Feeding the hate

[DoS Archive]

From: karnafexx@aol.com (Karnafexx)
Date: 11 Oct 1999 01:08:40 EDT

Billy sat at his desk with pencil in hand, carefully jotting notes into an old, dusty diary.

It didn't take me long to reach the inevitable conclusion that had been plaguing me for months. The fact that my system is jazzed on Yukon seems to bring a crystal clarity that my normal, sober mind has failed to attain. I hate these people! Almost to a man I wanted nothing better than to snap their necks and be done with them for all time. I know I had even gone as far as to perch over the
sleeping bodies of a few of our most "beloved" duelers while they thought themselves safe in their homes.

I knew it wasn't the type of hatred born from fear because these people are below me. I realize that I hate these people because they reminded me of lost flocks of sheep, when one bleated out injustice, the group majority bleated their support even if they were ignorant of the subject. I hate the way they talk about honor as if it was something that the world actually hinged upon. I hated they way they toss all of their moral gloves in the ring
of stupidity based purely on the mob rule. These people seem to me to be almost incapable of independent thought at times. They fear change and those that are different outside of the realm of what they are capable of handling. They have their token "evildoers" and run of the mill gainsayers but these are all things that are comfortably tolerable to them, things that are not a threat.

I've also come to the conclusion that I hated myself to some degree and blame their actions on myself. I know there was a time, merely a few years back, when I could shape and mold things in this sport through the sheer exertion of my will. I could say something should be done and even if many secretly cursed me, the majority was usually swayed by my words. Those were the days I used might to make my own right, the days when I was the most
feared man ever to step foot in the rings. Yes, I hate myself for growing soft at heart and letting myself be lead by the sheep instead of being the shepherd as it used to be.

I also curse myself for coming back to something my hearty was no longer into. If I had simply waited a while longer and allowed the fires of passion to rekindle properly in my chest I would never have been in the precarious spot I find myself today. How could I have ever reached the low of coming back and seeming to all like the doddering oldster who was once in his glory but now stays around to tell the occasional story and hope for a free
drink for his troubles? How could I reach the point where I welcome people I dislike merely for the sake of appearances? How could I prostitute my believe merely for the sake of hearing people make the odd mention of " How great he used to be."?

Why should I care now? Why should anything matter at this point in my career? I know I can easily never duel again and be recorded in the history books as a great dueler. I have earned my kudos, my accolades are well deserved. So why do I find myself restless with anger? Why is the former violence that made me despised and hated yet wanted and revered at the same time resurfacing? These are the questions that have been gnawing at my gut, and
only now do I realize the answer.

Because I am better than that.

I am too good a warrior to not be known as the best, I am too skilled to not be the most feared, I am too talented to not be on their minds when thoughts of the duels arise. I have done myself the greatest disservice by wallowing like a fattened pig in the filth of my former glories.

I used to tell people that they may love me, they may hate me but they will never forget me. Yet I find that that is in fact what has happened, some have forgotten me. It's time I begin to live up to the hubris I used to toss around like so much confetti. It's time I make these people relive the horror that was Karnafexx, the Executioner, The Butcher....El Diablo. It is time that I give them something to fear and hate again.

It is time I give them a real reason to be here.

Billy closed the diary slowly and closed the rolltop desk. He gently reached up and turned out the lights. For the first time in months, sleep was a thing he welcomed