Wants, Tightrope, Spilt Milk

By Clarkson Black

Wants, Tightrope, Spilt Milk is the controversial story of Casper Carter, a young well-liked Australian teacher whose thirst for fame leads him to plot the mass murder of his own students.

Giving himself just five days in which to learn to torture, rape and murder, Casper seeks to transform himself into Kasper Karter, a being with no morals, no boundaries and no limits.

Through his actions we see his transformation, a transformation marred by struggle and anxiety as his conscience seeks to undo all he has planned.

Will he overcome all society has taught him to believe and respect, or will he become lost in the blood of the victims that haunt his every moment?

Wants, Tightrope Spilt Milk follows in the footsteps of American Psycho, In Cold Blood and Crime and Punishment by presenting the reader with a human killer, a man tormented by what he believes he should do, yet plagued by what society expects of him. With his humanity shown through his relationship to a bullied young student he takes under his wing, the reader is exposed to what drives a killer and how each murder affects him, till in the end the rampage he has planned in his own school looms, an event that finally forces Casper to question just who he is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clarkson Black
• Release date: Aug 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311932723

Clarkson Black

Clarkson Black lives in Sydney, Australia and has worked in Australian Education for many years. Appalled by the proliferation of mass shooters in modern society, he began to question just what would drive a person to commit such an action, and if that person could ever in fact be the teacher. Casper Carter was therefore born and with him a terrifying glimpse into the reason, madness and horror of a person who wants to escape themself so much, they are willing to kill those society has entrusted them to protect.

Book preview

Wants

... I want to push a pregnant woman down a flight of stairs before vanishing into the crowd as everyone screams for help and I kill an animal in front of a child and take what I can while turning heads to make them look at me and see me and see themselves for the first time as I change the world one act at a time with the death of an adult and the death of a child and I want to be someone and to kill someone and to rape and feel the recoil of a weapon in my hands and the sound of a scream from an action of my own while feeling the electricity of danger in the air that I know Kasper created for he and I have wants that they deny us and all I want is to be human and not just a number or a face in the crowd but instead a man to be remembered and cheered and copied as I set a trend that the world will follow and through which I can live forever as I stop time ...

He sits alone at one of his favourite spots above the Tarpeian Way on the edge of the Botanical gardens, watching the ferries twinkle across the black mass of water. The bridge, its coat hanger frame lit in a semi-circle of white pyramids and vertical lines, arcs in front of him and to his left the skyscrapers of the CBD bathe the night sky in the foreboding, ever present shade of orange particular to all cities at night.

He scans the view that he knows thousands would die to see, watching the life of the city in the movement of its people, his eyes catching the Opera House as he does so, its white sails in full flow yet its place as immovable as his own.

He thinks about the life he has lived here, the people he has known and the memories that will soon be forgotten. All of it lies at a distance to him that is a product of more than just time, that arises from the separation of himself from the person he once was. Alone he has time to think about this separation, and about how much of it is from his own efforts, his desire to cut himself off and create something new. He loved the city and his place in it, but now its streets and smells were no longer enough, his wants and desires had been festering for so long that they had finally crystallised into a single ambition, an overarching want:

... to stop time ...

He no longer wanted to feel it pressing upon him with its weight and demands, its fear of everyday, a fear that lurked and bit, that lined each event and forever held the realisation that a perfect moment is not for the present but to be contemplated after, when time had once again already passed. Such a life, lived only in anticipation of the next moment and its passing, couldn’t be his anymore. He needed to know that he was something more than a passing second, that he was something eternal, something immortal.

He needed to act, not only for himself, but for everything around him.

He needed his wants to finally be fulfilled.

Tightrope

The tightrope, the one I walk, grows ever tighter as it reaches for my neck.

Spilt Milk

I saw that image on the news, the one taken from the helicopter where they were bringing the bodies out of the hall, all covered in white sheets. I saw the footage as well but the image was worse, seeing all those bodies lined up hidden under sheets and just knowing that under each were school girls. Innocent girls. There were like fifteen of them in a row and it just broke your heart to see.

Part One: Casper

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18TH 2009: CASPER CARTER

He awoke at 6:34am to the sound of his phone’s alarm and clambered out of bed in order to turn it off. He was in the habit of placing his phone out of arms reach to force himself up in the morning; prone as he was to drifting back to sleep by utilising the snooze option. His thoughts were still consumed by the dream he had just been pulled from and so as he set about doing the few exercises he did each weekday morning, he glossed over its details. From what he could remember it had been set upon the Indonesian island of Java, but like with all dreams, it wasn’t the actual island, nor did it conform to reality. In fact as his mind woke with the exercise he could recall seeing the island laid out below him like the old maps they use in Indiana Jones’ films while he, his consciousness being his only form in these top down views, leapt from city to city. He was on some form of quest, some action ordained by someone else and related perhaps to war or politics.

Yet the top down view in his dream was only a small part of what he could recall. What he remembered most vividly was being in a bar with a large area for bands. This bar was situated in a large tower block of flats, the kind that one sees scattered all over Eastern Europe and on the poorer outskirts of most cities. In fact, as he envisioned the block he associated it with Greenways; the large, red-brick government housing monstrosity just down the road from his studio in Kirribilli. He was not alone in his dream, as two of his close friends, Benny and Lawley, were there with him. He doesn’t remember them joining him, only that they were at the bar one minute and then on the floor the next. He could see himself trying to revive them as they had drunk too much and being angry about them passing out. The motive for his anger stemmed from the fact that no sooner had they collapsed than a band he liked, The Klaxons, had begun performing their debut album.

He’d had his feet on a chair when they begun and been told to take them off. He had lost his friend Benny and tried to find her in the labyrinth like corridors of the tower block, each level having no doors but multiple corridors, all grey and black with pools of rainwater and black marks smeared on the walls. He had been in his old bedroom at some point, looking out at the sunset but seeing instead a great tree being felled as he sat in the bath and waited for someone. Was that before he had travelled, before the vast map of Java and his quest?

Finally, his exercises finished with ten push-ups, the part that he despised most for how difficult he found such an easy exercise, and thus how much it reminded him of his own weaknesses. He picked up the clothes he had laid out the night before and went to the bathroom in order to shave and shower.

He’s twenty-six yet convinced that he looks younger. Don’t be mistaken, however, into thinking that it’s vanity that makes him think this; for with Casper it’s more that others have convinced him of this fact. When he looks at himself in the mirror and sees beyond that which catches his eye, he recognises in essence the same person he’s always been. Like all of us he finds it hard to recall what it was once like to peer upon a different, much younger, face. Perhaps if he was denied a mirror for a long period of time then he would be able to see notable difference. As it stands any changes occur slowly over time and thus he sees them evolve with the blindness of one who sees the same building everyday but fails to notice its slow decay.

He peers at the lines under his eyes, wondering if they are just lingering from his sleep or if they are in fact a deeper form of those from the day before.

As he showers his thoughts progress from this preoccupation, to another, far more theoretical realm.

... I wonder if the way I sleep causes those lines to appear or if it’s something else after all I don’t think that coffee is too good for them nor alcohol for that matter I mean just remember what happened to Darren when he was fresh faced one minute and then haggard and worn the next but I guess it happens to everyone over time and that the more you drink and smoke and so on the worse it’ll be though I used to think it didn’t matter but it matters now and I hate it but I guess none of will matter as this is the moment when I just thrown up my hands and say fuck off Mr Time as I don’t give a shit about you because now I’ll always be remembered looking this way and being young even if they can’t find any good photos of me and that'll go for my victims as well because they’ll all be remembered how they were when I met them like I am the possessor of time and shit there's not long to go now less than a week if today is Wednesday and so Monday is ... Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday but do I count the Monday as it's only really the morning but then again it’s morning now so that means five days to be ready but that’s not long and I’ve got so much to do I should’ve started earlier ...

He climbs out of the shower, dries himself, moisturises all over then dresses, all the while his thoughts continue.

... fuck it up and then what would be the point of any of it as I’d probably be thrown in some jail cell and then have to watch myself grow old for years to come in a room where all the walls are mirrors so I could watch myself with nothing to do but see all my imperfections and I'll start talking to myself and reflecting on how it was all before me and how I could have saved everyone but fucked it up because I couldn’t wait and thought I needed to do it straight away but then how long did it take Pavlov to train his dogs even though obviously I’m not a dog and I’ve been practicing but that’s all different and I guess after all I’ll find out everything tonight but does dying young mean you live forever or is it like the Greek gods who would only live as long as people remembered them even though it doesn’t matter at the end of the day because when you die you only really have consciousness of yourself anyway so if at the moment you die you believe you will live forever then in theory you will and everyone will remember you and statues will be built for you and the world will do as you did because you opened it up to them so does it matter if I fail and if I don't change anything because according to that logic all that matters is what I think the moment I die but then that's not the point of any of this as I want to ignite change and open others eyes to the world around them so they can experience true freedom ...

It’s not far for me to walk to work each day and to be honest I enjoy the exercise. I live in North Sydney, well, Kirribilli really, and so to get to the school where I work it’s simply a case of walking up one hill, over the freeway that leads to the Harbour Bridge, then round a corner, up another hill, over a rise and along a straight road to my school. It’s a good school and I’m lucky to be working there, especially when I think of some of the shitholes my fellow graduates ended up in. Those looking for answers later need not look at the effect the school had on me. This isn’t one of those ‘I hate my workplace’ scenarios. It’s simply a role reversal of the situation we see so often these days, the one that we then blame on the individual without ever looking at society. I guess it’s easier to isolate and pariah one rather than realise that the whole has a problem.

Anyway I walk to work every morning, joining the others who do likewise and who, truth be told, I fantasise about murdering; stupid fucking idiots. I think sometimes that these people around me are nothing more than cattle, not so much in the old adage but more that they haven’t quite grasped the importance of their own being, that they don’t understand how vital it is to realise that you are the only person in this world that matters, that there is no one at the end of everyday but yourself.

No one knows what you’re thinking, what dreams you have nor what you envision for others.

No one knows your wants.

... I want to change the world ...

Yet in my own thoughts there’s an audience that obeys and worships me, that cheers my actions and jeers my enemies, that promises me victory and banishes defeat. It’s in the midst of this world that I then see these people walking to work, and surrounded by such voices I can’t help but feel filled with superiority purely because I have a consciousness of self that gives me the right to do whatever I want. If others disagree with me then let them in the confines of their own world. For in mine, I am king.

KASPER

Casper headed into the city that night nice and early. The murder he had planned dominated his thoughts but even so he forced it back, storing it and the plans that he had meticulously laboured over for when he would need them later. Right now he tried his best to think about the concerns that used to distract him when he would go out to meet his friends. Chief among such former thoughts, as it was a Wednesday, were the duel matters of an early start the next day and what he had to teach for the rest of the week.

Casper had always been a dedicated teacher, though at first such dedication had surprised him. Teaching was, as with most University graduates, his first true professional role and as such a whole new world of responsibility had seemed to engulf him without his knowing. Whereas in former jobs (such as retail) he had possessed little care outside the basics that would secure his pay and keep him from getting fired, suddenly he found himself thinking about how best to maximise his teaching in order to ensure all the students got the best out of the lesson, thereby contributing to their overall education. Such concerns seemed to be a natural progression from worrying about University essays and so may offer some explanation as to why it took Casper a while to recognise that the reason he cared was because he liked and respected his job.

No doubt everybody has had this realisation at some point, and equally I don’t doubt that it comes in many varying forms. For Casper it was simply a transition that he awoke to one day a year into teaching. It had gone from being a job like those he had before, to something that he was genuinely concerned about. Never had he worried about how many pairs of jeans he sold, yet now here he was concerned about if the homework he set would prove to be too challenging, or if the innovative lesson he had created would be too far reaching.

The fear of underperforming was thus something that continually loomed over him whenever he did anything that might affect him the next day. In the past a night out in the city, be it only a few drinks, would have presented the kind of break from his routine that he feared would set him back the next day, thus affecting his teaching and furthermore disadvantaging his students.

Things were different now of course, his values had changed and teaching become nothing more than a pretence, the preamble to disguise his true purpose. Try as he might therefore to conjure up such concerns, the level to which he had abandoned the ties of old meant that he could only recognise the importance of getting to bed early, rather than allow it to cause him anxiety like in the past.

Those few short weeks ago, before he had decided to change, concerns prior to going out on a weeknight stretched further of course than just fears of how it would affect his teaching. Casper was after all a single young man, one who had not had a serious relationship for some time. Why not you ask? He’s as unsure as I. He’s not a bad looking fellow, nor one given to either shyness or arrogance. Finding the answer now is of course almost impossible for, like a monk who chooses celibacy for God, Casper had found a cause more important than seeking out some relationship. On top of that he was opening a world in which one didn’t need to wine and dine in order to get into a girl’s pants. He didn’t need to listen and share, to comment on her dress or hair, to walk on the outside of her or buy her gifts. He need only corner her in a place where he was both confident he could overpower her and equally confident that he couldn’t be overheard.

He hadn’t yet raped a girl, nor a guy for that matter, but he was well aware that he could do so if he wanted.

To return to the point I had drifted away from, as a single man Casper had concerned himself on previous nights out with his appearance. His clothes, his hair, the way he sat or stood. He had been called both effeminate and gay by his friends for the manner in which he presented and carried himself and the ghosts of these accusations hung over him as he quickly uncrossed his legs on the train and tried instead to sit with his knees apart, a position he thought to be masculine yet uncomfortable.

It was a short train ride for him into the city and as per normal he alighted at Town Hall in order to walk up William Street to Kings Cross where he was to meet his friends. It would of course have been quicker for him to catch another train, but not only did he relish the walk, he had also lived in Sydney long enough to know walking up William Street took almost as much time as waiting in the hot bowels of Town Hall station.

Casper’s mind has a tendency to jump from thought to thought and it did just this as he walked passed Hyde Park, the large Coca Cola sign in the distance landmarked as his destination. He thought about his clothes and his hair, but only briefly, for his attempts to hold back fantasising about what he was to do after meeting his friends proved futile when surrounded by so many people. It had become common for him to walk amongst the public full of a sense of his own consciousness, something that perhaps had come only with the changes of the past weeks, or something that had always been a feature of his inner thoughts.

He was with his friends for only about two hours before they all made their excuses and left. They seemed like shadows to him at first, people he had known before but who now meant little to him. Such feelings were still strange to him and even more so seen as it had only been little over a week since the last time they had all been together. For Casper a lot had happened in that time, and as such he was uncharacteristically quiet for the first ten to twenty minutes.

His friends knew nothing of the man he was becoming, nor would they have believed anyone if they had been told. Casper, the person they knew, simply wasn’t the sort of person to do something like that. He could be quirky, strange even, but he would never do anything like that.

Perhaps, if given a chance, he could have explained himself, made them realise that the acts he would perform were not solely due to base pleasure, but were an intellectual mission to free mankind from stagnation through setting an example. Maybe then they would have understood.

The man he murdered that night might also have understood why the end of his life was important to mankind if only Kasper had taken the time to explain his motive before driving a knife into his stomach. But then he’d had hardly enough time to even play with his victim before some desire to live had sprung up in the degenerate and spurred him to actually lunge at Kasper.

The man had given up on life! He gave no concern to all that is important: personal hygiene, presentation, employment, companionship. He didn’t even have a trolley of hoarded shit to push around with him. His sole possessions were a pair of filthy and torn jogging bottoms and what was once a t-shirt. No shoes, no jacket, nothing.

Casper had thought that he was helping the man, as well as helping himself. Such humility still resided in him in these early days. What did this man have to live for? Surely being the first person to stain Kasper Karter’s hands was more than he would ever achieve in his life?

After spotting him shuffling the streets Casper had followed him till he wandered down an alleyway, an act that we imagine all homeless people to do but which took far longer to materialise than he had anticipated.

The man barely even realised he was there until Casper had the knife out of his hand and approached him. Then it was as if he were Raskolnikov, a man who by the mere hint of murder can set alight the spark of life that had so long been left unlit in this shambolic form of humanity. Perhaps he was always alive, perhaps life to him was one in which a person needs not possessions nor attachments, but only his own thoughts and a bit of time to explore them?

Either way Casper proved to be somewhat unprepared and for a moment the scene presented an uncertainty as to who would prove the victor ...

DEATH

Hey .... Hey excuse me, can I ...,

His tongue vanished as he stood surrounded by the stinking filth of his prey, the knife already out of his jacket and held at his side.

The tramp turned toward him, shadows playing for a second before Casper saw the horror of its face, covered as it was in a matted mess of thick black hair and putrid, shit covered skin.

It stared and swaggered, the yellow and red ringed pinpricks that were its eyes directed toward the knife that stayed limp in Casper’s hand even when the being half-fell, half-lunged at the arm and bent down to bite the flesh…

SNAP

Kasper erupted out of placidity with a sudden sense of desperation alien to his previous superiority and forced himself to attack, tearing and shoving till he was able to free one of his hands and grasp the slimy hair that felt like the kind you pull out of a blocked sink, grab it and pull it so hard that he could hear the scalp rip and the noise drove him to pull harder, to yank until the man’s arms reached up for his own and Kasper was able to lunge with the knife first into the rips and then into the stomach:

STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB

…fucking piece of shit fucking mother fucker like that you fucking cunt fucker take fucking that you fucking cunt…

Blood warmed his hands and slid on the handle as the victim fell to the ground and, he the victor, bent and stabbed him all over like one does a box with a pair of scissors stabbing the flesh and hitting the bone again and again and again all while he panted and felt weak from the effort but none of it held any meaning it was just blood and flesh something unnoticed something he could do without but all the while he thought he thought about his wants about all that would happen now it had finally begun and about the joys that awaited him now he allowed himself to be free (before the clouds started to descend).

THURSDAY, MARCH 19TH 2009: ANNA FERREN

She walked to school alone as she did every morning. Her eyes scanning the horizon and street corners as they did every morning, her nerves on edge as they were every morning. Her life was a repetition of fear, a cycle of watching and waiting yet being caught off guard by those who pursued her, those who deemed her unworthy of their time yet who spent inordinate amounts of it chasing after her in order to let her know just how little they thought of her.

She walked with her head down aside from the furtive scans that consumed and revealed the inner workings of her anxious thoughts. She was the girl who was always in the background yet who stood out if you looked for her. The person who no one really knew but who even the least informed students could lambast with insults. Anna was the one who attracted hatred like the pretty shy girl, yet though she was shy, she had not a trace of prettiness. She was overweight, something that drew attention to her in the world of bitches and princesses that is a North Shore Girls’ school.

She had been the target of everyone and such constant abuse made her a shell of a person. Ever on edge, ever fearful of what lay behind each corner she found solace only inside herself, in her fears and the confines of her anxiety. It was a world of self-hatred, of loathing and the almost destructive wish to be someone else, somewhere else, something, anything, anything but what she