Perditio mentis

Will Graham was always awake very early, even if he never felt rested. Sleep had long since become unreliable for him, he knew his body depended on it, but his mind never truly rested. Even when he wasn’t haunted by nightmares, it sometimes lingered in an empty room, shaped like a waiting room, until time passed and reality took over again. The house lay silent around him, a silence he didn’t find pleasant, but one that needed to be checked. He had trained himself in structures, tried to adapt to normality, to create his own world in which he simply functioned, and yet his own being caught up with him again and again. Only the quiet scratching of his dogs’ claws on the floor, the cracking of the old wood beneath his own weight, had to be analyzed first, and only when everything was where it belonged, when everything sounded familiar and nothing had shifted, did peace return.

Nevertheless, he moved carefully through the rooms, as if one careless step could trigger a chain of possibilities he wouldn’t be able to catch later, distractions that would cause him to lose himself in pointless things that took up too much space in his brain, space he wanted to use for other things. He drank his coffee strong, far too strong, so it clung to his palate like liquid tar, the bitter flavor lingering for hours afterward. William was a normal person… not even special, in his own opinion… but he rarely thought in clear thoughts. He thought in sequences, in what would have been logical if he had been someone else. And sometimes it was difficult for him to draw that distinction clearly. Sometimes he wondered whether he knew himself at all, or whether he had been in other people’s heads too often and had forgotten how to anchor himself to himself. Even though everyone advised him to go to therapy, to get help… it was hard for him to accept help, to take care of himself, because he always found excuses for why all of it was a waste of time.. time he would rather spend on his work or on his furry, loyal companions.

Jack had once again ordered him to take a vacation.. it was always the same vicious cycle. Will was supposed to be recovering, but just at those moments when the young profiler was enjoying a little peace and quiet, he was called back on duty… precisely because he was irreplaceable at the moment. That day, he had put his cell phone on silent and misplaced it somewhere, which alone made him nervous, but he didn’t force himself to look for it. The dogs needed food, they needed attention, his house needed tidying up… simple virtues that were part of life. With his pack in tow, he left the house after a few minutes, romped with them in the snow, and for a while he was actually in a state that could be described as happy. The animals grounded him, and he gave them what they needed.

It was a different story when he went into town in the early afternoon to run errands. His senses were flooded, every stimulus pulling him into a kind of trance, and even buying nails became an almost insurmountable ordeal for his ravaged mind. The people around him didn’t exist through their faces or words, he perceived them through their movements… how they touched things, how hands lingered too long on certain objects. Eyes that assessed the thickness of a rope, someone comparing knives not by price, but by weight and balance. A man in a dirty work suit took plastic wrap from the shelf, put it back, and reached for thicker rolls. Will’s mind flooded with images he couldn’t defend himself against. He saw a room, something like a cellar, plastic sheeting stretched across a smooth floor, an attempt to control and erase traces when something had gone wrong. He forced himself to keep walking, regulating his breathing into a steady rhythm as his mind had already built scenarios and turned the stranger into a fucking serial killer.

When he finally stood in front of the shelf of nails, the sizing blurred before his eyes. He knew too much about how easily things could be misused, how inconspicuous the transition was, how important it could be to buy the right nails if someone wanted to fasten human flesh to something and create some kind of perfidious art. His mind actively searched for these connections, corrupting the most ordinary objects. His fingers trembled as he brushed over the wrapped materials, then he tore himself away, grabbed the first package he could reach, and dropped it into the cart. His heart beat faster. Too many memories and images that hadn’t even become memories yet, too many people whose stories seemed to lie open before him without his consent. He avoided eye contact at the checkout, he paid, took the bag, and left the store as if he were fleeing, even though no one was chasing him. Only outside, in the cold air, did the pressure slowly ease. He stopped, closed his eyes, and remembered the snow, the clumsy joy of his dogs, the simplicity of their needs. Some things should remain just that: simple. But he knew it would never be simple for him… not even with medication, not even with damn therapy.

“Graham.”

Will opened his eyes slowly. It took a moment to steady himself, the man stood a few paces away,  had a coffee cup in  his hand, seemed confident as a pompous rooster. William didn’t return the look immediately, he knew this game.. eye contact felt like an invitation. But it was too late to pretend he hadn’t noticed.

“You look like you’ve had a busy morning,”

said Josh, one of his least liked colleagues, one of those who mocked the profiler’s so called talents. Will lifted his shoulders slightly. Something tightened in his chest. His mind wasn’t fully back from the store yet, still half filled with intentions and unfinished scenarios. And this man seemed to know it, as if he could smell it… or taste it.

“You seem more tense than usual. Jack must be letting you get too close again.”

William looked at him for the first time, forcing himself to appear neutral and unimpressed.

“I’m buying nails… nothing else. I’ve got a day off today, and on days off it’s not unusual to take care of things you’d otherwise forget.”

Josh studied him a second.

“Sometimes I wonder if you even realize how much this is eating you alive. Or if you just… need it. Maybe it turns you on somehow. Maybe this is your kink, Graham. Still waters run deep, they say… maybe you like getting fucked by your own twisted thoughts. There’s everything out there, and hey, that’s not meant as an attack.”

It hit deeper than Will wanted to admit, especially because of the casual way it was said, ss if Will were an open experiment, fair game for commentary, or just some pervert. He didn’t respond immediately. He knew what the other man saw: the exhaustion, the overload, the crack in the armor, and he knew that every word now meant either attack or retreat.

“I know where my limits are, and your comparisons are inaccurate…”

Then he turned and left, sitting in his car for a moment, his hands were tight around the steering wheel and he breathed out slowly. Some encounters were more exhausting than any crime scene, and yet, for a brief moment, he smiled in confusion at his own distorted reflection in the rearview mirror. He was a tool of justice, he knew that… and Josh wasn’t entirely wrong. William needed all of it. He needed the murders, the immersion into the mind of a killer, it fascinated him. He needed to feel it, as if he himself were part of it, an essential organ that gave it meaning. Graham was the beating heart that understood the killer, that recognized his art, even if he ultimately captured and imprisoned him… alive, if possible, because an artist should not be extinguished.

His heart was pure, he wanted to end suffering, to give the dead a respectful ending, to free them from the perversion inflicted upon them. And still, he was increasingly torn toward neutrality. The perpetrator always exerted more influence on him than the victim, because the victim was already beyond reach. And perhaps Graham wanted to bind himself to those visions that returned again and again. He wanted to be a victim himself, if only to feel it on his own skin… and he wanted to be the perpetrator, to understand the art even better.