Chaos Theory

In a lush field somewhere in the Chinese interior there is a butterfly. Not necessarily a beautiful butterfly, but pretty enough to gain the attention of a little girl. The girl smiles the smile of a child who has just discovered the meaning of life. She wants to grab the butterfly and keep it forever. Not knowing what to do, the little girl pauses for a second, wondering if her dad would know what to do.

That moment of hesitation is all the butterfly needs. Unaware of the little girl’s true intentions, the butterfly knows it’s time to move on. Mustering all the energy left in its little body, the butterfly flaps its wings, buffeting the flower it was on with the tiniest of hurricane force winds.

Thousands of miles away, possibly moments later, maybe decades, a man stands in an apartment alcove, biding his time. The man is smart, attractive, fit, and thoroughly evil. To his left a wrought iron staircase leads to the homes of people he doesn’t know. To his right, a brick wall is all that separates him from a young couple and their newborn child. Above his head rests a lightbulb that has been ever so slightly twisted from its snug resting place. In his pocket, tonight’s weapon of choice, a sharp carbon steel Christmas tree shaped blade.

If asked, the man would say he is there because of the money his client is giving him for tonight’s little piece of business; but, you and I know different. Too many things to mention here have led the man to this spot. He wouldn’t blame his troubled youth, neither would we. He wouldn’t blame his feelings for his mother and his absentee father. Neither would we. He wouldn’t blame his sociopathic nature; but we might, if we were feeling generous, and we wanted to believe that there was a reason for such atrocities as he has visited on our tragically flawed existence.

None of this matters to him here, and it’s doubtful it ever matters to him. What matters is his target. The young lovely wife that his client is no longer interested in. Across the street she sits in an open window, trying to allow the brewing storm to cool her off on this early August evening. Her thoughts rest only with the reality show she is watching. Maybe that is why the husband wants to be done with her vapid existence.

The man in black decides the time is right. His muscles tense, synapses fire, he jerks forward. This surprising, unfluid motion for a man of his skills is interrupted though. Perhaps a reprieve for the young lady, whose only crime was being a trophy with too much rust, and a collection of too much dust around the middle.

A flash of light brightens the sky illuminating everything. This is the kind of light that lays bare all of our intentions; showing our motives in a shock of blue white across our faces. If anyone had seen the bad man at that very moment, they would have seen his plan, his grotesque motivation tragically written across his normally handsome features, turning him into the monster that lurks just below the surface.

Next comes the crash of thunder. It starts far away, slowly gaining earthshaking status as it rolls across flat land, carried on a stiff cold wind. When the chill hits the man, it instantly freezes, stiff as if the bad man’s black empty heart could sublimate the air straight to ice.

Two blocks away a youngish woman sits impatiently at a red light. Hunching her shoulders she peers outside the top of her windshield, the clouds almost enough to push her happiness to the side with their stark grey-black heaviness. Nothing could make her unhappy right now though. She had just closed her first house. She was now officially a real estate agent. Some of us may sit here and say, big deal, it’s just a house; but, for Kayla it was the realization of a dream too long in the waiting. She had finally achieved status in the profession she had always wanted to be a part of. Maybe that makes no sense to us, who think of real estate as simply a money hungry industry rather than a calling like doctor or drug dealer. For Kayla, Real Estate is more about finding homes and places for people’s own dreams to be manifested. Kayla is a romantic.

The only dampening of her spirits was the irritation of having to wait until she got home to share her achievement with her young son. To be able to tell Billy that they were on their way, and they did it all without Billy’s bastard father.

This is when the power goes out in the neighbourhood. For most people an annoyance, but for Kayla, a sign from God that she was doing the right thing. Her red light had just switched to a four way stop. When it was her turn she accelerated into the intersection and carefully banked left. Would she have to perform this menuever very many more times before her and her son could find a place of their own in a part of town a bit more upscale?

The man smiled, God was on his side tonight. The power going off darkened the entire street. Somehow, someway, twilight had given way to the cold clammy grip of a stormy night. It was not one of those slowly wanning twilights that seem to last forever when you are young and in love, but a quick flip of the switch change, like the one’s that always seem to happen when you’re having fun and your curfew is darkness; just Mother Nature looking after the safety of her smallest of children.

The man saw safety in the darkness. A mask that slips over the whole body, obcuring his presence and his purpose.

A block away now, Kayla is still smiling to herself. The smile won’t last.

Somewhere in the bowels of her cheap old car a wire pops, fizzes and shorts out. Her headlights blink out. Her smile freezes in place as she realises that it is uncommonly dark on the street.  No matter, she was almost home. Just around the next right, and a couple of football fields down. In front of her, an oncoming car illuminates her intersection as if it was the driver’s destiny to help Kayla on her way this bleak distressing night.

If the bad man wasn’t so singleminded, so bloodthirsty; his periferal vision might have saved so many lives that night. As it was, he didn’t see the light flickering off of a rusty old ford as it slipped around the corner and headed his way.

Kayla’s car hit a puddle and she lost her steering for a split second. Her eyes flowed to the right with her windshield,  her foot went to the accelerator. She hoped that a bit of speed would help her tires find their hold. Can such a small decision, a blink of an eye thing, a routine choice that we make hundreds of thousands of times in our lives mean so much to so many?

The bad man cares not even a little for Kayla and her automotive hassles. He has a job to do. He is in the street now, singularly focused on his sick fantasy of blood and gore. A fantasy he was going to make a reality once again.

Still accelerating, Kayla feels her car hit something, hears the groan of her hated hooptie as something impacted with the tired old metal.

The bad man actually hadn’t heard the car, didn’t even know that it was a car that turned his world upside down, literally.  As the world rotates back to it’s proper inclination all air leaves his lungs as he was violently introduced to Kayla’s hood.

As she slammed on the breaks, lightening played a cruel joke on her. When the world was lit like time’s square on new years eve, she came face to face with what she’d done. She saw the face of a man looking at her with cold dead eyes. She mistook the look for actual death. To her credit, she had never looked into the eyes of a confused sociopath.

From his perspective, the bad man saw only a scared doe, who’s eyes defied the laws of nature, expanding beyond the sockets that held them. The bad man did not mistake what he saw. He saw the focus for some hatred. He saw a victim waiting to happen. To be fair, he often saw this, he just didn’t usually care enough to create that victim.

The car halted a few moments too late. The man was in bad shape, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was revenge. Slowly, painfully he extracates himself from the car.

Kayla had been female all her life. With that comes a certain cautiousness when dealing with strange men on dark streets, whether or not you’ve run them over with your car.  She lowers her window and tries to get to know the man, and most importantly, how badly he is injured. Her hand slips into her purse, fingers sliding warmly and comfortably over her cellphone and the possible life saving services that are at the touch of a button in today’s world.

The bad man’s hand slipped into his pocket, cold angry fingers clutching an instrument of death. Chillingly, haltedly, he made reassuring noises as he rounds on the driver’s side window.

Though Kayla had been hurt before, she still didn’t comprehend what was happening. How could he be so mad as to pull a knife on her? How had she  pissed this man off to the point where he was thrusting a large knife at her throat? Why didn’t her foot listen to her and slam down on the gas pedal?

With expert precision the bad man plunges the business end of his weapon into the soft yielding flesh of Kayla’s neck.

Fatal wound notwithstanding, her foot finally finds a home on the gas pedal. The car surges forward, and the bad man loses his grip on the window. His already shattered knee gives way,and he crumples on to the drenched pavement under the car. Massive injuries to most of his internal organs kill him in short order. Half a block away, the car comes to a halt as Kayla’s life does.

Miles away, a rapist smiles in his drunken slumber as his next victim survives what was almost certain death at the hands of the bad man. Her husband will have second thoughts seeing her pain and remembering he loves her.

A Police officer patrols his beat, unaware that in three weeks he will stumble on to the identity of a serial rapist. With that will come a great promotion. At home, his son is unaware that his education is about to become three times as good. Allowing him to not die on the job like five other members of his proud family.

Strangely, the newborn child, a girl, who was mere feet away from the bad man a few minutes ago, will meet that same cop’s son in college. Their love will spawn generations of dedicated people who will carry on the work of their ancestors, only in a grander, and slightly more effective manner.

A boy named Billy is sitting next to his babysitter watching T.V., not knowing in an hour he will be in the dreaded “system,” and his life will change forever. How he will hate that bad man, and all men really. And years later, he won’t realise he is following in the bad man’s footsteps when he takes up a career in pain and suffering.

A man at a nearby gas station finishes checking the day’s reciepts. He slowly gets up out of his seat, joints creaking, bones aching, and shuffles to the front door. He looks outside, the power comes back on, he smiles and flips the sign to CLOSED.