CEO

The CEO of our company is a serial killer. All my coworkers adore him. They rave about his vision while on break and boast about his bravery on social media. They leave him glowing reviews on Glassdoor and declare him a powerful force for justice in the world.

Nobody knows our CEO’s name. Everyone at the company calls him Dad. According to the internet, his personal net worth exceeds twenty-five billion dollars. I’ve never seen his face. Despite his mysterious identity, it’s a widely accepted fact that he’s claimed at least two hundred and fifty victims over the years.

During the week, Dad runs our multi-million dollar company that designs cutting-edge prosthetic limbs for individuals who have been seriously injured in violent conflicts around the world. On the weekends, he uses his bottomless personal resources to track down the warlords and criminals who have transformed innocent individuals into the unfortunate clients of our company. Once the target is located, Dad boards his private jet, flies out to where the man is hiding, and beats him to death without the aid of a weapon. Sometimes this takes many hours. On rare occasions, the beating lasts a full day. Whatever the length of the attack, the totality of each murder is filmed in 4K HD by a three-member camera crew. In addition to the camera crew, each murder is overseen by Dad’s fifteen-man security detail.

In the seven years I’ve been with this company, Dad has never missed a day of work. Nor has he ever been charged with a crime. Each time the topic of Dad’s morality is broached by a foolhardy worker, that individual is verbally attacked and ostracized by the rest of the employees for even questioning Dad’s practice of retaliatory justice. These conflicts have only occurred a handful of times during my tenure at the company, but each time they have, the employee who raised the issue quickly disappeared from their desk and was never heard from again.

Every Monday morning at ten a.m. PST, Dad uploads onto our company’s private YouTube page the video of him beating to death the previous weekend’s criminal. Though Dad has never explicitly stated that it’s mandatory for employees to watch each week’s video, I always do, just in case. My coworkers, however, require no such mandate. They watch each video with glee and rapt attention, deriving much satisfaction from witnessing Dad exercise his brand of brutal justice.

For me, the videos are very difficult to watch. The shrieking, the groans, the gasping for air, the begging for mercy, the pounding of knuckles against spongy flesh, the grotesque black goat mask Dad wears to hide his face, the heavy thump of the bodies smacking against the floor… these things haunt my nightmares. But what can I do? It’s not safe to look away.

Now it’s almost ten o’clock. I’ve been drinking all morning. Dad’s new video drops in six minutes. My coworkers chatter like kindergarteners and lick their lips in anticipation. They giggle and grin and spin in their chairs. Watching all this, I slide my phone from my pocket and call the local police. I give them the company’s address and beg them to come and arrest me. The officer on the other end of the line asks me what I’ve done. Gulping a big sip from my flask, I say I’ve been thinking for a long time. I say I have no more strength left. I say a murder will soon occur.

Symmetries

While driving to my new job in Nevada, my car breaks down on a lonely thread of road in the desert. For three hours I bake in the shade of the driver’s seat and watch the sharpened wind scratch by. Here I wait for the rain that will never fall, the figure in the golden haze that is not approaching.

The sun crackles overhead like an ancient omen. My neck is syrupy red and steaming. It’s noon and I’m already rotting.

By the time I trudge into town, I’m half-feral and nearly dead. Stumbling into a diner, I become ensnared by a forty-year-old banker and her college-age daughter. The two women are talkative and charming. They shower me with kindness and attention. They are attractive in the manner of the oblong spheroid and the conic section.

The banker and her daughter take me to their home and fill me with water and food. They place me in a bathtub and sponge the arid dust from my skin, the dizzying heat from my brain. Then they deposit me atop a soft bed in a humid guest room, where I quickly slide into sleep.

Some time later, one of the women enter the room and close the door behind them. An oscillating fan switches on. The curtains slide closed. Other intrigues ensue.

I return to sleep. Days pass. It is not long until certain symmetries arise in my entanglements with the two women.

The next night, while the banker sleeps upstairs, the daughter thrusts a revolver into my hand and whispers about freedom and love and a safe deposit box. When the daughter goes away in the morning, I rent a car with the last of my money and drive to the edge of town. But the goddamn rain drowns the only road to the highway.

On the way back to the house, the banker appears in front of my car, drenched in anger and wrath. She raises her hands to her face. She gazes at me with the eyes of a statue. Rainwater scuds down her neck. A bullet leaps from her revolver.