What could be so important that she would interrupt me at such a crucial time?

He paces over to the envelope and tears it open. Inside are two pieces of paper. One is the suicide note that he’d hoped he would write himself; the other tells him that he should desist with his angst and prepare himself to enter a new plane of existence.

And he calms down immediately.

He is to continue as usual, as though nothing significant will occur today.

Like every impotent day.

Last night he dreamt about killing his mother.

But this is a day just like any other.

6

CONSTANT RECRUITMENT

Of course, in order to have other people, you must first have people. The drawback of a successful suicide cult is the constant recruitment.

Take the London Underground. Take the Indonesian police headquarters. Take the Boston Marathon. Take an election rally in Pakistan. Take an Australian nightclub. Drop in some guy who is lost or angry. Who has been convinced he’s moving on to something better, that he’s a soldier or a martyr or part of something important. Tell him there are virgins waiting on the other side to suck his dick.

Wash his brain. Clean it right up so he can do your dirty work.

Give him a vest.

Give him a trigger.

Give him a reason.

Now wait. Wait until the news confirms the death toll. See how his neighbours say he was a quiet man. Listen as they talk of his disillusionment and hatred of the world, how he disowned his family. Watch some psychologist spout that men have no outlet for their emotions, that it’s a societal problem, that it’s culture, that he was forgotten.

Listen out for the words ‘insanity’, ‘crazy’ and ‘group mentality’.

It’s predictable conjecture.

They don’t know that he had second thoughts, that he shit his pants before pressing the button that released thousands of ball-bearings and nails in an explosion that tore his body apart in every direction. That even if he’d decided it was wrong or brutal, his choice to complete the task was taken away by that point.

And now, that political party or religious movement or government-funded operation has to go out and find another person to be labelled as an outsider.

The enrolment process can be exhausting.

But we need these people so we can have the others.

And these people are easy to find. They are everywhere. The key to building a successful cult is to fill it with real people.

Take absolutely anybody. Find some common ground. Use it as your starting point. Listen. Don’t do too much talking. Power comes from hearing what others have to say. Now tell them what they really need. Believe that what you are saying to them is true. Now you can manipulate them to do what you want.

Forget the rejected, the isolated, the solipsistic. None of that matters.