Chapter 2 - Hate

Dr Karen Watson pulled the brush through her shoulder length hair and caught a knot. "Shit", she whispered under her breath. She was aging well, she decided, as she took a look in the mirror, but that was no excuse for wrinkles. At thirty seven some lines were beginning to show but she had a healthy trim figure. Hot for a few more years yet, she concluded. A few minutes later she was satisfied with the result. She was just coming from a week of leave, catching up on time with her own children. Trevor was eight, a boisterous young man and Janice, 6, was the quiet reflective type. They got on well together, Trevor liked to be in charge and Janice liked to be led. But now the Easter holidays was over and they had been packed off to school.

Twenty minutes later she was parking her yellow Toyota Corolla outside the Child Welfare Centre. This was a new building with plenty of taxpayers money wasted on vote pulling aesthetics and not enough on staff and equipment. As soon as she entered the building she knew she had a challenge on her hands. While all the children that came here were difficult, at some level most of them wanted to be helped, to be loved. That desire was almost always hidden behind a shield of mistrust, by revenge, by fear, and more recently, by autism. But every once in a while a child was presented that left the staff unprepared. Today not only were the staff unprepared, they were spooked, they had been shown the limits of their humanity and it was pitifully inadequate.

Karen decided to act as normally as possible, made herself a coffee, white, no sugar. "What have you got for me Hans."

Hans, her immediate superior, was approaching retirement. Word was out that Karen was lined up to replace him and her colleagues were only too happy with this expectation. Hans and her had always had a good working relationship, however with few exceptions he had always kept the hardest cases to himself. He walked over, unusually sombre, and handed her the folder, "You had better form your own opinion on this one."

That was a first, Hans bowing out. "She is in the consulting room now". Karen was scanning the folder and Joseph popped his head around the door. "How was the break, have you come back to work to recuperate."

"Oh come on Joey the kids aren't as bad as that. We hit the road and drove around the state to where ever. There's just three things you need to know in a driving holiday around Australia, carry water, carry fuel and don't go to Manjimup."

"Stopped by there myself once, I hear you."

Karen carried the folder to the consulting room. The door opened and she was greeted by two large female police officers. One she recognised and the other was new. They quickly exchanged pleasantries and then Karen turned her attention to the child. An unremarkable sixteen year old girl. The first rule of thumb is that the sociopaths are the ones that look normal, but her gut feeling told her dig deeper.

The child's name was Imogen. She gave a casual level smile at Karen. That in itself was unusual for a sixteen year old in a room surrounded by authority. Sure there were plenty who rebelled which in itself is an acknowledgement that there was something to rebel against. The majority became passive, having had the fight beaten out of them by their abusers before they got here. Not a mark on her face, as far as could be discerned she was not in any pain. I'm Karen, I'm here to understand how you got here and then we can work together to bring you back into society."

"Daddy caught me doing naughty things to myself in the shed. Then he looked around and found my " other experiments.", the tone of utter superiority made Karens hair crawl on the back of her neck.

“I’m sorry Imogen, I don’t understand what you mean by other experiments.”

“I was torturing the smaller animals. Guinea pigs, kittens, rats those kind of things. Furry, warm blooded, vertebrates, born to love their own kind. They’re the best sort because then you get to the point when you can see the light go out of their eyes when all hope is extinguished. I pride myself in being able to predict this moment. Each species is different, then you have to judge the individual animals vitality, its personality, you have to be able to smell its fear. It really is a whole of brain engaging activity, making trigonometry seem like childs play. No wonder its not popular. I’ll let you in on a secret, it’s the rats which endure the longest. I wonder if that could be the true source of our fear of them.”

Those that we reject have the greatest capacity for warmth. Karen snapped her focus back on to Imogen. She had to focus to maintain her composure and it was her ability to do so that helped rid the world of evil. “And what do you call truth, Imogen.”

Karen could sense a contemptible mocking in the girls eyes, “there are two kinds of truth in the world, do you know what they are?”

“Lets here it from you, it’s your story Imogen.”, Karen kept her patience. She had never met someone like Imogen before and her curiousity was winning out.

“The soldier will tell you that the only true form of communication is violence, but the physicist uses mathematics to describe the truth. That’s it really, violence and math, the rest is bullshit. The pity is that there are very very few that have the courage to face both. The world would rather listen to the schizophrenic rantings of a paedophile priest than the truth offered by Einstein. You humans are a cowardly lot, don’t you agree?”

All this was said with a calm silky smooth tone, more like that of a practised flight attendant than a girl with a tortured soul. She exuded a self confidence which was totally out of whack with anyone committing self harm, especially of this kind. Karen drew a deep breath and looked up. The rookie at the door was having trouble keeping a grip on things. Karen silently dismissed her with a tilt of her head. The older woman had zoned out, a practised technique that had served her well over the years.

“You are part of humanity also Imogen. Your father caught you in the act of hurting yourself and its left him and your mother very concerned for your well being. I want to hear your side of the story.”

Imogen gave what appeared to be a smug smile of triumph. “I had, I suppose, what you would call multiple personality disorder. There was the human Imogen and there was me. I arrived a bit later, when Imogen was about seven. She seemed a bright girl but she was not progressing satisfactorily. I decided to assume full control of this body by destroying her soul.

That’s what the experiments were for, to see how much pain was needed before all hope was lost. Once I knew this part it was a matter of inflicting enough pain upon this body to destroy the human. It was simple enough really, I strapped myself to a hand trolley with just one arm free. I then pushed needles into my gums between my teeth. These needles were connected to a wire and the wire to a switch and the switch to a current of just the right amount. I picked up my mobile with the prepared help message to dad ready to send. I sent it. I brought my arm down upon a catch which locked my wrist in place and also toggled the switch to on. This of course took the already excruciating pain well beyond the next level. It took some effort to keep my breathing, pulse and blood pressure within acceptable limits. Within a few minutes I had destroyed the human as it was easy to wipe her out when she was in such agony. As it turned out Daddy was at the hardware store and it was fifteen minutes before he got to me to turn the switch off, resulting in a lot more pain than was necessary. But hey, where’s a good man when you need one?”

“You sure look human to me, Imogen.”

“I am a soul with a body, not a body with a soul. The reason why I’m telling you this in so much detail is that I have finally clawed my way out of the bottomless pit into this life. Into this wonderful existence of being, floating joyfully in a sea of surprising discontent. You’re a fucking ungrateful lot, d’ya know that.”

Karen was running out of ideas of where to take this conversation. “I believe you are giving into hate. Imogen, your parents are worried sick about you. Do you want me to pass a message on to them?”

Imogen’s eyebrows raised slightly. “I guess I’d like to thank them for taking such good care of this body. It really is quite a good one you know.”

“I’m afraid I shall have to put you in observation for a while, until I’m satisfied that you are no longer a danger to yourself. We have a shared home for you. Imogen, you are cutting yourself off from humanity by fooling yourself into believing you are something different. That way you are avoiding the unbearable truth that you have been traumatised by your own kind.”

“Well Karen that all sounds very impressive, but it was me who traumatised myself, remember. Now you are sending me to an asylum. Tell me then, what does it mean to be human, what separates you from the animals.”

“We have the gift of logic Imogen. An animal can be trained but cannot take responsibility for that training. We can think about ourselves thinking. We can build the laboratory to test other animals, sometimes remarkable, intelligence but they cannot build a laboratory to test our intelligence.”

Imogen let out a quick sigh. “I suppose you are quite bright. But its very compartmentalised and self serving isn't it. I mean you neuro-typicals paint those with Aspergers syndrome in a negative light saying they lack the social skills of normal people. But the truth is that they are more logical than you are, and more truthful. What kind of social skills are you talking about, the idealised skills of your narcissist fantasies or the social skills that build societies capable of genocide, exploitation, pollution and degradation. Is this the world you want for yourselves or don't you have the self control you like to believe that you have?”

Karen was stumped. “The observation house is whatever you decide to make it. I hope you find peace there.”

“You wish peace for your enemies, but never for your friends.”

“I don't understand”, said Karen confused.

“Peace is when there is no need to overcome obstacles. Motivation is redundant and without motivation you just curl up and die. There are plenty of peaceful retirement villages around town, just keep an eye on the residents for a few years and you will know what I mean.”

"So what do you wish for your friends Imogen?"

She drew in a deep breath. "If the perfection of Heaven leaves you without purpose and the depths of Hell leaves you in eternal suffering then the only thing left is victory within this world. You can't have victory without enemies."

"Didn't you just say you wanted peace for your enemies", Karen persisted.

"That's why it should give you such a warm glow to send them all to Heaven. Duh." Imogen giggled, this wasn't a serious conversation for her, it was just mental candy.

Karen checked her rising temper again. She didn't like being played with. Especially not so fucking easily!