My wariness always leads to the same fantasy. I dream of running into my double, my soulmate, the one person who understands what I’m trying to do, what’s driving me, my unflagging patience and implacable logic. Someone who will love me for, and not despite, the things I do. I’m not one of those people who craves recognition. The ones who leave hints all over their crime scenes, or write open letters to the newspaper. I don’t have a signature. None of my crimes resembles any of the ones that came before. I don’t carve my initials in my victims; I don’t piss in the corner of their rooms; and I don’t leave exotic butterflies lodged in their throats or haiku folded in their superior venae cavae. The poetry of my actions is designed to resonate for me alone.

My motive is obscure. I aspire only indirectly to help bring about a certain progress for the human race. It would take a mad genius to connect the dots.

We’d trade stories and ideas, my double and I, think up a thousand large and tiny ways of exacting vengeance. Secrets grow heavy when you know you’ll never be able to share them. At the same time, my extreme paranoia is what lets me sleep at night. No one knows; no one can talk. The love that surrounds me will still be there tomorrow. My parents will die of old age with tender feelings for their only daughter. My friends know they can count on me. I’ll always listen to them, and they can tell me whatever they want, secure in the knowledge that I’ll take it to the grave. It’s no exaggeration when I say that “I’m a vault.”

8

Out on Parole

I’m the observer, but I’m also under constant observation. We’re all under constant observation in the panopticon of cameras, IP addresses, registries, chip cards, lists, passports, sign-ins, identifications, purchases, bonus points, and even ballots. The proof is that no matter what crap you buy at the supermarket, they’ll hound you with coupons for that very same item for months. I’m very careful about my record at the public library and the video store. I may have a smart phone, but I always leave it at home, especially when I to go out for “personal reasons.” There’s no way I’m going to let some satellite geolocate me.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg. Brace yourself: it’s about to get a whole lot worse. Anyone who refuses to play the game is going to be reduced to living isolated from the rest of the world. The time is coming when every single thing we do is going to be catalogued somewhere.