It Pleased To Kill

By Zakariaa Aitouraies

"It disgusted me to see them; in my school, on the streets, in the public garden, outside the mosque, and in my home even. Should we meet in the life to come, they ought to thank me, for all I had done was save them from their incessant misery."

Anwar, a seventeen year old, and the son of a famous politician in Rabat, would one day realize that he had been suppressing an overwhelming urge to kill people who he deems weak and unfit for life. One day, he would decide to take the life of the nightguard in his neighborhood and several more. He does not know however, that as he goes on his killing spree, someone is following every step he makes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716265365

Book preview

It Pleased to Kill.

Zakariaa Aitouraies

Copyright © 2021 Zakariaa Aitouraies

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

It is the mark on an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it

Aristotle

Prologue.

You hold in your hands a secret. No! It’s not quite a secret. You hold in your hands a confession. No, no, no. A confession is often followed by consequences. And so far I haven’t faced any. You hold in your hands the truth. Yes! Oh yes the truth. The truth about me and the truth about you.

Aren’t we all merely trying to know who we really are? Aren’t we all, with every breath we take, every move we forge, and every path that we, consciously or unconsciously, decide to walk upon; are we not, through those means, just searching for ourselves? Aren’t you now my dear friend, as you read these unworthy words, hoping that I would write something, tell a story, or introduce you to someone, through whom you might know yourself better? It is a pity indeed, that our main purpose in this life, the reason behind everything we do, is merely to find ourselves. Can one truly, with a content soul and firm words, claim that they know themselves?

The greatest tragedy of life is to die not knowing who you are.

We spend so much time trying to know other people, how they think and what they’re like, so that we can, to our own misery, fit in and be like them. It is such a futile task for they too are just as lost as we are. They too, in their own pathetic ways, are trying to know us better. So, each lost in their own version of the other, we suffer; not because we will never know them and they will never know us, but because we get further from knowing who we really are. And one who knows oneself knows that that’s all one needs to lead a decent life. To live. I, as I draw nigh to my grave with each passing day, can say that I have lived. I know who I am. Do you?

Part 1

Chapter 1

Yesterday, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I dare say I had an epiphany. I thought about us, people, everything that we have gone through, all the hardships that we had conquered, all the victories we have experienced; victories against each other, against other species, against nature, and sometimes even against God himself. We are more powerful than we could ever dare to imagine.

My name is Anwar Mahboub, and I have something to say that could shock you. I have not told anyone about it yet, but to me it is no secret.  It would be rather unfair for me to just tell you what I have in mind at this very moment, for it would either seem too absurd, or you might even think that I am some sort of a fiend. Ah, screw it! What I want to tell you, and I trust you would take this to the grave, is that I have murdered people. Yes, murdered them. Killed them with my own hands.

Before you label me as a psychopath, a murderer, a heartless animal that should be buried underneath the guilty dirt of prison, allow me to tell my stories first. Well, they are not quite mine. They’re simply the tales of my victims. Victims… Such an absurd term! I never relished it to be honest. Victims... We are all victims, and yet, we are not.

Well, for the sake of the proper terminology, my victims were quite different from the ones one wants to lament over, as they greedily watch their midday news. They were indeed as innocent as any of them (the latter adjective admittedly debatable as well), yet, the only difference was that my dear victims were already fatally stabbed with a merciless dagger. And for years, they had been staggering with it in their hearts, pitifully hoping that one day, that dagger would magically disappear. Poor, wretched, cursing themselves and others whenever they awake in their dingy mornings. It disgusted me to see them; in my school, on the streets, in the public garden, outside the mosque, and in my home even. Should we meet in the life to come, they ought to thank me. For all I had done was save them from their incessant misery. Absurd as they were, fighting so hard only to be miserable. If I am to fight, if anyone should fight, they should only fight for what is divine, noble and priceless. They, naïve and woeful, slave and toil; and for what? A loaf of bread? Ten dirhams from someone who makes thousands a day? A fairy tale of a forbidden love that in the end would conquer all odds and become true? A hope that their misery would one day pave the way for someone to succeed? I almost chuckle as I witness this. Misery could never aspire to greatness. If you were great, no one would be able to change it, not even God for he had made you so. And if you were miserable, and have learned to find comfort in it, you would always be so. Then your faith would be to bear, to suffer, to be squashed by those who are great so they could get greater.

For me, my victims were no different than Gregor, the bug in Kafka’s story. No empathy should be directed to them for they pitied themselves enough; thinking just because of who they were that everyone should treat them with great care. I cannot do such a thing. And for those whom I have carefully selected, I take it as a responsibility of mine to free them from getting squashed no more, though that would make me a traitor to my own kind.

One could always fool others; charm their eyes from seeing who they really are. But one can never lie to oneself, no matter how hard they attempt. That’s why I pen this story for you, my friend. Had I not known who I am, this story would have been fiction, more or less. But I know who I am, and I identify with what I have done, which makes me just like you, or even better than you.

I am a murderer? I have nothing in common with the normal man? If such thoughts hover in your mind, be sure that you are more likely to murder, or even do that which might be worse. You might have already murdered someone, and just hiding it behind the walls of remorse. I have never felt remorseful for what I had done, and how scarce the people who actually feel it! As for everyone else, cowards, they only take it as a pre-excuse for them to do what they yearn to do. To them, remorse is another form of the pleasure that comes after their sinful acts.

Pleasure, the sweetness of life and its purpose. Everyone is seeking it, yet only very few find it. Achieving life’s true pleasure comes after knowing oneself, and one who blinds himself from the truth, would only meet the shadows of pleasure. People give up all their properties to charity and to the poor, claiming they are seeking heaven. Lies! What they greedily want is pleasure -the pleasure of giving, the pleasure of being the upper hand and showing off before their friends and foes. This even goes for those who give in utter secrecy. They too are as selfish as the other ones. They give and tell no one? Lies! They tell their greatest enemy; one who could destroy them in a matter of seconds: themselves. They give now, though in secrecy, so that later, when their desires and their agonizing need for pleasure drives them astray from their so-called righteous path, they could then lie and remind themselves of their previous pious deeds. Those which they swore theyy had done for none but God’s sake.

People give advice and tutor, saying all they want to do is help, while, in fact, all they want is the pleasure of it. Murderers -they too kill for pleasure. Even the terrorists, who claim to kill as an assertion of their twisted beliefs. They anger me most. Blind idiots! Killing gives them pleasure, strengthens the sense of who they are. And people who are seeking to determine what is wrong with them or their beliefs are merely barking at the wrong tree. Nothing is wrong with them or their beliefs. They too are doing what gives them pleasure.

Do not hasten and claim that what I had just told you is all wrong, as that makes life itself the guiltiest of us all, and death the most honest. I have heard once that the angel of death is the angel of guilt. Such bullshit! The angel of death is the angel of pleasure and satisfaction. That’s why it is said that he would take his own life at the end. Remorse? Guilt? Probably not. There would be no more life to take. Quite easy to just go on  judging death, hard indeed to discern and comprehend his ways. 

Just like death, everyone of us is a murderer. We all bear a tendency to kill other human beings and that, just like any other human characteristic, is a part of our makeup. We all have imagined, at one point or another, a clean murder. Some so clean, that if performed they would be studied in the same manner people study a piece of art. I have always believed that the perfect crimes are the ones hovering in the minds of people who haven’t committed any. It always happens, a flicker in time, when we see someone we hate, or for no particular reason, we picture the perfect way to kill them. The moment is so fast that one rarely ponders upon it. Oh how much you are missing! The ephemeral moment when we visit our nature; our true essence. The nature of slaughter, bloodshed and pleasure. There would never be a time when man would not seek, deliberately, to spit a bit of blood for nothing but his mere satisfaction.

We are merely cowards now; fearing to be what we are, and dreading of the outcomes of being so. You see, fear is what hampers us from doing what we want. The fear of being labeled as killers, the fear of becoming prisoners, or the fear of going to hell. When you take that fear, simply by giving people a way to be themselves without anyone knowing, you will then behold the sins of the pious priest.

A chance! That’s what we, people, are looking for. A chance to be free from the lies of human rights, the disguises of civilization, the shackles of consequences. Then, eyes will