I am a lion

The deer was jumping in panic over crapwood and bushes, and through high clums of wild grass before I got her with my claws. My first blow made her stagger, just a bit but it was enough. I accelarated and drove my nails through her skin until the warm and bittersweet smell of her blood reached my nostrils. I jumped her and she sank through her knees. Bending over her head, I ripped off a strip of flesh of her neck. The beast shrieked, eyes wide in terror. I roared into the vast pale-blue sky, fully aware I was no human anynmore or never had been. My heart was pounding in my chest.

I opened my eyes. The alarm on my phone was ringing; a melody in crescendo. Underneath the curtains a pale stripe of light was creeping into the room. My heart calmed and I sighed, reaching for the small bedside table top. I stumbled upon the knob of the drawer, felt higher, stamped some fingermarks on my glasses, and even higher I found my iPhone and held it close to my face. Without my contacts or glasses, I was nearly blind. I swiped right: silence.

Over my head I felt the light but still chilly stream of air from the ventilation flap in the window. Have to get out, I thought and rose, swinging back the white cover — filled with warm and luxurious goose down — over the bedframe. In the nude I got on my feet, stumbled shivering into the open kitchen of my living room, prepared coffee, then went back into the bathroom where I put on the shower. While washing myself under the quickly warming and steaming water, I peed. I showered in less than four minutes.

Standing before the mirror, dry again, glasses put aside, lenses put in and shaving, I envisioned the day that lay before me. I imagined the route I had to go: through the heather of Barringer Fields while the sun would be rising in my rearview mirror, classical music playing from the radio. How many years now I had driven this route in the earliest morning. Seven, maybe eight? Almost eight, I thought.

Some people at work came to my mind's eye. Stella, the busty redhead receptionist with her cheeky smile. She savored to call out my full name by way of morning salutation; "Well, good morning to you David Aron Ehrenberg ... And how are you today?" She would give me a cheeky look from under her brows, the lips full and curled upwards, maybe just a bit apart, moist, shining like velvet, her irises green, her pupils dark and deep, the skin of her face and neck and the amount of chest she allowed herself to show, pale around all of her freckles. I would smile, make a joke, leaning on the counter. Boris the bellboy, at the elevator. Thin, gray eyes, short cut chesnut-colored hair, silent and seemingly stuck in his own solipsistic world, never making eye contact — no-one had ever heard him speak — but nonetheless knowing flawless where every single employee had to go. Seeing me he would press 21, the top floor button.

All of the nameless faces in the elevator, people from other companies, form departments I should know but didn´t, not even after all this years. Bill, who came in seconds after me, then rushed to elevator, and then, Bill being ready to wrench himself in, Boris the bellboy spotted him and let the doors softly slide open. Alway almost the same conversation.

"Just made it," he would say, panting, the cheeks reddened. He was a sharped dressed man. Suits in beautiful blue, gray or even ochre and sometimes he wore his pink-striped camel colored wool Paul Smit suit. Slick shirts, fancy shoes, great tan, white teeth and maybe he had gotten his ass bleached too. Oftentimes I thought he'd be more in place than me, on 21st. I had also seen the results of his work. Impressive, harsh and rightful confronting but meticulous and precise. Too bad he was such an arrogant basterd.

"Excellent," I would answer, looking at him with a smile, my suitcase in front of my crotch.

"So, my friend, David my man, here we are, ready for one more day of glory," and he gave me no more than a look from the corners of his eyes, stared at the dull gray of the stainless steel elevator door, his figure a mere blurry mirror image. And then, it went like this.

"Here we are indeed," I said, although I wasn't too sure about any glory to come. Someone at the back sighed audibly. Bill turned his head to the woman, raising his brows.

"Screw her," he said under his voice, his mouth so near to my ear that I could feel his warm, damp breath.

"Bill, behave," I responded in a whisper, but then I gave him a brotherly smile. I hated myself for that. But I knew and worked with Bill and the woman, I glanced at her, I didn't know her. She too was in a suit. Nice. Dark long hairs, dark brown tan, hazel eyes that gave me an icy look. I nodded to her, in an apology. She looked the other way, as in disbelief.

"I never do, you know that," he said, louder now. In the corner of my eye the woman shook her head, then stared at the floor.

"But tell me, what's on your agenda today? " he continued, feigning ignorance. Now I sighed, remembering what I already knew.

"A meeting with...," I looked around, bit my tongue, figuratively speaking, "... with Mark."

I hated the CEO with whom I had — as the CFO — to work together on a daily basis. I limited my 'meetings' with him to short exchanges of communication on the doorstep of his room that was so large that I had to raise my voice, which annoyed him terribly, much to my pleasure. Or I emailed him, or texted him as he liked to document every contact he had with whomever and he didn't know how to archive his text messages to his computer. He was almost 64 and I suspected him of having, but hiding, beginning dementia. Maybe he was getting deaf as well. His decisions got more whimsical by the day. He was old-fashioned, I thought.

He had been in the army when he was young and — as he couldn't stop telling — had volunteered to the Seventh US Airforce that had preluded the end of the Vietnam War with a brutal airstrike operation that destroyed most of Hanoi City. Mark suggested that he had been part of this operation, but his wife, Heather, who left him at his sixtieth birthday, had once told me in an intimate moment that none of that was true, that Mark had confessed to her to have been so nervous at the time, that he had been vomitting, sick to the stomach, in the days before they would drop their deadly loads in the city. The leading officer had kept Mark on the ground. I never knew what to believe. It was not like Mark to admit such a thing, but neither was he much of a hero. In the company he based most of his decisions on the input of others, which is logical in a way for a man in his position, but then made them the culprits when a new policy he had administered met too much resistance. The last years however, his decisions had become more and more eratic.

Mark thought we were friends. I never did. It is true, we've known each other for nearly a decade now, we worked together in two separate companies in the US after he came back from what he called his — indeed, always spoken capitalized — Tour Through Europe. But friends, no, never. I liked Heather, not Mark, and what Mark never knew and now most certainly never will know anything about, is the liaison I had with Heather. I smiled.

"What about?" Bill asked. Bill damn well knew what the meeting was about. He had delivered reports that clearly indicated we — as a company — were doing bad and had to cut down costs somewhere. All that would get to see these reports would instantly understand that severe staff reductions were inevitable. Hence, Bill had given me a call before sending his latest reviews into the organization. "You might want to discuss this with Mark first," he had said to me. I was not surprised of the results.

"You know," I said, therefore. The woman in the corner — when the fuck would she be leaving the elevator, I thought — seemed to be listening. But I, we, we didn't say a thing.

"Righto...," and he looked at his toes. "Well, good luck then." and he left the elevator. I looked back, she was still there and apart from Boris we were the only two left.

"Do I know ...," I began. The door slid open.

"No, you don't," and she stuck out her hand. I gestured to the doors and glanced at Boris who didn't like to wait. Once we were outside, in the hallway to what seemed to be 'our' floor noe, I shook her hand with a question mark on my face.

"Susanna de Ferrante. I am the new assistant to Alison McKernan, the CCO." Then she blushed, "You know who that is, of course." I nodded and introduced myself.

"Why did you respond like you did on what my colleague said?"

"Because of his remark of another day of glory, I thought how can a man be so full of himself..." She paused, then continued, looking past me, "But I realize now he is probably a colleague of mine. I am too impulsive at times." I smiled, not knowing exactly why.

"Well, don't worry, he is stuck up, I can tell you." She laughed, shifting her weight from one leg to the other and back again, swaying a bit.

"Anyway," I looked around, saw colleagues walking around, some others already sitting in their cubicle. A bit further away, the coffee maker were people had gathered. Stella was behind the reception desk, watching me, maybe missing our morning routine. When she caught my eye she winked, kept staring at me for a while with her full lips, then went back to work. "...anyway. I wish you good luck here. I have to go on." I waited, pointed to Stella, "That's Stella, she'll take you to Alison, no doubt." She thanked me and went off. I watched her, and her bum, round, shaking a bit below her hips. I thought I was disgusting.

"Goodmorning David, " said Elsa, my secretary, when I came into my office. She had a desk inside my office, since some time now. Before she was outside, as a shield for unwanted visitors that actually didn't exist. I had my door open all the time and no visitor, except Mark maybe, was unwanted. One day I decided to call facilities and ordered them to place her desk in my office, it was spacious enough. Mark had witnessed this.

"Are you fucking her?" Mark commented. I wanted to slap him in the face real hard.

"Jesus-fucking-Christ," I responded instead. I looked him in the eyes, hard and cold, "How on earth can you live with yourself." He chuckled.

"They are all bitches. You know that. Whores." He flipped through the papers on my desk, and I repressed the urge to hit his fingers with my ruler. "So, you are fucking her, " he concluded. But he didn't dare look me in the eyes.

"I will leave my door open, so that you can see us doing it, you prick." I shook my head. "And stop touching my papers." He laughed and then went off when Elsa came in, "You be gentle to him, be gentle," and he laughed even more.

"Jesus," Elsa said.

"Good morning Elsea, how are you." I look at her, with a smile. She looked back at me, a vague smile, she is frowning, her eyes seem to be sunken into thoughts. "What?" I ask.

"It's Mark. He phoned from the car."

"Come again? You're telling me he'll be in early?"

"Exactly. He wants to have that meeting with you as soon as he comes in." She pauses. "David, it sounds like trouble." She lifts her hand up from her keyboard, "I just don't know." I nodded, feeling the muscles of my face tightening. "Shall I pour you one?"

"Yes please. You are an angel, and don't worry, will you?" I went to my seat.

From my case I took Bill's report, flipped through the pages, towards the conclusion. I sighed. That moment Elsa was at my desk with my mug.

"More trouble?" She was dressed in a dark red blouse, on a black skirt. She had a simple necklace with some sweat water pears attached to the lower quarter of it. The pearls where shaded light-orange, more than pink. Elsa's skin started to wrinkle and the collars of her blouses had gotten higher over the years. She was fifty-six. But she was pretty slim, and good looking, her dark blonde hairs mostly in a bun, light make-up. She was as slender and tiny above as she was below. She was single again, as she had lost her husband in a car accident some years ago now. They never got kids as he was infertile and they didn't like the thought of having to raise the fruit that was partly from someone else's loins. There was a chair opposite my desk, for guests, people, colleagues who wanted to speak to me. I looked up at her.

"Come sit."

"Oh boy, that bad."

I told her about the report. That cutting down on staff would be inevitable. That I would try to save her position—I needed an assistant after all—but could not give any guarantees. She took it well.

"Don't you worry. I know you will do your best for me. And if not ..." She didn't finish her sentence.

"Then I will find you something else, Elsa, for sure," I said. The truth was I had no idea if that would be possible at all. When you were over fifty, you held on to the job you had as getting other work, as an applicant competing with all the young and cheap, was an exercise that was know to be fruitless.

"So, you're meeting with Mark is about that?"

"It is indeed. Seems this time I am the bringer of bad tidings."

"Figures are figures, nothing you can do about that. Am just wondering ... who has gotten us into this mess." I felt shame when she said that. I could not hide behind Mark's incompetence. I had been there too, the whole ride long. Then Mark came rushing in. He pointed at the meeting table.

"Right here. Elisa, bring my some coffee."

"Elsa," she corrected him and poured him one, full to the edge. She knew too that Mark had lost his steady hand.

"Put it over there," he gestured. He bent over to the mug and loudly slurped down the first centimeter of his coffee. He then looked triumphant to Elsa. Watching her for a while. He turned to me, pointing at her. Elsa looked up, raising her brows.

"This is why she shouldn't be in your office." Elsa was rolling her eyes.

"Ella, I am sorry hun, you have to go. I have ..."

"You go nowhere," I interrupted him. "We'll go to your office, alright?"

"Jesus. You are weak, you know that? You are just plain weak." He took his mug.

"Let me finish this." Over the table he looked out the window. We were close to the city border, after which Barringer Fields began. Even from this distance and height you could see the heather was blooming. A misty purple glow lay over all of the fields.

He took another coffee in his own office, snapping his fingers to his secretary, Manuela, a beautiful Brazilian woman in her mid-twenties. There were rumors about them. He looked at her when she was leaving his office, his eyes staring down, his mouth a bit open.

"I read Bill's report," he said. I cursed Bill, who had given Mark a head start. Opening a drawer he flipped through the files and took out a folder, opening it on his desk. He went through the pages.

"I don't agree. I think this report is rubbish. Fake. Not true." He looked at me pushing his lower lip forward, sitting bent forward with his arms resting on his thighs, his hands folded together as in a prayer. I was afraid of this. Agreeing with the conclusions of the report would equal admitting his failure. He had ignored my warnings and ordered heedless investments of which the costly purchase of Taylor&Blackstone was both the most recent and improvident example. This, he, had brought the company in its current position and at a point where only drastic measures could prevent its downfall.

"You want to bring this company down?" I looked at him, my lips pressed together in a thin line, my fists clenched in my lap. He could not see my hands but he noticed my lips.

"Your emotions, see, that is what fucks things up for you. Yes," he nodded, "that's why you'll never be in full control, why you'll always be in second place. Ugh." He looked at me, then leaned back and took a cigar form the box on his table. He had gone to a meeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with his secretary — "I need her as an intepreter," he had said — and Manuela had bought him a box of Angelina's, because they had the name of a woman.

My eye fell on the ashtray that was on the table. It was cube-shaped Venetian glass in beautiful shades of blue, its corner sharp. Manuela had forgotten to empty it, the day before. I rose from my chair. He looked at me, following my movements.

"To weak you say? Too polite too, you figure?" While I emptied the ashtray in the bin behind his desk, I felt its weight. Maybe two pounds, maybe a little less.

I saw his eyes widen when I swung my arm straigth in the air. His cigar tumbled from his fingers to the floor while his other hand clenched the lighter that tight that his knuckles turned white. Too late, too slow to shout he just cringed before the first blow cracked his skull. I panted, observing how he still managed to rise from his chair. Pointing at me he tried to speak but produced only a meaningless stutter. After the second blow he fell to the floor. He still was breathing, irregularly. There was little blood. With the first blow a corner of the cube had hit him right in the center of his skull. It was fractured and open. A small stream of blood was seeping out of it. The second blow was with a flat side of the ashtray and had bruised the back of his head; I saw how a network of bursted veins was spreading under his skin. I was sure he was going to die, but I wondered if that would happen soon. He was lying face down on the carpet.

I sighed and listened. No sound came through the oak doors of his office. I examined my clothes. On the sleeve of my shirt, close to that of my jacket, was a small spot of blood. I checked all the rest of my clothes. All was neat. I rolled Mark on his side with his cheek now resging on the floor, his eyes gazing at the panoramic vista of the city. Beautiful, I thought when I looked in the distance. I looked down on him. This way his skull, already cracked, was most vulnerable and I hoped things would not get too messy. I rolled up the legs of my trousers, one could never know. I stamped him his on the head with my right foot — my right leg is my strongest as I am right-handed — three times and then he spasmed, a ruttle of air escaping from his lungs. I looked. The few pink bubbles on his lips popped, one after the other. I had silenced him.

He was dehumanized. His face, although not terribly harmed was no longer his but of the monster he was. A monster fallen prey to his beta male, the one who had been in his shadow far too long. I wiped off my shoe at his side, and let it rest there for a while. In the window I could see my reflection and through that was the skyline of the business center and in the distance the purple of the fields. I was standing proud on my victim. But my face, was that me?

I turned to the phone, dialed Elsa's number.

"Mark?"

"No, it's me."

"Oh. Okay?"

"Listen, I'll give you a full account of the meeting later today, ok? But ... cancel my meetings for the rest of the day but for now ... I am out for a meeting with ... the Union."

"Got it." She wanted to say something more but I had already had hung up.

I walked around the body, looking behind me until the reddish footprint of my right foot had faded completely. I pulled down the legs of my pants and drew the sleeve of my jacket over that of my shirt.

When I closed the door behind me Manuela looked at me asking. She was doing her nails, the laptop on her desk was wizzing.

"Your laptop," I said, pointing, "You need a new one. It's getting hot, right?"

"Yes sir, it is, it's old," she sighed.

"Let me go to facilities, and I'll get you something new, alright?" She was straightening her back and smiled.

"Well, thank you!"

"O, and about Mark...," I held out a warning finger, "He'll be on the phone for a long time with his wife, better not disturb him, okay?" She looked up, her eyes big, and she swallowed.

"Right, I won't." I left her behind reassured but I didn't go to facilities ofcourse. I went for the 20th floor walking past Stella. I winked at her.

"Apologies, Stella dear, you no doubt noted I was held up this morning?"

"Yes, I missed our little morning chat," she pouted, "Will you make it up for it someday soon?" I smiled, showing my teeth.

"I will, I will," I bowed my head into her direction and went to the elevator.

"20," I said to Boris and he just nodded. When the doors openend Bill was just passing by.

"Could you just leave the elevator for a a second?" I asked Boris, who looked at me in astonishment and opened his mouth to protest but remained silent.

"Please? Get out for just for a few floors? I'll send it back to you, promise," I said giving him my friendliest smile. In dismay Boris left the elevator while I kept it open.

"Bill!" Bill halted, turned his head.

"My man! How did it ...," he started, but I interupted him.

"Come in, come in," I gestured, welcoming him into the elevator. Bill came in and I pushed 18, it didn't matter. As soon as the elevator started moving, I pushed the emergency brake. With a light shock it halted.

"What ...," he began but before he could finish his sentence I punched him hard in the middle of his beautiful face, hooked him under his chin and when he curved back I kicked him in his crotch hard with the point of my right shoe. He grunted and sunk to the floor. He lay on his side and he tried to get up, putting his hands to the side of his shoulders. I kicked him in the stomach. He fell back, trying to speak. I didn't hesitate and stamped him on his head. Thrice.

I released the emergency button and when the doors opened I pressed 21. While the doors were closing behind me I went out and walked to the stairs.

On the ground floor the receptionist was making a call. I looked the other way, pulling down my sleeve, and went through the revolving door, pacing but not running to the car park. When I drove out I saw two police cars parking in front of the building, cops hurrying in.

I wondered where to go. Taking hold of the steering wheel, my sleeve had popped out again from under my jacket. The blood stain had darkened and was looking at me like an angry eye. I looked at my face in the mirror. My eyes were sunken deep into my skull, my face was pale, bags had emerged under eyes, my pupils were opened wide, my lips were colored crimson, full of blood. My muscles felt strong and warm.

I drove off to Barringer Fields.

At the end of the trackway was this small lake surrounded by waving reeds and behind it the forest border. At my side, as an opening in the band of reed, was a small sandy beach, maybe man-made, for tourists. The engine of my Chrysler was purring. I looked at the black surface of the water that rippled in the wind. I pushed the power button and the engine stopped. I looked around, to the scenery, then in the car. I opened the glove compartment. There was just the user manual of my car, I never had had a gun. At my feet I saw the emergence hammer in its holder. I considered jamming the buckle of my safety belt.

I started the car again. On the passenger seat was the key, its only function was to open and close the door. I closed the doors, opened my window, threw out the key, closed the window again and while I was speeding forward, I thought, I am lion, I am not a man.

I opened my mouth and I roared.