Screams and Schadenfreude

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, death, and gore.

A dead woman hangs from the ceiling fan. Blood drips to the floor from the dozen or so wounds on her body—the same blood that stains her dress crimson. Having stopped writhing some while ago, she now hangs limply, swaying this way and that. Her motion is reminiscent of that of a pendulum.

Most of us rejoice frantically. Some are unsated; they had hoped for more. Others sigh with relief.

How would the woman feel?

Perhaps she'd be glad. After all, hadn't her suffering just ended?

We are definitely monsters. That much we know in our hearts.

Why else would we watch this horror show?

Upon this we had stumbled by blind chance, but staying is another matter altogether, is it not?

Unimaginable though it may be, the room we see must have represented the epitome of familial comfort—the peak of what one may call "homeliness". This fact is not lost upon those of us who can't bear to look directly at the unfolding scene. Their eyes search for anything and everything to fix themselves upon—anything and everything save the two mutilated corpses and their blood soaked Grim Reaper. The furniture is decent—it must have been quite pricey—but it is now decorated with splatters of blood. The wallpaper—or at least the portions not blotted out by crimson—are quite artistic. The Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, Christ the Redeemer, and a hundred other souvenirs, trophies, and show pieces bear witness to this tragedy, indifferent to the plight of their masters.

The child, too, is a witness. But he isn't an observer like us. He is shaking in fright; he is sobbing uncontrollably; he is screaming his father and mother's names. He is retching, unable to tolerate what must be the putrid smell of blood.

This seems to be an isolated country home. Why else would such incessant cries fail to summon a single helpful soul?

But we are happy for him. He won't have to endure this world much longer, nor will he have to face its unspeakable malice or hopeless indifference.

Soon, he shall find rest again in his parents' loving, gentle embrace.

For that good fortune, shouldn't he smile—a little at the very least?

But that time doesn't come. Not that soon at least. If our nerves are this strained, the child's suffering must be infinitely worse. The murderer waits in silence, perhaps admiring his handiwork.

The child has tired. The screams have stopped. The world is completely still, as if waiting with bated breath for the conclusion to this morbid play.

The night is deep and soundless. Nobody has heard anything. Nobody is coming to the rescue. There is no police to run to, no justice to be served, and no court of law to hear their case. "It's all hopeless now," says one of us, but we know that to be untrue. In this drama, there had been no hope from the beginning.

None at all.

And so the playwright begins his final act.

In complete darkness, a sawing noise slowly commences.

We do not wish to see it.

"This is crime!" Says one of us, as if it were not obvious enough

"He must be punished!" Condemns another, unable to lift a finger to bring about that punishment.

"Such a thing must never happen again!" Most of us exclaim in unison.

Yet it is happening again, right before our eyes.

We are unable to stop it.

We are unable to tear our eyes off of it.

"Bearing witness to it, acknowledging it, will bring us closer to justice," we agree solemnly, comforting ourselves.

Something escapes—collectively—from each of our mouths.

An outburst of shock? Of outrage? Of grief?

But protesting is futile.

We are bodiless ghosts who can play no role save observe.

That is what we tell ourselves.

We see him in the dim light.

That tall executioner; that masked torturer; the merchant of terror and death.

He is unmoved by the screams of agony.

He is unyielding to the desperate pleas of mercy, and completely deaf to the blood curdling cries for clemency.

He pays no heed whatsoever to any form of human suffering, or perhaps, he has simply never seen his fellow sentient beings as humans to begin with.

Neither betraying a shred of regret or hesitation, nor displaying the slightest amount of joy, he continues his work.

If man on earth feels nothing about the air he breathes, then why should a murderer like him—a demon in man's garb—feel anything about the lives he takes?

Indeed!

These senseless, emotionless murders look not to be the work of an avenger. Neither do they seem to be the action of a lunatic pleasuring himself. If anything, these are the deeds of a devil—a devil to whom the death of others is just as natural as his own life.

Quietness prevails once more. The crying has stopped. The futile struggle for existence has now ceased. The screams are gone, and the child's death throes have drowned in the ocean of silence, never to be heard again.

That thing rolls off towards us.

We shudder in fright.

We wish to escape this sight, yet our eyes are invariably drawn to it. We desire, above all else, to wipe this abhorrence from our memory—yet we know full well that the scene has etched itself onto our very souls; it has branded itself on our consciousness, as though with hot iron.

The bloodied pieces of the husband's body; the wife's hanging corpse; the child's horrific severed head staring vacantly at our souls—we see them all. They shall not forsake us for a moment. They shall burden us for the rest of our existence. But that is the price we had consented to pay when we…When we—

The livestream ends and we are left staring into the abyss.

Throughout the entirety of these brutal executions, no hand had reached for its phone.

None of us had shouted out. None of us had cried for help to be sent.

No one—absolutely no one—had called the police.

Md. Nayeem Haider is a first year student at LCLS (South) and a contributing writer for The Daily Star.