I decided to kill. Perhaps it is better say I have always known that. When I was a little boy I always wanted to kill my teacher of music. I wanted that not because I hated her or because I had a bad mark from that subject, on the contrary, I loved her and I admired to her beauty.Whenever it was possible I wanted to be near herself. At the lessons for choir I went very gladly, and I used to stay in the first line and looked her directly at her eyes, I imagined as I had taken my father’s pistol, I went out from home late at autumn night, and wander along streets with cold hands and forehead and then reached in front her door, she opened it smilling and at the same moment I shot her. From the whole illussion, it remained in my mind only the picture of her opened door, I didn’t remember her dead body, nor I remembered where I had shot her. As more I thought about it, my voice became stronger, and in the end it overwhelmed everything and I felt free and cheerful. The reacher said that she hadn’t had so tallented singer for a long time and that my career should be solo singing. Even my parents believed in that and they told their friends that I would be singer in the opera.

As the time went on and as I had met new people, my wish for killing changed. Before I wanted to kill more people, sometimes I wanted to kill only some particular person. The more these wishes fired my entrails and mind the more I was interested and attractive for people in reality. Especially girls wanted to be with me, either as friends either as lovers. They mainly were around myself. One of them who was very close to me was Marta and she had so blue eyes that I had never seen before. We were together all days along, at school, in the street, in the bed. She was enthusiastic with all my stories about killing, and thought all that would be a good novel one day and she would be very happy because she was with the artist while he wrote. After a time I began to write down in details all my stories I had told her together with her help. In a six months appeared a big lot of papers which she put together nicely and chronically and when she thought it was enough and that it was the end, she brought the story to her uncle and he gave it to the publisher. So when I was twenty, my first book “About Killing and the Other Stories” was issued. The book had good success, and even it was awarded. Marta and all my friends were surprised with great success, but I knew very well that it was the beginning of something which would happen.

Marta and I have chosen to study psychology. We bothe were interested in psychology and we studied well, but my wishes for killing were not only wishes. They turned into nightmares, and I startled and talked during the sleeping. Marta continued to write down all that and when she thought it was enough my second novel “Demolished World” eas issued. It was again very successful novel, and at each literary meeting I watched people faces, who asked me questions. I imagined them dead as they lied in their chests, I almost have heard their families’ crying and as they were talking about the monster who had killed them. I couldn’t remember the image of my face then but I only know that Marta had given signals to someone that converstion should be stopped.

My relations with Marta were very clearly put up, I hadn’t loved her, she hadn’t loved me. We lived together in the flat of her parents, who were abroad. All bills we shared in a half, we ate in the restaurants, we went to the cinemas and to the scarce friends. Sometimes we made love but very seldom. Marta used to say that making love with me reminded her on Felini’s films which she didn’t like. She didn’t want me to be devoted her nor I wanted she was, I knew that in her life there was somebody who she hadn’t told me about, I wasn’t jealous. I thought that it was her life and I didn’t want to know anything about. I hadn’t had any other woman besides Marta. She was enough for me, I didn’t want to kill her. It would be senseless to kill someone who you drink your morning coffee with, who you telked about the weather forecast and who didn’t know what kind of criminal she lived with.

I regularly read the black chronicles in the newspapers, and I was astonished how someone could kill on a simple way without passion and desire, mainly they did it because of the money or some other wealths. The worst of all was that killing became so simple and usual in the years which passed, it wasn’t anything special and interesting. I was hopeless. That was the reason why I was sitting on the terrace for days steering at the drained off tree and thought how could I make killing which would astonish everyone and about which people would talk to.

Marta had travelled to her parents for one month and I was alone.

I didn’t want to go to my parents, I was sick of questions about Marta and my relationship, questions about our wedding. I stayed at home and watered flowers, fed our canary bird and devoted time to myself. Every day I went to the cemetery, looked people who were looking sadly at the pictures of dead people, and I was almost sad because I haven’t killed those people they were regreting for.

More frequently I watched to lonely women on trams whose eyes as were telling me : “Please kill me, just me”. In that way I met Milica, a woman of forty with big eyes, whose husband has never been with her, and so she spent days and nights driving in the tram hoping to find someone to talk with.

Always in the same time we used to meet in the tram No. three. She used to tell me about her past, her beauty which fading, great loves, and unrealized travelling. I listened to her and looked at her eyes thinking on tears which her husband will make if I will kill her.

One evening I took her to Marta’s flat, we made love and then she was sleeping. I got up and went to the kitchen to take a knife. I approached to the bed and swung with all my efforts but in that moment the telephone rang. I put the knife aside and take the phone. It was Marta who asked me what I was doing. I answered her that in my bed has just lied a naked woman which I was going to kill and she answered me to wait for her, as we would continue to write together my following book and she finished her conversation and sent me greetings. After that Milica waked up and a magnificient moment went away.

After the meeting Milica and I agreed that it would be better for us not to see each other because she didn’t want some constant relationship.

I suffered a long because of passed opportunity but I continued to look for. In a moment I even thought to strangle my neighbour in the lift but it was so simple that I had given up from that. My soul desired for something special and unrepeatedly, for something which hasn’t been in the history of black chronicles.

Marta returned at the beginning of September and everything was as previous. That year we graduated and my third book was issued. For someone aside my life might seemed to be perfect, but I knew that it was a question of time or a day when all would be finished, and when the load of death and crime would hit shosen sacrifices.

That summer I was invited to one Adriatic town to speak about my last book. Certainly Marta travelled with me, and everything was ordinary: interwiev, inquisitive visitors and untolerable sultry evenings full of mosquitoes. I thought that it wouldn’t finish any more, that I would melt and disappear in the air. Marta was happy as never before. One moment she told me that I was exceptional, which surprised me, but I understood that as influence of sea air on her spirit. After twenty days of the hell a phone rang in our apartment, and they told me to wait, because someone wanted to talk with me. I thought it was someone of the publishers, and that we would discuss about money, but I heard a pleasant man’s voice who told me: “Please return urgently, finally we had sometning you needed”.

All was clear to me. I knew who and why called me, so I packed myself and left a letter for Marta informing her that I had to go, that everything was all right and that she shouldn’t worry.

While I was travelling I was very happy, and it seemed to me unbelievable that my dream would come true. When I entered into the flat I approached the drawer where I hold towels. I took out the pistol which my father presented me when I graduated, I put it into my pocket and went out.

I saw him from a distance as he sat on a bech under a weak light in a park. There was silently and waste, he sat with his back towards me, and I freely approached him and put my pistol out. He didn’ turn round and I put a pistol on his head and he was silent. I moved a pistol to the temple because I thought it was better. I ounted myself: one, two, three…. I was at the door og my dream which would open for me, and I felt a wind which started to blow. Somewhere in a distance it flashed, summer storm started. I shot…..

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Mr. Milan Gutesa was born on July 24, 1966 in Belgrade, from the mother Zagorka and father Peter Gutesa. He was graduated psychologist and writer, and was found dead in the park near Vuk’s monument. Death was caused by the shoot into the temple. It was probably suicide although the arms was not found.

for P.U.L.S.E: Gorica Maldini

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  Gorica Maldini, Literature, short story