Have you ever thought about the concepts of love and brutally murdering someone?

Instinctively, they seem strangely connected, right? Otherwise, there would be no ‘crimes of passion’ as a legal definition. But this is not about the intrinsic connection between these two things. It is not about love and murder, but more like ‘love’ and ‘murder.’ Separate concepts that go and meet each other.

These words are relevant because we know about a guy who loves to love, whose entire life has been a long search for his other half. And this guy doesn’t look for the other half as a teenager looks for two broken-heart pendants that, once put together, form a whole heart. No. Absolutely not. There are often similarities between silly and important things, but it has to be clarified with no quarter that it is all about the intensity, the degree to which he—or all of us, really, are affected.

Our guy has half a heart. He is the tale of someone who bleeds profusely every single time he tries to fit another half into his, just to be assaulted by excruciating pain by yet another poor match. He’s not looking to share a half-hearted pendant. No. He’s looking for what Plato described in his writings as ‘a lost half, separated at birth, that continuously longs for another person because, for some, reality is too hard to endure on their own.’

And so, among the sufferings so bleak that they are blinding, some choose to stay put, to wait. They know that if they ventured too far, they would bleed to death. They wait and try to fit their bleeding heart as soon as they see a potential candidate. And even if they are great souls, they might never be [Heroes] until the day their hearts are fixed.

Fixed.

What an ugly word, but it’s something that people refuse to accept — that they are broken, that there’s a fundamental part of them that will never work. And do you know what happens when a broken cog forces its way into a system? Everything crumbles. The offending part will dent every close neighbor; then, either the system rejects this broken piece, or the system fails.

That’s why some decide to stay put. They can’t work in the system, and the system can’t work with them. It’s a choice of the wise – the inaction, that is. Only a few illuminated minds know that they can’t be satisfied, that they can’t live up to their shape.

And look at the tragedy of knowing that you are a magnificent piece of the system, one of the most important ones, that you might shake everything, have everything fixed. You know that you are such, but you also noticed that not all of your teeth are straight, that there’s so much of you missing that you could never work in any system. Imagine knowing how great you could be but also that you could never fit.

What do you do?

Do you force your way through the system, or do you stay put and live outside of it, never living up to the great force that you can glimpse in the mirror every morning?

What happens to a person that realizes they are not fit for anything? When that happens in a world which lies to everyone and tells them they are good the way they are? What happens when they see beyond the lies and realize that they will never be whole until the day they find the missing part, the part that was brutally separated from them at birth?

I’ll make it even worse for you. Just listen to me.

What happens when your impulses are wrong, when you think you are clearly seeing the other half on your right when, in reality, it’s on your left? What happens if you meet someone and you don’t realize that there’s a mask on their face, that something is blinding you?

What, do you trust your instincts, and that’s it? So, if you have the instinct to become a heroin addict, you just do it? If you have the instinct to go after a person, no matter how toxic they are, you just go and ruin your life?

Even worse.

What happens when you know your instincts are faulty, that you are blind, but that they are also the only paradigm working? What happens when you think your brain can rationalize an answer out of the huge mess that is reality, just to realize that the instinctual feeling of the cogs’ teeth is not matching?

You might go crazy, right?

Or you might decide to go with the flow, that humanity is what it is, that it is a huge mess, and that you will keep looking until the end of your days – hell, you might even dip your toes into the deep waters of the interweaved system of gears here and there, making a rightful mess. But you will stay on the side, unable to be the protagonist of your own story if not for short periods, and unable to shake the world as per your birthright. You will only be able to live casually, to show short bursts of greatness.

Maybe our guy decided to take it slow to avoid going crazy at every twist and turn, to wait for the one half that will fix everything, that will have shared the same plight, the same curse of broken greatness.

But wait, what if there was a perfect, matching half for this person? Wait. Maybe, many cogs could fit alongside our guy. Maybe. But what if there were a perfect one, one that would fit so well it would transform him, open up an entire world, give him what he missed and give her what she always longed for? What if they could teach each other how to love, reach happiness, and stop bleeding so fucking much?

Because maybe – and just maybe, my friend – our guy has already met such a person. Maybe – and just maybe, my reader – there’s a woman that is the exact other half, who’s lived a life of crippled greatness.

But.

Yeah, sorry. I know, I know.

There’s always a but.

And this one is a big but…

But what if this woman, this other half, has chosen the other way? What if she has not chosen inaction, the peaceful waiting inside the eye of the storm? What if the other half has chosen to be the storm? What if the other half has not chosen the path of casual heroing, but the one of a bleeding tragedy until the end, becoming a pulsing mass of flesh, scorching all the earth, destroying one system after another till the day she met the half that would make her whole?

Have you ever asked yourself how dark Joey could make the world if he had chosen war and tragedy over peace and comedy?

…

Cassandre

Books are important.

Books are all we are – the paper that represents a figment of our collective imagination, translated into reality.

I look at the poem on the page before me while the metro speeds: the steel clicks and clacks on other steel. The sound is almost hypnotic—a lullaby. I feel sleepy, but a sharp pain radiates from the wound under my thick coat. I try to focus on the book to get a grip on my senses – I’m trying hard not to faint. The big shades on my face help to mask the sweat trickling down my forehead and my paleness.

I can feel the blood sloshing on the inside of my fur coat. I look down at the dirty floor, making sure I’ve not been exposed. With labored breaths, I look right and left, ensuring no one is attempting to mug me. We are close to Porte de la Chapelle. It’s dangerous here – at this point, you’ll find only the worst on the subway. Mostly.

The only two men that look like bona fide criminals cross my eyes and nod at me.

Blood knows.

They are second or third-generation immigrants, like me. But from the looks of it, they are not on a big job. Drug dealers, if I had to guess. Those types will not bother me. If not for the inconvenience of it, then because, dressed as I am, they probably think I’m some high-level prostitute. I wouldn’t even be taking the metro otherwise.

I try to breathe slowly, but I can’t help panting. Wheezing, even.

I peek at the semi-open book again, looking at a very fitting poem.

Les sanglots longs

Des violons

De l'automne

Blessent mon coeur

D'une langueur

Monotone.

Interminable sighs of the violin in autumn bless my heart with dull hunger.

I look at the digital letters on top of the train doors. Five minutes to Porte de la Chapelle. A last, fitting act. My younger sister would have called it ‘karma.’ Since we are Dante’s neighbours, I’d call it ‘contrappasso.’ A very apt punishment after clawing my way out of this place. Maybe, this is already my ‘inferno.’

But this bitch is going to wear Yves Saint Laurent in hell. I adjust the silky top under my fur coat, feeling the blood still oozing slowly and warmly.

I put down the book for a second and touch my bag with my unbloodied hand, feeling the weight of the guns in it. Plural, guns. I made those. Like I made all the others that will soon flood the country.

After tasting the metal with my fingertips, finding a comfortable coldness, I open the book again. This time, I bring the back of my hand to my eyes while holding the pages; I test the thick eyeliner I’m wearing. All good; nothing’s coming off.

I glance at the stops again, trying to guess how much I have left to live. How long does it take for a woman to bleed to death? I have been bleeding like this for twenty minutes now. If I didn’t have so much heat on me, I’d be going to the hospital. But on the other hand, I feel relieved. It’s time for the last few bastards to die, and I’ll personally drag them into the ground with me.

I watch the trembling words in the book, the second of three verses.

Tout suffocant

Et blême, quand

Sonne l'heure,

Je me souviens

Des jours anciens

Et je pleure.

Strangled and pale, when the hour strikes the clock, I remember my past and cry.

Verlaine, I have nothing to cry about. I would re-do it all the same. This is simply the fate of the wicked, a miserable death. But as soon as the naïve Parisiennes know how many guns have been distributed across the country, I’ll be their haunting nightmare; I’ll be Immortal, the death that will persecute this forsaken city; then, the entire country. Maybe all of Europe.

Cassandre El Maddouri.

That’s the name of the nightmare, the specter that will birth freedom from her death.

I smile thinly. How poetic I am.

I have donned a mask in front of many men who believed I wasn’t much more than a shallow girl. But now that they have drowned in their own blood, the act has finally come to an end. No more fake smiles, no more acting like an idiot. Now, it’s just me, my shades, and my guns.

The only layer covering my face is a Chanel pair of glasses with custom-made diamond inserts.

Was it worth it?

That’s a question that probably haunted many in my position – many of those who thought that they could have had another life without being utterly miserable; but that’s not my case. I knew I had to go down this path to be myself. There was no other way, no other route.

Whatever happens, whatever goes down, even if I’m going to puke my guts out, it was worth it.

It must be.

I take one last look at the doors and get up. I can feel some blood dripping on the ground, not contained by my fur coat. I’m also disoriented. My heart palpitates. My book falls to the ground, but not the bag I clutch in my left hand. I stumble in front of the doors, gripping the metal pole to avoid falling. I fall, I die.

Laughter comes to me as I remember the last part of the poem I was reading. With it also comes the click of the doors opening.

Et je m'en vais

Au vent mauvais

Qui m'emporte

Deçà, delà,

Pareil à la

Feuille morte.

And I go where a villain’s gust pushes me, astray, like a dead leaf.

As the door opens, the curtain comes down. The act raptures, the audience gasps, and death laughs at me while I fall through the sliding doors, still clutching the heavy bag full of guns.