Me, Renton and Mr Blonde

It hasn't been my day. John finally caught me sneaking stationary out of the office, just a couple of hole punches this time, thank God. Otherwise the police would have been involved. Still, leaving another job without any hope of a reference is bad enough. Stupid of me to take two of the same thing though. No hope of a plausible excuse, no one "borrows" two hole punches, especially large automatic ones.

Julie still hasn't come back. I'm beginning to think that this time it's permanent. She's walked out "for good" so many times I'm afraid I started to take it for granted; The last thing I said to her was "see you next week," which won't have helped.

All of which is a bit of a shame because I think she was The One. I believe in true love you see, and I get this gnawing emptiness in the pit of my stomach when she's not there to go home to. I should have made more of an effort with her, with everything actually.

I suppose I should introduce myself, I'm John. No, not the John up there, that's my ex-boss. Anyway, my name's John, and I'm a loser.

I've had enough breaks in my life, wealthy parents, decent education, decent job at the end of that, but of course I blew that within three weeks. You see I was born with a nihilistic hate of everything, no idea why, but it does mean I can't ever be bothered to do anything properly. For "anything," read live. Oh and I'm also an utter, incurable kleptomaniac, that's just because it gives me a great feeling of beating the system when I get "freebies" from work, because obviously I hate The System and want to take it down with me.

But enough about me, how about you? Playing life as it should be done, sitting in comfy mortgaged homes, under the heel of government and bank and boss? If you think you're not you're wrong. God, I'm starting to sound like an X-files junkie now, I'm not like that, I just have an all consuming unshakable belief that I'm right. Working regular hours, holidays, parties, sports, all conspire to fill up your own particular waste of time life. I don't get it myself. Of course there are exceptions, if you're reading this and you're John Cleese for example then just from a Humanist aspect your life can be forgiven. Ts'ai Lun as well, the inventor of paper, If he wasn't dead then I'd throw down a pardon for him too, from my self appointed position of chief miserable bastard for the human race. But you aren't either of them, you live your lives playing the modern game of living selfishly from day to day, your occasional unselfish act never reaches very far, never achieves anything. You never do it for truly altruistic reasons anyway. I suppose my nihilism comes from realism, I can't do anything for the human race, none of the plebs out there on the street really can, the most productive thing I can do with my life is resign, not contribute to the malaise myself.

I suppose you're going to hate me for what I'm going to think now, but a little germ of an idea occurred to me during that little rant. If all else is worse than worthless then surely eradicating some of that worthlessness is worthwhile. Double negative. I've always believed that two wrong's make a right. The bible said so, "an eye for an eye." Spot on.

You see, I told you I'm a realist, "some of that worthlessness." I can't kill every useless person on earth now, can I?

My fascination with guns has always seemed to stick out like a jagged rock on a calm sea from the rest of my life plan. Now it fits in like the last piece of a puzzle. Cliche, cliche. I must avoid them.

I walk straight into the office and shoot John in the face. I suppose the papers will say "The first victim, John Jones, 38, died instantly," like they always do. Hate me yet? I would if I were you, but I'm not, I can see the whole picture. Everyone else is keeping down now, some screaming over there, I shoot at it, it stops.

"The last book on a shelf," that's just as good and I've never heard it before. A smooth row of books on a shelf is good enough simile for the state of my life right now.

I walk through into the board room and kill Lucille. I severely doubt anyone in this room has done enough to justify their own existence, let alone to justify the existence of someone who serves them coffee.

I seem to have hit the jackpot, half the board are here, some life-wasting branch meeting no doubt. I grab the nearest grey-suited lump of terror and demand his name. He faints. I shoot him, no time to revive anyone on this last great rollercoaster ride I'm on. The others quickly get the gist of what's going to happen, a young one tries to run at me. The ultimate wasted life. Nothing achieved, his momentum carries his corpse sliding to my feet. See what I mean about "altruistic" acts? He was trying to save himself, nothing more. The next suit I ask is more together, he knows he has to be, anything else will get him shot. Richard Drake, director of accounts. I press the gun into the soft flesh under his jaw, asking a third question, but I pull the trigger before he can answer, mainly for caving in and answering so quickly, but also because of the accounts thing. The guy from the head of the table is lying face down with his hands on the back of his head, presumably the director, but I can't see his face. Dead now of course. The only female director, I think her name is Rachel something, is screaming in the corner, I use the same cure as before.

There are three left now, standing cornered at the other end of the room. I point the gun at the middle one and ask his name. He suggests I go to hell. If such a place exists then whether I go depends on the entry rules, Christian rules then I'm in! But I suspect the rules are less rigid than that, as long as what I'm doing has the net good result I expect then heaven awaits. This is all hypothetical to the extreme as neither place exists. I make my point a little more forcefully by shooting at his leg, second shot gets his knee and he's down. Brian Gover, Research and Design. My third question is that he justifies his life. Tacky and melodramatic I know, but he understands that he really should answer. He tries the wife and kids bit, he can see in my face that this doesn't cut it. I explain I want an answer involving the greater scheme of things. This confuses him further. "Your contribution to humanity in five seconds," I explain. His answer catches me out. Back in the seventies he worked on various weapons, making amazing breakthroughs in reloading mechanisms. This work included the model I'm using, which presents a bit of a dilemma.

While I'm thinking about it I shoot Gerald Harris from personnel, I've only ever seen him making people miserable.

Not much of a contribution, reloading mechanisms, but without it I couldn't be doing what I was with this gun, so his contribution is my contribution also. A snowball effect, falling dominoes, cliche, cliche.

The last man standing makes a fatal run for the door.

I realise that this could be the case with any of the people I've just pronounced guilty, indeed it seems that is how man is progressing in modern times. Very few great leaps of technology can be attributed to one man, technology is too big now. This is a big realisation, I turn for the door, I'm going home now, until I can sort this out.

I hear the click of a cocking mechanism and turn to see Brian Gover firing both barrels of the company's latest shotgun, which the meeting was about, through my face.

I die despairing, Brian's contribution to his race having traced a complete circle.

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