Something Wicked

There is another thing I am very good at. Too good. Something I would rather not be so good at. Something I am good at doing alone.

Someone I am good at being.

The man behind the mask.

I would say I have a talent .. but the word and the deed do not mate up well. The outcome is not what I would call a masterpiece .. though I have heard the word used. There can be a certain beauty in reducing a human to all of its respective parts. Individually .. laid out in order of importance.

Some refer to it as butchering a bosk. But you do not prolong life with a bosk .. you do not wish the bosk to feel each cut of the blade. No .. I do not think torturing a man is anything like butchering a bosk.

"You do not have to have all your strength back Fonce .. to return to your duties as Torturer."

Well that was true. Did not take much strength to wield a thin blade and skin a man or cut a man's ear off strip by strip .. enlarge his nostrils or drop a hammer on a man's toes. Did not take much to describe to him in detail the kind of pain he was going to have walking .. the crippling effect ... let alone if I got far enough up his leg to his knee. I usually get the answers I need before I get that far. Did not take much strength to chisel away at a man's teeth until they were useless. What is a man who can no longer chew a piece of bosk meat? Not much of a man. Believe me. Goes strait to that spot where he lives and sets it on fire. He might survive it .. but he will never be the same man. You see a man with a finger or two missing .. could be that ever present danger of getting one of them in the way of your lariat with a couple ton bosk on the other end .. or could be someone that had an answer that someone else felt they needed.

It was all about the right questions and the right motivations given to get the answers.

"Get me answers Fonce."

"Which answers would that be?"

"I do not know."

"Well .. which questions should I ask?"

"I do not know."

"All right .. who am I questioning?"

"I do not know."

huh

What do you say that? "Yes Commander."

The inside of my mask no longer smelled with the blood of my father. Not in reality. But it was there .. in my mind. In my memory. Strong enough to taste that coppery metallic reminder that brought the bile up in my throat.

So they threw a man before me .. hooded and naked .. reeking of his own sweat .. fear and piss .. ready to speak. Well .. probably not ready until he was brought to understand the reality of his situation. Which I am good at getting through to someone rather quickly. If the sight of the masks around him do not do it .. I have a few well proven methods. It is not in my best interest to make the entire thing longer than it needs to be. I do not do this because I take some inner satisfaction with the pain of another man. I do this because my father did it and trained me to do it. I do this because I am good at it. I do this because I am told to.

Now .. if I only knew what the hell I was supposed to be asking to get answers I had no idea of .. involving circumstances beyond my knowledge from someone I had never met before.

Fuck.