By the time Adam was fifteen, he had learned so much from the internet, about random things, that even he sometimes could not fathom. He regularly zoned out of conversations that he found uninteresting, which was, mostly, all of them. As a result, he rarely spoke to anyone beyond the subject of their conversation. There were casual ‘hi’ and ‘byes’ but nothing further than that, at least not from his side. He’d rather dive deep into his own thoughts than to have shallow conversations with anyone.
There was hardly anything that- had happened, is happening or will probably happen - that he knew nothing about. He knew something about everything and yet his hunger for more was insatiable. He didn’t like confined spaces and never took the elevator because he, out of absolute boredom, had done detailed research on what could go wrong in there.
He never rushed for anything, “time”, he’d say, “….is relative”. He would always carry a pocket note with him wherever he went, taking notes on anything that he found interesting, only to look more about them on the internet.
In general, Adam was someone you wouldn’t even notice despite being in the same room for hours. There was nothing extraordinary about him, except for his curiosity. This was odd, however, given the fact that Adam enjoyed arguments. The more he argued, the more overbearing he’d become. Nevertheless, he kept his arguments strictly to the topic, hurling no personal insults which was strange given his assumingly high ego. Yet, that is how he avoided fistfights.
Today, he was headed for the class wondering how would a novice locate the carotid arteries and sever it. “No – he wasn’t a psychopath – not yet, at least”. The communicative skills teacher had assigned the class to make presentations on independent topics. The thought had come to him almost instantaneously his presentation would be on ‘15 ways to kill a man with almost no effort’.
As he entered the classroom, he looked at the smiling faces of his classmates who were busy with their cardboard models, charts, diagrams, and speech rehearsal. Those who noticed him were surprised to see him come empty-handed, they had expected something quirky from him. Someone from a distance exclaimed, “what a relief!” and Adam’s face lit up, with a grin, momentarily. He took his seat and waited for the class to begin.
As the teacher entered the class, she let out a sigh of relief seeing Adam without something out of the ordinary. In fact, seeing him with nothing at all was no less than a blessing. Adam noticed that most of the assignments were copied from YouTube and Wikipedia. The class had come to an end, everyone was done with their presentations, except for him. He excused the teacher and reminded her that his turn had been skipped.
He handed a pen drive to the teacher and asked the lights to be turned off. Everyone looked a bit disappointed in him. He couldn’t care less. He still wasn’ sure of his final method to kill a man. As the slides changed, everyone’s awe turned to horror but the most horrific of it all was the ease with which he described various vital organs and the ways to puncture, injure or sever them, with something as little as a penknife.
The teacher had initially interrupted him before he had even begun. But he argued for his will. When the day ended everyone walked out almost in unison – at a quiet, slow, and what appeared to be an alarmingly calm pace – exactly like Adam walked. Their heads bowed down, deep in thoughts, most of it sick and horrifying yet seemingly reasonable to ponder upon. There was something in the way Adam described the location of the carotid artery, it was sensual yet terrifying. The position that the knife should be in, broken down to the nearest angel and the required amount of force to slit the artery in one go, the bloodwork and blood spatter. The details were mesmerizing and everyone felt guilty in a way, for enjoying it. And for once Adam walked back home peacefully, without any nagging, teasing or bullying to disturb his ardent train of thoughts.