The Schemer

One Bad Day

Ira.

A name that the woman hadn't heard in fifteen years. A name that she used to respond to for nineteen years. A name that was once hers. A name. Just a name, but also a failed attempt to leave the past attached to it. 

It was all too easy to remember everything, alone, sitting in an isolated cell, no one around. Just the surgeon and her thoughts. The deep corridors of her ancient mind.

Ira Lowsen was born in 1974, August 7th, in a junkie family, with her mother too high to understand that the water broke and she's bringing her child into this world. And it certainly remained a mystery how Ira survived that sunny, warm day, left untreated and on its own for a few hours until the bearer realized what had happened and finally fed it from her breast, with drug-contaminated milk and a constant echo of the once beautiful voice cooing near her daughter's ear.

She tried to be a good mother. She tried really hard, and sometimes, Claire Lowsen could almost be called successful. It lasted till the first hit. 

Who knew what would have happened to Ira if not her grandfather's, Claire's father's, help and financial support. The girl would probably have ended in the same pool as her parents. But for small repays, the man provided her proper basic education, and then, later, the higher education, too. He helped her become human in the most direct way, at the same time destroying anything humane within Ira. The old man introduced her to Jonathan Crane at the age of nineteen, a potential American student at Harvard, in an attempt to break that psychotic part of Ira that got out from her head at times, making the young body do horrible things. Her grandfather wanted to help her create a fulfilling life, the one that resembled normality and peace. The one which suppressed that ancient mind of a predator.

For many years, Ira was a wild card. Unpredictable and harsh, she would isolate herself from any human interaction, except the weekend meeting at grandfather's mansion. After the incident with the little bird, during light hours, Ira would either read books from his library, borrowed back home and hidden from her parents, or experiment, slicing bugs and insects in half, introducing methamphetamine to street cats, trying to make frogs swim in acidic water, or, if she happened to catch two animals at once, introduce one to another, watching them fight. Once, the girl had found a large snake which she kept for a few weeks, feeding the occasional mouse that visited her home. And then, one particularly large rat, instead of being given dead, was introduced to the snake alive. The rodent ate the reptile. The next morning Ira found a dead, long, headless corpse with a rat inside. 

These were the girl's days until she hit sixteen. That is when the dark period of Ira's life had begun. She was introduced to the life of British gangs, exposed to their philosophies and ways of living. Still attending school, Ira managed to do both her assignments and also the 'gang business', as everyone used to call the constant disappearance of various people. Ira became a low-key assassin. Unsurprisingly, this character just naturally stuck to her personality, creating a monster. Numerous men eliminated, even more than that adorned by scarred smiles on their faces. Weirdly enough, Ira developed a fascination with close-contact combat. Close enough to feel the same vibration that she first felt when crushing the bird. Close enough to feel their warmth, to see light leave their eyes, misery and terror taking its place. 

When others hesitated, Ira continued their tasks. If others lacked determination, the young woman encouraged them to continue. If she herself stopped to think for a moment, she couldn't reason her own behaviour. A strange, ruthless creature just lived inside, twisting her mind and the voice of sanity. And it worked. For a long time, it vindicated every drop of blood in the goblet of pain. And somehow, the present Clara knew that it would still succour when trying to keep her place in this world.