Igor’s macabre story
Something was wrong with Igor. With his actions, his thoughts, with his whole mankind. When he was in school -third of primary to be exact- teachers warned his classmates and kept an eye on him: shy, troublemaker, isolated. At the age of fourteen he hung from a fourteenth floor railing to lose his fear of heights. He continued doing things he feared to go above and beyond himself... but let’s stop right here before it becomes darker.
Igor Suprunyuck was born on the 20th of April, 1988 in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Those were hard times for the youth due to the recent independence of Russia. I knew him, where he was, what he did -but I’m not sure of all of it- somehow, I myself managed to study him because I knew, and I know that he is a maniac and for those who do not know, the Maniac of Dnepropetrovsk. One day, I started feeling something unnatural, not sane. It was autumn of 2000 and we were talking about something which led him to pull a big copper fork out of his backpack, he looked at me with expanded and immovable eyes and said, you don’t know when you will need this, the bullies, dangers out there, even the unstoppable thieves. That night, I kept asking myself why a fork, why that macabre look in his face while he was holding that thing, was it just an excuse to bring out his infamous love for blood, quarrel and deadly thoughts.
Fifteen days later, things became worse, he started fights, his attitude reflected disinterest and no mercy for other people's emotions, also after school he went to the train rails to throw rocks at the windows of the passing wagons. I knew it because a week later he told me he almost got caught by the police. He had told me to go with him but I had refused. At that same time I was wondering why he was so kind with me, my seriousness, apparent apathy and pusillanimity may drove him to establish a little closeness to me, which I thought as normal because he was like me but with strange and bad intentions towards society. At the end of the 2001 he moved to my neighborhood, I felt my life was going to change somehow, he was near me not just in school and I didn’t wanted to take part of his initiatives that surely out of class appeared to be worst. I remember seeing him hanging from the railing of his fourteenth floor apartment, I don’t remember when exactly but it was 2002. One afternoon we were talking about it -because despite of all his weird behavior, it was interesting to analyze his reasons and perspectives- and he wanted to go above the fears he always had, he was sick of feeling small and insignificant in this world, and trespassing things that were considered prohibited and taboo, was a way to face the reality that overwhelmed him.
To be honest, I didn’t had any friends at that time so once and again I used to went out with him on weekends and sometimes after school, to certain abandoned parts of the train station to make graffitis. (It’s a very long story how we knew we both were into that, so I’ll skip that explanation) That’s how I started to know him better. How to forget those Thursdays: smoking, drawing, and at the end, eating those cheap hamburgers from the local market we used to bought right just at the end of classes. We both were fourteen, life passed speedily in front of us and we had to take it as we can because almost eight years had passed by then, eight years since I first met him in primary. I really started to forget or care less about his strange actions, the fork, the fourteenth floor, the fights...I just wanted to think that he needed attention, maybe, who knows, he had problems in his family or his mind was one of those, special, like a crystal, easy to lose, easy to break.
And the whole year passed away peacefully, and the good things passed away too, along with the calm classes, the graffiti afternoons and the interesting conversations, all was gone. And suddenly the next year all was completely different, he seemed as if he had lost his mind, his gaze seemed like gone, out of himself, I was afraid to approach him, until one day, as soon as I brought my presence closer, he frowned and shouted: this is tiring me!, and then decreasing the intensity of his voice; but I need your help. Come with me after school, just follow me, he said, I frowned too and before saying a word he replied again, don’t ask, would be great, I promise.
It was 3 pm when the bell rang, I swear I had never felt more coldness in my body before, he crossed the door, I grabbed my backpack and walked silently behind him, we passed the corridor, the door, the exit. He seemed like sleepwalking, we arrived to the train station, we went down to the rails, we cross it, I wanted to stop and return but it was too late. He felt I was hesitating and turned to me: It is time to become men, in strong and powerful men, I need to escalate even more than where I am already. Listen, we are one step away to get to the grove, there, we can find a herd of homeless dogs and cats, ¡but dogs principally!, we grab one, the ugliest, the weakest, you know, somewhat malnourished and with this big knife we torture him to death, not an instant murder, I’m talking about hearing the mercy howls, seeing the slow agony of the being, all of this without us trembling or groaning of piety inside. I became completely gelid like a statue, and he, looking through the plants like a hungry pig, brought a dog with the most hypocrite sweetness I had seen…
I remained silent during the whole abominable scene, my feet were tied to the ground, without even moving but my tremulous eyes were shouting and trying to comprehend what kind of human being was in front of them. Igor took a photo of the dog, and then raising it by the neck with one hand, he smiled and took another one.
The next day I was lying in my bed. I just remember arriving and going directly to sleep, without eating or taking a shower. Thinking, thinking, thinking...in all the things that I witnessed. Do I deserve this?...
I stopped attending to highschool, I would invent any excuse to not go or even going anywhere else instead. Mysteriously, after eleven days, Igor apparently moved from the neighborhood. So that was it. That was the last time I was going to see him. Remember his face yet. I was afraid of returning to school but he wasn’t there anymore as well, I was looking and looking constantly in the corridor for any signal but nothing. Staring at the classroom door. Nothing too. He definitely had vanished.
Four years later he appeared again, not in real life but I read about him in the Vesti, it was a national and regional broadsheet. When I saw his face again in the printed paper, my leg started to shake and a lot of memories came to my head. I will not forget the title: Twenty one people in nineteen days. At the age of nineteen I confirmed what I was thinking every night and day, every lunch, every possible second in the bus, every year until now. Something was wrong with Igor, with his actions, his thoughts, with his whole mankind, he was a psychopath killer. I searched a lot but every step was taking me further and further without finding an answer. Believing that he was born that way was so hard to believe initially, but then, I remember his eyes, he didn’t seemed to enjoy or to suffer about everything he was doing, it was more like a game for him. All the issue became popular in the city of Dnepropetrovsk. According to his father the day when he was condemned to life imprisonment, he was innocent. I don’t really know where to begin defining this word, I just know that is as relative as the life itself. For the people, Igor was guilty, but for him?
It is not confirmed yet, but there’s the huge possibility of biological factors existing on Igor, according to investigations, there are some areas on the brain that define certain behaviors in the human being. A little alteration, may signify a huge and disastrous change.
But for me, all in all, it is funny to think sometimes, that he was that kind of people, who facing the limitations of their poor existences, have wanted to become a kind of superhuman, trespassing and exercising an absolutely mad power over what comes. No longer killing by order, as a job, sacrifice, and not even having a religious sense, just simply doing what they do like the harvesters harvest fruits, the singers sing songs, or the writers like me, one day sit down and decide to write something.