Russell Twyce

Am I Truth or Fiction
This is a fiction story of a psychopath demonstrating his version of truth.

Am I truth or fiction? by Russell Twyce

“Is your search for stories aimed at truth or fiction today?” A prisoner asked while his shackles were being locked to the prison psychiatrist’s interviewing couch.

“I seek truth,” the doctor said while watching the guard leave, “but all you seem to offer is your fiction. I’m hoping today might be different.”

“You should call the guard back because my truth will still be true, but as it doesn’t mesh with the crap a university crammed into your skull, you will again see it as fiction.”

“That ‘crap’,” The psychiatrist scoffed, “as you refer to it, was developed after years of clinical studies, and by some of the world’s brightest minds.”

“But is an externally rendered depiction of a psychopathic mind set, as offered by a genius, more intrinsically accurate than the view of a psychopath, of above average intelligence, telling of the inner workings of his own mind?”

“The phrase ‘clinical studies’ does imply that psychopaths were indeed interviewed.”

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“Yet another psychopath would interpret what was said differently than a shrink does, just as you routinely refuse to hear any truth I say as anything but fiction. I suppose that if you can manage to somehow cram your misunderstood conception of my mind into one of your utterly false but university accepted but boxes, then you’ll publish your own ‘clinical case studies’ of me and proclaim your brilliance.”

“Perhaps you could employ the time of your multiple life sentences to take correspondence courses toward a degree in psychiatry. Then you’ll have the accreditation to write your own views.” The psychiatrist settled his ample butt into his swiveling and reclining chair. “Your raw intellect is as strong as many of the students I graduated with.”

“I couldn’t pass the exams to gain a degree.” The convicted killer said flatly. “My answers to questions would differ from those the professors believe are correct.”

[private_Chevron]“Give me an example one.”

“According to a recent article I’ve read, ‘sociopaths adopt a particular belief system based on a logic of their own and they seldom have any doubts’. My participant’s knowledge of this belief set and this logic puts my opinions into the psychopath’s condition into conflict with the person grading my paper and because I don’t suffer any doubts, I’m unlikely to insert the wrong answer, just to get the question right.”[/private_Chevron]

“Can you tell me how your beliefs and logic differ from mine?”

“Certainly,” the sociopath smiled enigmatically, “but afterward, I’ll have to kill you.”

“I watched the guard secure your chains,” the psychiatrist chuckled: likelihood of his being harmed was remote, “so I’ll take my chances.”

“A psychopath’s logic differs from yours in that his is true and yours is bullshit. He is without doubts because Aristotle’s logic only allows truth with no other option. The Sophist diatribe that you accept as logic is always false because it’s rooted on untrue base precepts and this waffling version of reasoning allows for either yes or no, depending on which you want to result. Consequently, you’ll never achieve the level of certainty that a sociopath has.”

“One that allows you to make arbitrary life or death decisions for your victims.”

“Indubitably.”

[private_Chevron]“I’m not trained in law, so I’ll leave off this discussion on logic, to focus on your beliefs.”

“Or to put it more succinctly, you’ll ignore a vital portion of a psychopath’s mental makeup due to your unwillingness to allow your mind to become unfettered, or as you might view it, ‘unhinged’.”

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“If learning to understand your logic would make me willing to murder a fellow human being, then yes, I’ll prefer not delving deeply into it.”

“A psychopath’s logic is the elusive key and were you to dare examining it objectively, you could write a paper on the sociopath that would lead to the real cure for condition.”

“Your logic is obviously warped. Your killing people, irrefutably proves that.”

“I disagree,” the killer countered, “but you expressed a desire to examine my end beliefs without first knowing what they derive from, so let’s switch topics.”

“I see it as another aspect of the same subject.”

“Because you’re judging it with your variable result logic.”

“The world is not black and white.”

“Yes it is.” The killer watched the psychiatrist drink from a bottle of water: the man’s prominent Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. “And that pithy remark is utterly incorrect. In the daytime the world is light or white and at night it is dark and black. But black and white or light and dark has nothing to do with why a psychopath kills. He kills because differentiating between truth or fiction is a yes or no question. The victim ends up being alive or dead: there is no gray.”

“Yet somehow this absolute to absolute philosophy translates into a need to kill and to show no conscience during the heinous act or remorse after it.”

“Remorse is a function of believing one has done something wrong. I’ve no regrets regarding the crimes I’ve been convicted of.”

“Except in the fact that you were caught and stopped.” The doctor added.

“I performed my first murder with the intent of being apprehended and it took my committing three more, that you’re aware of, to bring about my capture. In defense of my lack of sorrow regarding my actions, I’ll present my list of trophies. I started with a corrupt cop, then I bagged a bottom-feeding lawyer. I took out a government bureaucrat, a corporate maggot and I would’ve aimed next for a politician. All told, I think many people might have believed I performed exterminations but media hype drummed in that it was socially acceptable to think on my acts as brutal crimes.”

“Your notion of ‘many people believing’ is your wishful projection. It is not fact.”

“How completely brain dead it is to say that!” The psychopathic murderer moved to gain a more comfortable position: to perform the awkward action while shackled, he needed to strain briefly at the extreme limits of his restraining chain.

“You wishfully suppose that only 1% of the population is sociopaths’” the murderer continued, “but the percentage of people who are on the path towards it is exponentially higher. The one percent consists of only those who have decided they’re ready to loudly express their political views.”

“In a voice without any compassion or conscience.”

“Again your failing to address the sociopath’s logic renders your any attempt at full comprehension futile. My murders were overflowing with empathy for humanity.”

“I strongly doubt that anyone will ever understand such a ridiculous statement.”

“Then I’ll have to enunciate it in a tone with stronger conviction.” The psychopath glanced at the notepad his interviewer was busy scribbling on. “Do you take down what I say verbatim?”

“No,” the doctor’s eyes flicked unconsciously to his desk drawer, “I just jot down my own impressions.”

“The recording device in your desk has the job of keeping my words.” The killer’s eyes then circled the room and they spied a camera. “Are we on video as well?”

“Does that concern you?”

“It concerns me,” the murderer chuckled, “but positively so. I didn’t commit suicide after my murders precisely so that my motivations could be objectively studied.”

“Let’s skip to your lack of a human conscience.”

“Instead, let’s jump to a syllogism of Aristotle’s logic. Consciousness includes having a conscience, a sociopath is conscious and therefore a sociopath has a conscience. A university or expert that proposes otherwise is obviously not presenting the truth.”

“But you repress yours.”

“Actually, I don’t. I sidestep mine. The vermin I killed were of the sort who repress.”

“How can one avoid the conscience altogether?”

“By mentally assigning the action as affecting a thing, instead of a living being.”

“By dehumanizing your victim, like by thinking of them as vermin?”

“Police operating under their present guidelines are rodents: lawyers, bureaucrats and politicians are certainly just leeches, sucking the blood of our human endeavors but I had neither the means nor desire to eradicate my victims by class.” He smiled. “There exist far more lawyers than a lone sociopath can effectively eliminate.”

“Was that a yes or a no to my question?”

“It was a partial yes. While stalking and killing my victims, I did think of them by the labels of their professions, as opposed to my mentally using their names. But it was also no because the actual mechanism for diverting my conscience was different. In my mind, I wasn’t killing a person, a policeman, a lawyer or any individual. Instead, I was breaking the law against murder. It’s the law’s fault that a human needs to be standing in harm’s way when a sociopath wants to break society’s law of murder.”

Since that was a meaty reply, the shrink was busy jotting down notes. The killer occupied his attention with a casual look at the office décor.

“Is that your sheepskin in that off-level frame?” The psychopath asked and then he strained his eyes. “I can’t read your alma matter from here.”

“Is it not straight?” The doctor stood and moved to the diploma. Along the way he said the university’s name out loud. He jigged a corner. “Is this better?”

“Perfect.”

“Do you think of the law as if it exists as an entity?” The doctor asked.

“You do as well.” The killer whispered.

“What was that?” The man moved closer to better hear.

“I said,” the psychopath’s voice was even lower, “you do too. Though it’s only a theoretical concept, you treat it as if it exists and that fictional entity was in truth, the object I was striking at.” His volume had dropped to murmuring. “Your law even treats itself as a thing: I wasn’t charged with killing a person but rather with breaking the law of murder.”

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“That is ludicrous.” The psychiatrist might have been about to elaborate but his throat was suddenly clamped in the killer’s teeth. His search for stories had found a true non-fiction that didn’t hold a ‘happily ever after’ for him.

The murderer had waited until his next victim had leaned in close enough to hear. He already knew where the critical distance was, from testing it earlier. The Adam’s apple was his target and he had turned his head enough when striking, to bite on it. His jaw closed the doctor’s windpipe and his purchase was sufficient to hold tightly against the dying man’s terminal struggles. The psychopath kept his jaw clenched, despite the blood in his mouth, until the victim’s nerves stopped twitching.[/private_Chevron]

“I told you I’d have to kill you afterward.” He calmly said to the corpse. “Not to keep my words a secret, but to attach a life or death impact to them.”

The end.

The purpose of this short story is NOT to glorify psychopaths: my objective is to show that understanding why a psychopath kills is the only way to stop them from killing.  There are A LOT more potential killers in our society than you realize!  Everyone who speeds, runs red lights, experiences road rage or just road annoyance is a budding psychopath that just has not been pushed to murder – YET.