Schadenfreude – Twenty Eight

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: mimagephotography

Image credit: mimagephotography

No, screamed Voice. No, you don’t want to know the truth..log out now, leave it alone! You don’t want to know.

Shutup Voice, David thought.

Vlad: Yes. Yes I do.
Schadenfreude: All right, but only because the truth might make this boring exchange more interesting
Vlad: Oh, I’m sorry if my confusion at your game is boring to you!
Schadenfreude: Apology accepted
Vlad: You don’t get irony I take it?
Schadenfreude: Neither do you it seems..I only give you what you want, what you are…
Vlad: You’re still playing..you aren’t going to tell me anything..I don’t care about that..I’m going to track you down through your ISP…

It was a hollow threat really. How could he do what Norman had failed to do? His studies into the internet and hacking weren’t that advanced. But he wanted some advantage to his side.

Schadenfreude: Much as I congratulate your sense of industry, it’s a waste of time
Vlad: Sure it is…
Schadenfreude: It is..I don’t exist..
Vlad: Cute, that’s your whole game, but you’re here now, so that’s crap. And you exist all right..your games ended up with me in hospital and god knows what has happened to Lisa! So I’m going to track you down and I’m going to report you to the ISP and the fucking goddamned police if I need to..
Schadenfreude: You know you can’t find me..you know this..Norman knows it..I don’t exist..not like that..
Vlad: It’s just some trick of yours, something you’ve done…
Schadenfreude: It’s nothing I did nothing. You can’t find me or record me because I’m not real. Any record of me has to come from somewhere..some computer..some actual place..to record..and I don’t inhabit any actual place as such…
Vlad: You aren’t making any sense..I’ll find you and then..
Schadenfreude: You can’t find me..I’m nowhere..I’m everywhere…why do you think the hackers on the comedy boards could never find me? Listen..you know this..you talked about it with Norman
Vlad: How did you know that..did he tell you..?
Schadenfreude: He didn’t have to, I was there

What, now she wanted to play God. Omniscient, omnipresent? She was deluded. She had to be. What a surprise – a deluded person found first on the comedy sites…

Vlad: Bullshit
Schadenfreude: I’m always there .I have to be..but go and ask your friends again to find me if you will..
Vlad: There’s no point..they’re idiots..
Schadenfreude: True, but talented ones..it can’t be done..Listen, trust me, it’s far easier once you jut accept the truth..really..it is..I don’t exist..I don’t have an ISP..I don’t need one…
Vlad: Of course you do..
Schadenfreude: David, don’t be so prosaic, so banal..allow yourself to think what you’ve been thinking but avoiding for weeks now..expand your mind..allow yourself to see..

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Seven: Pride

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Kues/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: Kues/Shutterstock.com

We called them the ‘Prideful Ones’ or the ‘Conceited Gang”. I remember that well, from school.

They liked the names, even if they were not kindly meant.  They could afford to, for their pride arose from their social status.  Every school has them, the ‘in’ group.  The pre-requisites and qualities required for entry to the legion were mysterious and complex, but somehow some rose into their ranks and adorned themselves with that certain confidence that rankled with all we left outside the circle.

She was the worst and the best of them.  I don’t know what her real name was, but she called herself Persephone.  Fancied herself the bride of the devil.  It was all a game to her, till far too late. Every lunch time she ate pomegranates to make her point.

She didn’t know what she was calling to her. None of them knew.  They revelled in popularity that was mysterious and overwhelming. And they loved themselves, deciding only they were worthy of love.

Oddly we agreed. Schoolyards are strange like that.  Our little personalities still so unformed, we’d just go along with things.  And we’d call them vain behind their backs, but to their faces we’d be so sweet.  Just in case. just in case one day they’d let us in.

When they all disappeared that day we were happy, finally, they had not.  No-one knew what became of them, not really. Even when some bodies that might have been them were found. All too disfigured and burnt out to be sure.  It was many years ago, before the days of DNA.  And I’m so old now I can hardly remember.

Except what I do remember.  That last day before they disappeared. Persephone in the playground, blowing me a kiss, like a joke on the air. I had a sense, even then it was the last we’d see of them.  Like I saw Hades rise, winking at me, ready to drag her and her friends down.

Be careful what you wish for, I thought, looking at her.

But she always cared too much for herself to ever really take care.

 

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

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Schadenfreude – Twenty Seven

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Ivelin Radkov

Image credit: Ivelin Radkov

He came back to the chat room an hour later. It was empty. Somehow he knew she would also sense this, or guess this, and return. He only had to wait about ten minutes. Her nickname appeared.

Vlad: Clever trick of yours… I tried to go back to the chat logs and they don’t exist
Schadenfreude: No, they wouldn’t..nothing directly interactive lasts..
Vlad: You know how to work computers then..are you a hacker?
Schadenfreude: No, I’m not, and I actually know nothing about the technical requirements of such an art…
Vlad: Bullshit
Schadenfreude: No, it’s not..have you thought about what I said?
Vlad: I’d have thought much more if I could review it..but yes..and you’re playing with me..again..again..Lisa..for Christ’s sake!
Schadenfreude: Ah ha..there’s the rub.. I’m not Lisa.
Vlad: Then are you Andrew?
Schadenfreude: LOL..that Neanderthal? I’m not him. And I’m not Lisa

David shook his head and then a fist at the screen. He was going in circles. She was incapable of direct discussion, she led him down pointless avenues. But she could protest all she liked, try to make her real life existence as Lisa as ephemeral as her skilled internet persona – hell, perhaps she had some deep trauma that made her need to do that, to be a ghost rather than a person – who cares? But she wasn’t going to get away with it. He’d met her in real life. She shouldn’t forget that.

They’d almost had sex, for Christ’s sake. He knew what was real and what wasn’t.

Vlad: The bloody hell you aren’t, what sort of sick game..
Schadenfreude: I’m not Lisa. I never said I was Lisa. Think about it, remember if you can. You just thought I was. Just like Lisa thought I was you…

David felt sick. Suddenly a whole new possibility appeared before him. Schaden wasn’t Lisa, as she said, nor was she Andrew, or Norman for that matter. She was a player who had played them all, and they all were victims equally of her. If she was a she. How could you tell anything?

He steeled himself to find out the truth, no matter how horrible. He considered that this meant Lisa’s disappearance was as portentous as Greg had suggested. He had to know. He had to know.

Vlad: What are you saying?
Schadenfreude: I’m saying that you both presumed I was the other..because you never really checked.. you just thought you knew something and filled in the blanks..that’s what people always do..you can be relied on for that..you never check the assumptions you like with any rigour…
Vlad: What kind of a sick joke were you playing?
Schadenfreude: The kind you wanted me to play..the kind you were asking for…
Vlad: How can you say that?
Schadenfreude: You asked for all of it..you people always do..I can’t provide what isn’t requested and what isn’t in you..it isn’t possible..
Vlad: You make no sense..
Schadenfreude: Oh David, do you want to know the truth? Do you really want to know?

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Six: Envy

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: YuriZhuravov/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: YuriZhuravov/Shutterstock.com

It was a small offering. The group is demanding, but one so fresh and innocent is always welcomed. And she was fresh as morning dew, and twice as innocent.

She had no right to be so untouched, so perfect. Life gave her everything, and I so little. She should have been full of it all, a glut of knowledge, a surfeit of experience, a satiation of all appetites.  But she was not.  She glided across her blessed world with no true awareness of her luck, her gifts.

And so I determined that she who did not value her blessings must be shown a curse.

They might have asked who I was to presume, to give her to them, to lead her down that primrose path.  And yes I am nothing, so little, my tiny life prescribed by walls of blandness and lack. And she, it seemed, was everything, her life open and glorious. I watched her, you see, and that alone is enough.  It is enough to claim her as my offering, so that I may finally be someone, through the gift of another.

A little lamb to their ritual slaughter, drawn by my encouragement to pursue a supposedly wonderful man.  Well, he is wonderful in his way.  They all are.  But to be that they feed on others.  Like her. But how was one such as she to know?

They asked me what I wanted as payment. I replied I only want payment in kind.  I want her life, once she has abandoned it, all she has, all she was.

“But you will never have her innocence,” they said, laughing. “That is impossible.”

“It is the only part of her I do not want,” I replied.

“Just as well,” they responded.

And of course there was one other thing of hers I did not want, nor receive.  Her death. But then, that was never part of the bargain, and was never the prize coveted. Her life, her life, and for that her death.

It seemed a fair exchange to me.  Much fairer than life had ever been before.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

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Schadenfreude – Twenty Six

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Helen

 

Image credit: fly dragon

Image credit: fly dragon

What was she trying to tell him? Was she really trying to tell him anything, or was it all part of the game? Obviously she was a liar. But she was a clever one. There would be clues. Intelligence wants to be seen, to be apprehended. He knew this. Some of his most clever and successful clients took increasingly large risks with their tax and other financial affairs. Almost as though they wanted to be caught, as though they craved a similar level of intelligence recognising them, despite the consequences. Schaden seemed like them suddenly, so she was probably taking big risks in what she told him.

The trouble was, he couldn’t find the key in what she’d said. He decided to go back and look at the chat log to re-consider. He automatically saved every chat he did, only deleting them when they were about six months old. He didn’t know why really – just something anal about him probably derived from his accountancy work.

And then, as he went to re-read what she said, he realized. The chat log was missing. He checked back further. Every single chat they had ever had, was gone.

As usual, the evidence of Schaden in all but her random postings on sites had disappeared like frost in the morning sun.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Five: Wrath

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: Glebstock/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: Glebstock/Shutterstock.com

In hell they rage.  They wake in torment and they scream to the unhearing universe.

In hell every slight, every scornful look, every trick played upon them is etched large and dark.  Hell is not fire, hell is not external torture.  Hell is memory.

Hell is rage.

Each scream might liberate or entrap further.  There is no way to know for sure.  Some rise, their wrath spent, and find a forgiveness that is the key to release from this place.  It is, as the poet says, very true : the only way out is through.  Through your anger, through your primal hurt.

More often than not, sadly, they fail.  Rage feeds upon itself, an unrelenting master.  Each scream begets another.  Each hurt highlights its twin, its cousin, its sibling.

In rage there is no hope, but without hope there is no end to rage. They scream, they scream so loud you’d think the waking world could hear.  And well they might if angels and demons did not stop up their ears.

Is this kindness or the opposite?  Would it be better to hear this and know and choose something other than rage?  Or is choice illusory anyway?  When we die we wake wherever we will wake.

And in hell that is to torment and rage.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

 

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Schadenfreude – Twenty Five

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: mrdoggs

Image credit: mrdoggs

He had been waiting in the chatroom for Norman, but Norman was conspicuous by his absence. It made him wonder, briefly, when she appeared, if in fact Norman and Schaden were the same person – that Norman wasn’t even really a guy – or that he was in league with them also (a little favour to Andrew for his continued indulgence of the excesses of the chatroom, a blind eye to the bootlegged material and the often defamatory rumours spread by that medium?).

But then he thought – no – Norman, though IT savvy, wasn’t in their class.

He looked at the nickname appear in the room. Schaden was waiting for his acknowledgement. She remained silent.

David decided to play dumb for the beginning, to see what story she would spin.

Vlad: Oh my god, it’s you! Are you all right?
Schadenfreude: I’m fine..nothing happened to me…

So, she was being honest and upfront immediately. That surprised David, but he decided to continue to play the innocent for the moment, to see what else she would volunteer so easily. You couldn’t trust her, after all – when conversing with a player, you have to play.

Vlad: Andrew said he attacked you, just like me..
Schadenfreude: Andrew didn’t attack me..he couldn’t…
Vlad: What are you saying? I’m only just out of the hospital..he said he did it to you too..
Schadenfreude: He didn’t attack me David..you know he didn’t..

There she went again, seeming to know things that she shouldn’t. Of course, it had to be good guesswork on her part, and it wouldn’t take a genius. Obviously he would have seen her history of posting on the boards. She’d know he would look there first if he was looking for her, and she would know he would be looking for her. So, he had to fight that sense of the uncanny that dogged his footsteps in this situation – somehow they’d manufactured that also. Now, before the computer, feeling at home in the game again, all those feelings seemed like the ravings of a man affected by the delirium of too many painkillers, as ephemeral and insubstantial as a ghost.

Vlad: I don’t understand..
Schadenfreude: You have to think about it..rethink it..David..

Why play this game? Why not cut to the chase, make the accusation, see how she dealt with that?

Vlad: I don’t understand..what are you saying..that you were in it together..that it was your idea of a game?

She was chillingly unperturbed by the accusation.

Schadenfreude: You have to think about it David..you’re missing the point..
Vlad: Missing the point..missing the fucking point..Lisa..for god’s sake…
Schadenfreude: That’s where you should start..
Vlad: What..what are you saying..
Schadenfreude: I haven’t lied to you, and neither has he…
Vlad: I don’t understand..I don’t understand you.. it’s a game isn’t it..isn’t it…how could you do that..what lies did you tell him?
Schadenfreude: I didn’t tell him anything…
Vlad: Bullshit..he accused me of all sorts of things…things he said you said about me to others!
Schadenfreude: I never said anything to him..he doesn’t use the computer
Vlad: What the hell does that have to do with anything..?
Schadenfreude: Oh, you disappoint me..think for fuck’s sake David.. I’m telling you..I’m telling you..

Schaden suddenly exited the room. David felt she was deliberately leaving him hanging till he saw Norman had appeared. So, she didn’t want an audience for her explanation? Fine, he could wait.

He exited also.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Four: Sloth

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Helen

 

Image credit: Akos Nagy/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: Akos Nagy/Shutterstock.com

It started as a general sleepiness. I put it down to playing computer games too late into the night.  A friend had given me a particularly addictive game only a few weeks before and I’d rather overdone it, even by my standard.

But it was ‘the’ new game it seemed – everyone who was anyone was playing it.  Wanting to be someone rather than no-one, I of course played.

So I didn’t really notice the tiredness too much at first.  Just had extra coffee to get me started.  I work from home, so sometimes being my own master can be a trial in itself.  But I was gentle with myself, explaining my sloth to myself as understandable, letting me wake up gradually.

Except I didn’t. By mid morning I could barely keep my eyes open and the coffee wasn’t working any more.  If anything it was just giving me a headache.

I decided to be even more gentle with myself.  Obviously that game took more out of me than I realised. It was like it sucked my energy, my very soul.

I did find it hard not to return to it when I gave up on work for the day around midday. But even playing that seemed too much energy, which was ironic in a way. Because instead I turned on the television. And I saw the breaking news.

Scores of people just hadn’t bothered to go to work today in our city.  Literally thousands of people rang in ‘sick’, often to answering machines because so few were in the office to take the calls.  Even the television studio was running on what they jokingly called a ‘skeleton’ staff.  And one of the reporters had a theory.

The computer game I’d been playing was proving a major, nationwide hit.  And everyone who played it was repotting an addiction to it.  A few days ago the story would have been on it as a gaming phenomenon.  Now it was just a phenomenon.

It seemed they had discovered a direct correlation between the game and the soporific impact on us all.  And it all happened today, across the nation, at roughly the same time.

“It’s terrorism” the reporter was saying. “Overnight our nation is brought to its sleepy knees.”

He would have said more, I think, except then he fell asleep.  Just as I was about to do.

And so I slept, and as I slept, I dreamed of the computer game.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

 

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Schadenfreude – Twenty Four

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: mtkang

Image credit: mtkang

The first sign came from the original source – he looked at the comedy sites. Schaden was still posting. Days after the attack. His heart sank. He swallowed the bitter pill of knowledge. She wasn’t in some hospital. Even if she’d faired better than him from an attack – even if Andrew’s lust for her had somehow restrained his fury (and who would have believed that) she wouldn’t have been fit to post, and so viciously and jovially, so soon.

And she wouldn’t still be anywhere near the comedy world, let alone on the boards. He wanted to call the police and say – there, that’s Lisa – see, she does exist. But he knew if they took him seriously – which was doubtful on the basis of a nickname without proof of its connection – and they went searching, they’d reach the same black hole of nothingness Norman had reached. And David knew he’d gotten no further, because he checked, and Norman still said she remained ‘the biggest mystery of this board.’

So, how to find her, and wring the truth out of her? The net was a start, but she needed to be beguiled out from the shadows, because there – only there – was he more than a match for her. If on no other basis than brute strength – and did she deserve any less than that anyway – he could outclass her. He could have his revenge.

He started to research hacking on the internet. He pursued this with the one-pointedness of a fanatic. While his body ached from sitting so long in one position at the computer screen, and he had to come up with endless explanations to placate a physiotherapist who was dismayed at the slowness of his recovery, he still tried.

But eventually, near the end of his month off work, he found he didn’t need to search any more. Schaden came to him.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016, All Rights Reserved

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(Flash Fiction) Three: Greed

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Helen
Image credit: oneinchpunch/Shutterstock.com

Image credit: oneinchpunch/Shutterstock.com

I had to laugh.  The devil looks exactly like you’d expect him to look.  Perhaps that’s the point. But for me, raised on too many horror movies about yuppie sociopaths, I expected a cross of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho and Gordon Gecko from Wall Street,  and there he was.

I guess it made sense though.  I am enlightened and self aware enough to know I parlayed this day because of greed.  And as the aforementioned Gordon would say, for me greed was very good.  It was a motivating force.  A life force, you might say.

I flatter myself my infernal guest would approve and understand.  Certainly he smiled like he did.  And he had paperwork, contracts for blood and so forth, so all the little details you’d expect. A man, or a demon I suppose, of infinite professionalism.

Well, he’s been doing this for a long time.

I was gratified that I could engender some surprise in the old chap, nevertheless.  It seemed the extent of my desires, my greed, far exceeded most of the little dreams of souls seeking his support.  I liked that.  I like to think of myself as a logical man, and when you  are bartering your soul, then it is only logical to take it to the extreme. And I value myself highly. I have found in business unless you do, no-one else does.

No reason to think his infernal majesty would be any different on that score.

What profits man who gains the world but loses his soul?  Well, he’s profited with the world, isn’t he?  And that’s what I wanted.  The whole goddamn world.

He’s laughing at me, as though I’ve missed the point or the joke somehow.  But I don’t care. Maybe he’s just amused by my ambition, my chutzpah.  Either way, it’s all the same to me.

Now where do I sign?

 

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016

 

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