Painting the Roses Red

It was dripping down the walls, from where it was sprayed just seconds earlier. Funny, how a person can be pleading one moment and then the next have their throat painting the walls a bright red. The wallpaper was a pattern of roses, and seeing the blood splattered across it reminded the Decorator of Alice in Wonderland. He had chosen the name Decorator because that’s what he did. He decorated the world, by removing the ugly stains and creating the perfect masterpiece. He thought it quite fitting that the coronary artery also made such a striking decoration.

He’d disposed of four so far - a store clerk at Abercrombie & Fitch; a blonde jogger in a pink tracksuit; a housewife; and a man selling real estate. These people represented that ones he hated most in the world; the ones with money, the ones who looked down their noses at him every time he walked by. Now the fifth joined the others, a lawyer who had refused him representation. Why was it that the rich thought less of those who had more? The Decorator had better manners, better morals, and better commitment. He knew the values of hard work. He planned each murder meticulously, from the exact angle of the knife to the carefully printed business cards he left behind.

They angered him. They made him forget his morals and his rights and wrongs and made him want to kill, want to feel the blood shoot forth in an arc of red to hit the wall, want to feel them grow weak and watch the flicker of life drain from their eyes. And after the kill, the appetite was satisfied, the urge was fulfilled, and he could go back to life for a day, a week perhaps, it differed each time, before he found a new target, a new kill. Then the appetite would return, insatiable, until the next time the blood hit the wall.