The Land Of The Blind

His hollow eyes stared accusingly. The dark side of his face covered by brutal scars inflicted on the unfortunate victim. Blood, white chalk and yellow tape decorated the decaying room of the sleazy apartment building. From outside the blood stained window lay a desolate scene. The seemingly endless melancholic road, broken gutters overflowing; a waterfall. A downpour rained from the heavens above, corrupted by blackened souls, representing themselves as storm clouds. The city infested with rows of abandoned buildings, rundown pawnshops, and the occasional torn advert. The American Dream.1

The interior of the building was of an equal macabre quality: broken plates, half empty beer cans, shredded newspapers and damaged furniture. The apartment gave off a depressing aura, a microcosm of the world outside. An ashtray of cigarettes lay on the table, but this death was not due to the victims smoking habits. This was a ruthless cold-blooded murder undertaken by demons incarnate in the black human soul.2

The repetitive howls of police sirens sounded from the deeper heart of the city like Cerberus at the gates of Hades waiting to impact another soul behind the burning bars of imprisonment.3

'Do we know what happened here?' cried the police chief.4

'Well I think it might just be… a murder!' detective Muldora responded in his sarcastic fashion. The chief looked away submissively and sunk his teeth into his sugar-coated donut.5

Beside the body lay a half-torn suicide note. It told of depression and morbid notions of death, but no signature blessed the paper. Homicide was the word on everyone's lips. No one thought Frankie was capable of suicide, his file as clean as soap. The usual nobody person, with mundane tendencies. Obedient, conformist, the anonymous face in the crowd. Worked on the food line at the factory for a lowly wage. No purpose, no destiny, no reason, he just carried on living, and now he was dead, but for what reason? Why?6

The two questions infesting all their minds: why and who. The perpetrator had not left many clues; it was up to the detectives to solve this enigma. The men circled over the corpse. A manic depressant ring came to the phone.7

'Is anyone gonna answer that!' yelled one of the detectives, boorishly.8

'Hello' said the rough voice of detective Muldora.9

'Yes, are you sure…wait what's that address…Okay we'll be over in a minute.'10

Muldora coerced the receiver to the damaged phone, on the small table across from the horrific corpse of the victim.11

'We got a lead,' cried Muldora triumphantly.12

The black Mercedes rolled down the gritty street, an array of broken homes surrounding them. Inside the car the men were talking, shocked about the possible lead.13

'Johnny Cultrane' wailed one of the detectives in the dark interior of the Benz. Cultrane was a regular Tyler Durden, employing brainless space monkeys, becoming slaves without realising it. Cultrane promised to break down the system from within, echoing revolutionary notions and enforcing criminal actions. This was Cultrane's lie, greed was the driving force behind his actions and he would use a falsified political agenda to get what he wanted. There was no aim other than his own finance, Cultrane being the only beneficiary; his obeying followers continuing their loyalty not knowing of his true agenda. The blind leading the blind. Cultrane had a rap sheet as thick as a phone book, with accounts of arson robbery and illegal gun running all being attributed to his tainted name. Despite his criminal connections, Cultrane was an untouchable, his organisation too powerful. The police had been waiting for a chance to get to Cultrane; this murder was their free pass.14

Frankie was supposedly one of Cultrane's mindless space monkeys, a follower of the anarchistic organisation. He was living a doppelganger life, one as the John Doe; the unknown person. The other as the subversive anarchist under the shroud of night, attracted by Cultrane's promises and secret mantra; the sacred laws of the society, the inner enlightenment of the destructive practices, a contradiction in terms.15

The Benz rolled up to Cultrane's archaic, decaying home. Wooden architecture infested with lice gnawing it to the bone. His residence was of poor quality, despite his riches. It represented the poverty and oppression he and his followers lived under - his words. The rain continued to fall ushering in the despondent atmosphere engulfing the city whole. The knock from the detectives came to the door. One of Cultrane's guards responded to the incessant drumming.16

'What do you want!' belched the loud brutish voice.17

'We're interested in seeing your boss,' replied Muldora.18

'You got no jurisdiction here pig,' came the cue card answer. Muldora displayed the search warrant.19

'Er…boss…I…I mean sir…there's some pigs here to see you!'20

I'll be down in a minute.'21

The detectives were guided into the grimly lit building, gritty and leaking, as a drop of water plummeted from the ceiling, fluctuated and dropped into the bucket below causing a ripple in the stagnant fluid. Cultrane descended the stairs wearing a stylish suit almost as if he had just walked out of a fashion show, incongruous in his shabby surroundings. The room of a depressive nature did not mirror his well-dressed presentation.22

'So what do you boys want?!' exclaimed Cultrane.23

'A certain Frankie Wiseman, murdered yesterday, we hear he's been working for you,' Muldora muttered.24

'Well you heard wrong, I've never heard of 'im.'25

'Look we've done surveillance on this piece of crap house, your activities could easily land you in jail: bank robbery, arson, launching campaigns against this police force by lying to the media, making us appear corrupt!' Muldora said defiantly.26

'You know that's all crap, you got nothing on me!'27

'Wiseman was your little fall guy eh! Use him to dig up dirt on us and then cut your connection by having him killed!' Muldora was presenting unsubstantiated evidence.28

'Your out of line Muldora, I don't know Wiseman and I never have!' responded Cultrane in a plethora of self-importance.29

With Frankie's surname being Wiseman, he had apparently become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The battle was over Wiseman, the nobody, the John Doe, and yet he contained all the answers to this riddle.30

'You think you can interrogate me in my own home! You can get out, get out now!' He pointed his accusing forefinger at Muldora as a result of his rage, but Muldora equalled the violent outburst, but within himself. The violent side of Muldora was different from his normally calm and collected nature. The schizophrenia was a parasite taking control of his body as a host, and writhing within, but the host regained control and the parasite was prevented from manifesting itself.31

'Just let me talk to you alone Cultrane,' Muldora compromised.32

'Alright, Alright, leave us in peace for a minute,' Cultrane signalled to his guards to leave, and Muldora did likewise.33

When the other detectives and Cultrane's associates had left, the two were left there staring each other out. Cain and Abel. A strike of lightning visited nearby, the room was consumed in the glow of a thousand suns. The suns, sending forth solar flares, armies of light, a crusade against the retreating darkness. But the effect was only temporary, just like the enlightenment of the human soul, it never lasts, slowly the inner darkness creeps back and dominates again. Cultrane and Muldora still sat there, filled with they're own inner darkness. Wood lice crawled beneath them growing accustomed to the chairs smooth quality, which it endlessly seeked to defile.34

'Exactly how can we come to a compromise Muldora?' questioned Cultrane, breaking a long silence. Muldora responded bluntly:35

'When you come with us.' 36

'You know that ain't gonna happen, I'll have one of my followers strong-arm you before that would take place.'37

'That would be against the law Cultrane, we can't have people like you controlling our streets, can we?' Muldora said patronisingly.38

'Look before we discuss this, would you mind if I…er could just take a leak,' almost embarrassingly he responded, under the spotlight, accused and interrogated.39

Muldora knew that Cultrane would fold like a pack of cards under a Royal flush. If he kept his poker face and played it right, Cultrane would be behind bars in no time. The only thing was that Muldora did not always play by the rules, those bars could be bent or even broken. The flush from down the hall gave Muldora his cue card, a blood red 'REDRUM' was written on it repeating in his mind continuously. Muldora saw a baseball bat leaning against the wall that too infested with parasites, as Muldora picked it up, it became a manifestation of Muldora's rage and inner darkness. The door flung open as Cultrane entered. The fuelling parasites within Muldora had taken power once more, controlling his limbs, as the bat swung his enormous momentum towards Cultrane's skull. With a crack it impacted.40

Time stops, in the middle of the action, that action which comes to define the rest of your life, the murder of another human being. It no longer meant anything, the adrenaline surging and controlling the conscience, no regret, no remorse. Crimson liquid was flowing from Cultrane's head, now falling to the floor. The thud of the body was the final exclamation mark to the turn of events that had just occurred, while the dust dispersed and settled once more. Muldora looked into a mirror on the corresponding wall; the cue card now read 'MURDER'. 41

Muldora acted quickly, realising the impatience of the associates akin to both Cultrane and himself. He attached gloves to his hands and reached for a special finger print material used in the force to obtain and record criminals finger prints for identification and if so wished to apply the prints to other material. He applied it to Cultrane's fingers. The plan was falling into place.        42

Muldora washed the blood off his hands, spiralling down the plughole echoing Hitchcock. He hurriedly placed something on the wall, shrouded in darkness; it was impossible to tell what it was. He had been planning this longer than anyone had realised and his renegade actions echoed surprise and dismay in all that had the misfortune to look upon it. Leaving the room, two guards confronted him, their inquisitions cut short by hot lead. Muldora was brandishing a silenced pistol, its high pitch monotones hiding the true nature of its relentless bullets.43

As he opened the front door, the city greeted him with equal hostility; the wind howled a banshee choir, the rain punishing Muldora for his crime as though Titan himself was commanding the onslaught. He advanced towards the Mercedes Benz with his colleagues waiting impatiently outside the car. Muldora was applying the fingerprints to something in his pocket, as he muddled with it the object fell out. It revealed itself to be a knife, its metallic quality covered in the dried blood of Frankie Wiseman. The knife descended effortlessly to the floor with the fingerprint material following it blindly as a vortex of suspense gathered around the two objects.44

The turn of events rang like a New World epiphany to the detectives. They may not have known the exact facts but a bloody knife and fingerprint material were enough for the detectives to connect the dots. Cultrane had been a leading figure in the crime circuit and the crimes were verging on terrorism, being untouchable made it difficult for the police. A murder and evidence connecting the victim to Cultrane might just do it. Muldora was prepared to go to extreme lengths, the parasites inside influencing and encroaching upon his guilty conscience. Wiseman was a vehicle to get to Cultrane, no vehicle no case. The evidence fabricated, fake documentation, concocted surveillance reports. The phone call to Frankie Wiseman's apartment, a pre-set call with no one on the other end. The lies and betrayal running together like the inculcation of rain and dirt, no conspiracy against the police from Cultrane's organisation, no connection between Cultrane and Wiseman. Wiseman: the unfortunate victim of Muldora's ruthless tactics. Cultrane would receive the blame for his murder by applying his fingerprints to the knife that murdered Wiseman, all to finally land him in jail. Jail was not enough for Muldora though, if he was dead he was out of the way, the only facet left untied was to blame the murder of Cultrane on a rival gang. Bribery of witnesses would fulfil those ends. The victim, the perpetrator, the motive. The conspiracy of one.45

The standard issue 45 handguns rose from the detectives, and in uncertain legality pointed at Muldora. His penance was demanded of him.46

The repayment came in the form of a bullet as Muldora turned back towards the house where one of Cultrane's guards was standing pointing his gun, undeterred by the brutal assault of the surrounding weather. The bullet split the air in two, smoke trailing behind, coerced to forever follow the unjust elements of its pre-cursive leader. The bullet met Muldora straight in the face, one of his eyes being completely torn away as he cascaded to the floor, his blood being diluted by the ever-present rain, creating a mirror on the melancholy surface.47

A smile grew upon Muldora's face, one at once cruel and sadistic. The unrecognisable object placed on the wall of Cultrane's house was a C4 plastic explosive in case any aspects of his plan came to fault. In his dying moments he reached to his pocket to the remote detonator, his finger tensely but firmly pressed the button. The explosion erupted, with the fires of Hell and Hades, which opened up into demons running riot through the darkened surroundings. The fiery inferno engulfed the entire street as Cultrane's guard was sent forth to his grim death. The armies of hell continued on one final assault as the detectives were surrounded with flame. 48

All witnesses dead; the only evidence was left in Muldora's malignant lie. The unforgiving face of Muldora smiled on in its schizophrenic tenacity, shortly before succumbing to death's wrath. He still smiled even in death.49

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.50