Alex was alone for the first time in a long while. He looked alone, and he felt alone. He washed his hands and looked in the bathroom mirror. Still he couldn’t see himself. There was absolute space ahead – endless and never beginning all at once. He decided that if Reaping Icon would go away, he’d be able to see himself again. Did he want to see himself? It didn’t matter, because Reaping Icon wasn’t going anywhere. They were one now.
He thought about Emma – he should have just been a man and gone off with her instead of marrying Katie. What a fool. Never mind, it was done now and Katie would pay for her crimes. Alex had allowed hate to flood in; hatred in its most basic form. Katie found sexual fulfilment with other women. ‘A perversion,’ Alex said to himself. He stared longingly at the mirror. It would not reflect his image. It was not playing ball. ‘Perversion must be stamped out.’
* * *
‘Prime Minister,’ Newsman Richard Hart addressed Alex.
‘Leader – please, Richard, address me as Leader,’ Alex interrupted.
‘Very well, Leader-’
‘Because we as a country need a leader, a guiding force for good. Ill health has crept in to our society. It must be cured,’ Alex again interrupted, feeling no need to smile as he turned to face the camera with a vexed crease to his otherwise line-free face.
Richard cleared his throat, shuffling some paper props on the sofa between them as he gauged whether or not Alex was going to continue talking. He did not. Instead, he kept his glare focused on the camera. ‘Surely, if we as a nation are sick, then an alias such as Doctor would be more fitting?’
‘I will guide the nation towards the doctors and nurses who will aid in my cure.’
‘And what specifically are these illnesses, and indeed cures?’
‘Oh Richard,’ Alex groaned, turning to face his interviewer, ‘knowing is the first step. If you don’t know, you cannot help in the recuperation.’
‘That’s why I asked.’
Their eyes met, and at once Richard was fully immersed in Alex’s ocean. There was no flapping, no clamouring to get out; he had no possible idea he had been taken in. Alex was simply too good at what he was doing.
* * *
Cut myself off from the world,
Nobody wants me to just