The Wattpad Game

3. Thank you, Paul

What would be a good story without an antagonist?

*

Poor Diallo. He thinks we're friends, but sincerely, we're not. He didn't notice that I paid him a hamburger for him to entertain me this afternoon. You read it well; I paid him six dollars for him to make me laugh. Some people pay this amount on their Netflix subscription, while I prefer to invest it in real humans. I guess you can make him my charity case.

Don't you believe me? I can show you my long list of all the things I set him up to do. He was unlucky not to get caught before, but not today. He is just a mouse for me, and I'm the cat who toyed with him until the day he would die.

That's right. That's why I told him he would end up in jail one day because I'm working on it. He just doesn't know it.

That's right. He is not my friend. I don't have a friend. I don't make friends. People are nothing to me, and this Lamborghini will be the proof of my words. Just read those words as I drive it straight into a river, jumping out at the last minute for it to sink alone to the bottom. Now read me again; read that smirk etched on my face.

I could not care less about it. Father's lackeys will get me a new one tomorrow, anyway. That reminds me of Lucy. Poor Lucy. Another charity case of mine and perhaps my first work of art. She was at kindergarten with me when we were both around five.

Everybody loved Lucy. She was so nice. She was so cute. She was so helpful. Lucy and her lovely teddy bear. She made me sick. I tested the water first with her. I hid her teddy from time to time to see her cry, searching for it everywhere. It was so funny to see her going insane, then I handed it back to her just to hear her say those words:

Thank you, Paul.

When the time came, I took that Teddy from her again. Except this time, I beheaded that hideous creature, then I hung its body on the nursery door. She never came back again, and I did send her a new Teddy. Just to make sure she'll remember me, I included the chopped-off head of the previous one in the parcel, too.

You must think I'm a psychopath. Maybe I am. Maybe you shouldn't read this story then, because it will get worse.

Poor Alexander. Another lost soul that I helped. Alexander was a beggar that nobody cared for. He was old. Old with wrinkles. Old and smelly in layers of rag clothes. Old and filthy, with long white hair and a matching beard. You can smell him coming from afar thanks to his cheap wine cologne.

No one will really miss that guy.

Some people were beating him up for fun one night, but that was too easy to be really fun. Storming in with my brand new baseball bat, I can still remember the sweet sound of their cracked bones under each of my blows. I saved Alexander from them, and then I treated him to a fancy restaurant dinner. We talked. He said he lost everything because he couldn't stop drinking. He talked way too much to me until he said this:

Thank you, Paul.

I bought him bottles and bottles of wine every day for six years until the day his cancer got the best of him. He died in the same spot where he begged every day, screaming in pain with nobody helping him. I saw some people kicking, him too. I didn't kill him. He just died naturally. He would have died anyway.

People don't care for miscreants like Alexander. They only care about you when you're well groomed, well spoken, and educated. I think I did him a favour there, as winter was coming too.

You still doubt my words, I presume? Let me tell you, when I walk home on that day in my roughed-up Kiton suit, so many people stop by, checking on me. Some even offer me a cigarette and a pat on the shoulder. Poor fools.