Because the killer has to come back. The killer has to talk, to tell this story until it’s used up. Other stories, they use you up. To the only audience a killer can risk having, his victim. Cassandra on her bed of moss. The microphone hanging above her, connected to a tape recorder and a transmitter broadcasting to a sheriff’s deputy perched on rocks across the canyon. Far enough away he can swat mosquitoes without giving himself away. The headphones over his ears. Sitting on the ground, crawling with ants. All the time, listening. In his earphones, birds sing. The wind blows. You’d be amazed how many of the killers come back to say good-bye. They’ve shared something, the killer and the victim, and the killer will come to sit at the grave and talk about old times. Everyone needs an audience.
If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.
We dedicate
We sacrifice
Endless days and sleepless nights
The payment, the price
And finally
Here we are
The Victim is not really as helpless as he feels, the Rescuer is not really helping, and the Persecutor does not really have a valid complaint.
Healing Alcoholism by Claude Steiner PhD
— We're time bomb.
— You need to step away.
— Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam.
— You know damn well why. Back off!
— I'm starting to want you to make me.
— Yeah. Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?
— Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.
— I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay dawn on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.
— I think I would just cut the wire.
— Always a way out. You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.
— A hero? Like you? You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.