say that I had adequately conveyed my message. "I'll be fine," I said as calm as I can without a sliver of my earlier wrathful countenance.

"I see," The Ringmaster chuckled. "I'm sorry for doubting you, little Tim."

I didn't utter a reply to what the Ringmaster had said and just returned my gaze to George. That was when I noticed he's still trying his hardest to jerk his body away from this situation. I sighed. "You know, George, at first, I do not know why I'm like this or why I'm doing this." I raised both my hands while tightly gripping the handle of the three-feet long, dull ax. "But now I know that by doing this, I am simply accepting who I really am."

Perhaps George had seen my shadow on the ground; he wriggled his body even more ferociously before I could swing the ax down onto his neck. I finally downed the blade down onto his body. However, he had managed to move away from his original position, causing me to hit a few inches below his nape instead.

I clicked my tongue and showed an unsatisfied grimace at what he did before pulling the ax off his spinal cord with all the strength I have. When I did so, blood spurted out of George's back like a broken faucet, and it instantly dripped down the platform. This scene caused a wave of applause from the audiences, and I could even see Veronica clapping in my peripheral vision, and I know that woman is not a person who would clap at my achievements.

Looking at his wound, I saw that the ax had done what I wanted a dull blade to do. It did not cut through his skin with a clean and even hit. It absolutely wrecked his skin as if it was a piece of paper torn forcefully by huge claws. The blow ripped it apart so much that it felt like a leopard had bitten on his skin and tore it away, which left a revolting portion on his back that looked like a ripped portion of designer jeans. George's harrowing shrieks proved just how excruciatingly painful that blow was; one could even see how painful it might have been for him by looking at the way the skin around the ripped part looked like a flaky and withered leaf.

However, what I am seeing did not please me because I was aiming at his neck. The Ringmaster might have noticed this, so he used whatever unseen sorcery he was using to pin George down and configure it somehow to make his hold on him even tighter. When he did so, I could hear the sound of a few of George's bones cracking. This time, the prey could do nothing anymore other than to pray. Drop the idea of moving for a few centimeters; he doesn't even have enough strength to wiggle his body like he used to anymore.

I raised both my hands once again, still with the ax on my tight grip. "You once asked me a long, long time ago if there's someone out there who was born as an evil piece of shit." I panted as I felt the sweat coursing through my costume. "Yeah, that's exactly the words you said, an evil piece of shit. Interesting, eh? I always thought so too."

"Sto... p..."

After hearing George's weak pleading, I finally swung the ax with all my might, but the ax was so heavy that it pulled the whole upper part of my body down with it, which almost made me stumble off my balance. However, when the ax hit its target, I managed to find my footing. This time, my swing was on point! Directly at his nape where it should be. Now, if I used a sharp ax without an oil coating, this entire execution would have been done. Using a sharp ax would strike like a guillotine and sever George's head off with one full strike, ending his life right there with just one final taste of pain. Still, since I specifically asked to use a dull ax with an oil coating, it would take a few more swings before I could decapitate his head from off his neck. After all, a sharp blade will cut; it would slide down quickly, and that would be the end of it. A dull knife would tear the skin off like a blunt weapon, causing it to stop halfway before sliding off completely. Paired with the oil, it would take a lot of effort before this ax would penetrate through a human neck.

The funny thing about this is that this should have been a relatively painless execution, but since George is still letting out a painful-sounding scream, that means he still has enough life in him to feel his soul leaving his mortal flesh.

Then it started. 

The people above us all started to mumble, quietly speaking the words, in a playful and somewhat unheard way so only a handful of the people within them could hear. Some yelled it at the top of their lungs to garner the attention of the people around them. Though they were not speaking the words in perfect harmony and they were not uttering it in the same amount of volume and loudness, those few words still escaped the small crevices between their lips. 

"The Caravan moves on." 

"... The Caravan moves on."

"The... Caravan... moves on."

"The Caravan moves on!" 

"THE CARAVAN MOVES ON!!!" 

I chuckled after hearing the familiar chanting of the people towering above us on the ivory balcony from high above. It's a form of tradition that we always upheld around here in this wondrous court managed by our revered Ringmaster. It's the same way as how the Japanese mumble "Itadakimasu" before eating. It's also similar to how Christians would say "Peace be with you" around the later part of a mass. It's a vocal tradition that we had always upheld no matter what, and one that would be a good enough reason to shun someone for not doing it. 

"The Caravan moves on." I heard the Ringmaster speak as if he was directing those words at me. 

It's a vocal ritual. A tradition that requires one to speak one simple phrase. 

It signifies the beginning of a lamb's sacrifice for the entertainment of men. Having the centerfold in the ring of our crimson Ringmaster means that everyone had already stripped you of your humanity. Now, you are nothing but another part of another person's viewing experience. 

"Is this the reason why you know about this chant, George?" I chuckled as I cup my hands on my ears to make it seem like I am trying my hardest to listen to the chaotic-sounding mixture of mumbling and shouting that everyone had displayed by the time they saw me landing the first strike onto this year's snuff fest. "There are so many things you could have remembered that time we showed you the death of your daughter, and the thing that was most memorable to you is the part where everyone started mumbling stuff at your daughter's dying corpse?" 

George kept his silence as he kept on mumbling incomprehensible words under his breath. 

"Giving me the cold shoulder, eh, best friend?" I said, followed by a condescending laugh that must have irked him for I saw him twitch, perhaps unconsciously. "Now I don't know if I am born like this, George—you know, as an evil piece of shit—but I know that I am not a good person like you. I'm not normal, George. And you just so happened to be the closest person to me."

George now looked weaker and paler. I noticed this, so he purposely pulled the ax slower this time with a weaker force to make George feel every second that passes turn into an endless time of absolute suffering.

"I am doing this because this is who I am George; I'm just really not okay from way up here," I said while tapping the side of my head above my ear with two fingers. "Now I'm here in a place that welcomes who I am! Everyone celebrates when I do things that I always wanted to do, and George, ever since we were young, I have always wanted to kill you and destroy your life and make you the most pathetic corpse in the world. I can't help it! I am so, so fucking jealous! I'm so fucking jealous of everything that makes you who you are! And they gave that chance to me George; they gave it to me! You may call them evil pieces of shit, but how could I not feel that I belong?"

I finally pulled the ax off of his head, and without further ado, I swung it down onto George, but this time, I had finally calculated the relative strength it would need for me to swing the ax without pulling my body down with it. As I heard the thudding sound of the blade hitting the bones in George's neck, the surrounding people started to roar in excitement while George spurted blood from out his lips as he tried to speak in vain.

"You are so... Normal! You're such a plain person, and I've always been so angry about that because I am far from normal; I am not plain, and I am not like you! I will never be someone like you, George, and I've always wanted to see the day where I'd see you dead! I've always wanted to be you, and every day of my life, I am reminded that I am not a part of your group of normal people walking in a normal world doing normal things!"

As I felt the adrenaline coursing through my body now that anger had finally kicked in my head, I felt like handling the three-feet long ax was like swinging a bag of feathers. I had no intention of further delaying this execution any longer, so I quickly swung the ax down onto George's neck. However, I had underestimated just how dull this weapon was because, though weak and dying, George is still very much breathing.

I loved seeing this more than anything! After all, George will feel more of what I have in store for him before his head would finally roll off the ground along with his thick, normal-looking blood.

I chuckled with a demented grin on my face as I felt whatever remaining sanity in me, slipping away with the soul of the man I once called a friend. "You're a constant reminder in my life that no matter what I do, I will never belong anywhere! Now, look around you, look if you can, look as much as you can! Everyone cheers for me! I belong here! Those people are just as much of an evil piece of shit like me ever, and I have not been okay since we were young, young boys! This is a place where I could fly, man, fly like one of those eagles my mother hunted down the mountains, man! I have finally found my people. Finally, now that I am killing you and now that everyone that is insane, abnormal, and downright crazy is gathered in one place to look at your death, the death of someone normal and plain and good and sane, a question popped in my head, you know, just out of nowhere... What is normal, anyway?"

I then swung his head with the last remaining sliver of strength I have in my head, and with all my might, I saw George's head detach from out of his neck like the cap of a wine bottle, going off into the air with a loud pop! And just like how whenever someone pops a wine open, everyone around the gathering had cheered and laughed among each other, for the party had begun and the real deal will not commence. 

"George, now that I see you here with people with my people, I started to realize..." I whispered at the mutilated head of my dear friend George as it rolled on the ground, leaving a crimson trace on its wake. I tried to speak as calmly as I could, but a loud chuckle had started to spew out of my mouth, and no matter how hard I try to conceal it, the laughter brewing within me still slips out. "You're not so normal after all," I said while chuckling as if I had just seen the funniest thing I had ever seen in my life.

My laughter seeps all over the court as my audience says, "The Caravan moves on" in a loop that would seemingly never end.