The Online Profile of a Serial Killer

Posted on July 4, 2022

Will sat on a high stool at the kitchen counter, picking on pumpkin seeds from a jar I had laid out. He was tall and thin, but not skinny. He stood with a certain sturdiness, as if he wouldn't budge if pushed. His face looked as young as eighteen or nineteen, but the confidence in his voice and the wideness of his shoulders gave up his age - perhaps late twenties.

I stood across from him, my palms flat on the marble counter top. I watched him move – every slight movement from the way he brought each seed to his mouth, and how he broke each shell with his teeth, was drenched in a kind of sexual swagger, as if he could seduce a girl in his sleep. I wouldn't doubt that Will could make a girl rub her thighs together simply by looking at her.

"I love the light," he was talking about the street lights outside, eye level with my third story windows.

I plucked a cigarette out of my pack and bounced the butt on the hard counter top. "What do you do for a living?" I said.

"Nothin' right now. I was a stage actor for a while. You watch plays?"

"Nope."

Will rose up erect, reached his arm to the ceiling and yelled, "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into dew!" He startled me. After a long pause he looked at me. "Hamlet."

"You were Hamlet?"

"I was. I was also Iago. Romeo. Motel Kamzoil in Fiddler on the Roof. And a whole bunch of others."

I rinsed a mug in the sink then filled it with water. "Water?" I asked. Will shook his head.

"You're from a small town aren't you?" Will said.

"Nope, born and raised in Toronto," I said.

"Really?"

"Yup."

"You have this energy, an aura, just like me. A small town aura." Will smirked.

"A small town aura?" I squinted.

"Yea, like you've been caged up most your life and now you're free in the big bad city."

"I see," I leaned back against the edge of the sink, nestling one hand under my armpit and the other lifting the mug to my lips.

"I'm from a small town north of nowhere. I hated that shit hole. It was a generic mess. Everyone was the same, and wanted to be like everyone else. They all went to church. Everyone knew everyone, and they all fuckin' gossiped. They were soulless. So I left."

"That sounds terrible," I said.

"Trust me, it's bad. I'm tellin' you -- eats at your soul."

I nodded in agreement, thinking it was the normal thing to do.

"Thank God for actin', though," he said and then turned to me. "God didn't intend for me to rot is some shitty town. You got to live your life man, spread your wings. You travel?"

"No," I said.

"Man, you're missin' out. You got to go to Ibiza. And Bangkok? The fuckin' smell of these cities, it's like discoverin' a smell from outer space that you didn't know existed. It really wakes you up, man. It's some beautiful shit out there."

Will started surveying the room with his eyes, as if measuring the place up to his standards. I suddenly felt self-conscious, like he was reading who I was as a person from looking at my stuff and how I arranged them.

"This is nice, isn't it? This moment when you meet someone new, you know?" Will smiled at me.

I felt awkward and looked away, sipping tap water from my mug.