TWELVE ( Novel )

 

TWELVE

 

    K. Bernh. Genell

 

 

       CHAPTER ONE

                        Revenge

 

 

 “Dear Tinkville News!

 

I am writing to you to clarify the murder of Mr. Subert. This is a symbolic murder. Even if I had a grudge against Mr. Suber, that was not the reason I killed him a couple of hours ago. No, by slaying him, I wanted to make a statement and urge society to change. For a thorough intellectual interpretation, one must understand happiness calculus, as Jeremy Bentham and the entire Philosophy of Hedonist Utilitarianism put forth. According to this, one principle should guide the philosopher and every person: We must seek maximum happiness for a maximum number of people. Here, the life of Mr. Suber weighed very little against the lives of every little child in all the country's schools.

Mr. Suber was a creep and a teacher who frequently ignored the pupils they do not like.

This has got to stop! Every child deserves to be invited to a dialogue with their teacher!

 

    ALL THE BEST!

 

       Revenge-man”

 

 

My name is David Ryley. But they are calling me “Twelve”. I just turned thirty years old. I have felt that other people have mistreated me all my life. There have been numerous people through the years who have bullied me, but I have always thought that you have to deal with that later, and so now I just have this immense, all-encompassing feeling that you have stolen my whole life right in front of my eyes, and so I have decided to get back on them.

 

I said to myself: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

 

Some thoughts first, on revenge in general. Nothing can be more important than this, to treat the subject thoughtfully, logically, and comprehensively, since an essential element in the Revenge ITSELF is the intellectual part - to put one act in the shadow of another concrete action. And that only happens through a plan conceived in deep insight. Thus, revenge, perhaps more than anything one undertakes - if one undertakes it - is an INTELLECTUAL ACT.

An invention, any work, or a victory in a sports arena need not be understood intellectually in all its parts to have value to somebody. It doesn't matter if you understand your work as a train driver or a doctor as long as you do it well. And so it is with almost every other action in life. You can enjoy and be honored by them, even if you don't understand the depth of the matter. Yes, most people go through life that way without ever realizing the meaning of all their actions. But that is NOT the case with REVENGE. Revenge must be understood down to the smallest detail. Otherwise, it is not revenge.

 

To put revenge, as a general phenomenon, into relief, we can first briefly consider revenge in animals other than humans. Here, we find a multitude of points of interest. One immediately thinks of elephants, monkeys, dolphins, horses, and dogs. Known to everyone are the wild demolitions that African and Indian elephants can cause in entire small villages if they feel wronged. That's what I call revenge, wiping out a town. You know that other high-ranking animals, such as monkeys, very carefully keep track of who are friends and enemies, and an attack from a conspecific will very often be remedied with a complementary attack if the opportunity arises. It is essential to point out that revenge in animals is quite simple and that you rarely see the vicious bitterness that can develop in humans in these cases of revenge in animals. The revenge among animals is executed almost entirely thoughtlessly by the monkey, who then probably forgets the whole thing and thus never thinks to enjoy the revenge. Not the way a human can do. But Revenge in humans is a completely different story. Perhaps mainly because it is so relatively rare. You can probably say that it is one of the most incredible feats of human civilization to make revenge, something which you can try to avoid undertaking. From the point of view of civilization, then.

 

It is true that there are various desert religions, representations in the Icelandic sagas, and stories of people on the tundra that encourage revenge. Still, these mythical accounts have no deep anchoring in the fundamental relationship around revenge. Myth is always constructed by power, and from the perspective of power, there is no reason to inhibit such things as revenge. On the contrary, power only benefits from whipping people into battles and assassinations. It is different, as I said, in reality. It is because people often swallow the desire to take revenge. You swallow it and suppress it deep into your stomach. Revenge is, of course – seen from one perspective - a primitive action that usually backfires on the avenger himself. Revenge is suicidal. But it undeniably has its advantages. The enjoyment of the avenger can be immense. And you then have to weigh this pleasure against the fact that revenge can most likely backfire on you, often not just in one way, but in several ways. I HAVE CHOSEN.

Revenge –my firm belief – can be the only thing that makes life worth living if you have been deprived of the possibility to do everything else.

 

Of course, I can´t say that I recommend revenge. The backsides are enormous. But in my case, I have taken care of that small problem.

 

Nobody will ever know THAT IT WAS ME. I will limit myself to an act of covert revenge. I will not take the credit. I will not leave any hallmark. I will SILENTLY enjoy my revenge.

 

To make my story credible and my motives understandable, and for me to present you with a narrative from which you can learn much more than the usual stories about people who have gone havoc and created massacres, I will give you a precise look into my soul. Manifestos can´t give you that. It takes an artist to paint the picture of a human soul.

I am not an ordinary person.

 

I know that many people claim that they are extraordinary. But they are all overshadowed by me. Because I have something they do not have. I have an absolute absence of will to succeed or dominate. I don´t want to be superior. I have no wish to be loved or to make a fortune. I have never wanted anything at all. I don´t even want to take revenge. My revenge is void of feelings. It is about PRINCIPIAL JUSTICE. It is a matter of clarity, about righteousness, about BEAUTY. It has nothing to do with me. It is an intellectual duty of the first order.

 

Of course, some people will say I am crazy. After they have claimed that I am a lunatic, they will continue with their lives, insulting people, usurping the poor, being mean to people they think are inferior, and collecting riches at the behest of others. Nobody will ever call them lunatics.

 

My revenge is a thing of beauty, which means it is a kind of Rethorical Masterpiece. Everything I do will, apart from the pain on bare flesh, be able to be enjoyed as a cascade of righteousness, much like the fireworks on Independence Day.

 

Hence, this book will be greeted by many, loved by some, and the authorities will ban it. Oh, how I will enjoy this situation when this book will be so hard to lay hands on that people will give their arms to own a couple of crumpled pages from it!

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

                                      

                   Pontus Subert

 

Typically, a life marked by ongoing, severe bullying starts during the school years. That was the case with me, too. I cannot tell you much about my primary school teachers, and I will not seek revenge on them, apart from Mr. Subert. Quite frankly, I have never understood this man. He was always very jolly and friendly when he addressed the entire class. But I never got a word from him. He ignored me. When my fifth year ended, the term ended, and I got my scores. I got a D in every single subject. And the man never even addressed me. He never spoke my name.

That is why I am going to visit Mr. Subert tonight.

         ------------------------

I took the bus to the area where quite wealthy people were living, where he lived one evening in September and started to stroll around his house, a small one-story villa with a very steep roof. I carried a baseball bat in a bag I had with me. I thought this would make an excellent murder weapon. When I had checked the garden for traces of dogs or cats and was satisfied with not having found any, I rang the door to the man, who, according to a short investigation online, was a bachelor.

As he opened the door, I swung the bat, when Subert, who by this time was around 60 years old, vigorously jumped back and looked around in his hall for his own baseball bat.

 

In a minute he was back and we fought each other with the bats.

 

None of us managed to the hit the other.

When we both were out of breath he said:

- You could have killed me!

I ran from his house, and when I came home I put on some music by Vivaldi.

I looked at the letter to Tinkville News, and tore it into a thousand pieces and put it in the stove and burned them up.

When I went to sleep on this night I saw strange figures before my eyes.

“Nothing," says Meister ( a psychologist ) , " so well illustrates the nature of our thinking faculties as to consider them in the different conditions of waking and of sleeping, and in that intermediate state between sleeping and waking, where the external senses are in a more perfect state of quiet and rest, than in the most profound repose ; when the active inner sense is cut off from the external world, and we doubt whether we are in a state of sleep or meditation. This condition usually precedes or follows that of sleep, sometimes it arises from prolonged meditation on one object, or on one idea, especially when we are placed amidst the silence of nature, in the recesses of a forest, or are surrounded by the darkness of night. Under these circumstances a single impression or a single image becomes arrested before us, and takes exclusive possession of our thoughts; at such times the understanding acts only by its own intuitive powers. Entire scenes, broken or connected pictures, pass slowly or rapidly before the vision of our inner sense. We fancy we behold, and behold with the most perfect reality, things which we have never seen. They are, in truth, phantoms which the power of our imagination has invoked around us, happy or miserable, beneath the charm of its magic. "

 

 

 

 

 

   CHAPTER THREE

 

                          The Pond

 

On the next day I took a walk in the sun. Even if it is a September day, it is beautiful.

For some reason, though, my vision had grown dizzy, and I could barely see the ground. I walked right into a lamp post, and became standing there when a young lady came up to me and asked if I needed help.

I said yes, and she asked me where I was going. I told her, that I had planned to take a walk in the park, by the large pond, called MOON LAKE, right there.

She said that she had nothing to do, and that she could take me there. She was a receptionist at a hotel, and she was free until 300 p.m. and it was four hours till then.

I could not help but telling her of the incident, as I prefer to call it.

“You are a lucky one.”, she said.

“Mr. Subert is way luckier.”, I answered, smiling.

She hadn´t have time to answer, because three policemen came up to us, and they rapidly took me aside and asked me for my name:

 

“I am Roland Huskinsson, but they call me “Twelve”.”

“Then you have to come with us. A Mr. Suber has filed a complaint.”

I was stunned. ”Complaint”, I thought. Dear, dear!

 

 

 

 

  CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

 

 

 

The corrections afficer wekcomed me with a smile.