December 29, 1997
Las Vegas, United States of America
Of the many arts of the possible, one of the most captivating, perhaps, is that of the journalist. Standing in the shadows with a notebook in hand, neither grinning nor grimacing. The desires of almost anyone are to leave an imprint upon the earth as a way of letting all those who follow that yes they were alive at some point. They lived, they breathed, and they committed acts that can never be forgotten, whether for good or for bad. Their souls imprinted in ink that will never disappear until millions of pages are burned away, and behind them stands the ever-faithful journalist. There they watch every movement without even having to look up, silent and steadfast.
One of these such journalists sat at his desk, his object of observation now become an obsession. Countless papers filled up every inch of his room, strewn over his bed, taped up on the ceiling, covering the windows and doors. It didn’t matter, he didn’t have time for anything else, he wouldn’t be able to sleep peacefully until he got to the bottom of this, and he had nowhere else to go. Richard Griffin-McKay, he had no name to himself other than the one his parents had granted him. Yet that could all change, no, it would change as soon as his work was finished. For now he had no option but to push on until he made his breakthrough. Therefore he had willingly condemned himself to this lightless room, surviving on microwaveable meals, and swearing to never leave until his life’s devotion was finally ready to be shared with the world. Unfortunately for him, progress was slow, even when surrounded by countless evidence he struggled to piece them together into one comprehensible story. Yes each and every one of these papers were interconnected in some way or another, yet just how, and in the end what made them matter? This was one of his lowest points, so much progress to be made but so many things he couldn’t even begin to decipher. He simply lay hunched over his desk, his eyes glazing around and about, a migraine rising in the back. Realizing he’d find no answers without taking care of this headache first he finally resigned, if only for a short period, forcing himself up and out of the room.
Not too different from his own room was the rest of the house, desolate and unattended, several folders laying about and holding his initial drafts, incomplete and soulless. The man walked stiffly, clearly out of his comfort zone even if he was just taking a short walk to the kitchen. Once there he threw open a cabinet, its contents practically nonexistent save a couple of instant cup noodles that were already long past their expiration date. Just like with everything else this didn’t matter, health was a much secondary concern. Once having put some water to boil he ransacked his other mostly empty cabinets until finally finding his precious bottle of headache relief pills. As he struggled to pull off the cap an object beside the stove began to ring. His phone, that damned Nokia, long forgotten in the kitchen. It was honestly a wonder that the thing still had battery. Just who could it be that would dare bother him while he was busy with his grand project? A few possibilities crossed his mind but he pushed them out just as quick. They were who he should concern himself the least at this moment, rather he shouldn’t concern himself with anyone. With complete intention to ignore the call he turned around and focused on taking his pills. Yet what if this call was actually important to his research? What if they brought along the tiny piece of evidence that allowed him to clue it all together? No, that was just wishful thinking, absolutely impossible from any angle that he chose to look at it from. However, it would still be a while more until his meal of the day was ready. It wouldn’t really hurt to take a few moments to go through his voicemail while he was waiting anyways, right?
Slowly he reached out to the phone, as if it was a bomb that could explode at any instant. Holding it out well in front of him he dragged his fingers along the buttons. He could still put it down. No one was forcing him to. Hell, he was an adult fully capable of making his own decisions. Yet here he was, clenching his eyes as his finger finally opened his voicemail.
“Hello Rick, this is Roma. We’ve been trying to get a hold of you these past weeks. We know you’re on break but we’d also like to check in on you. I’ve asked around and no one has heard from you since you left. Are you ok?” Yes, that was a relief. It was simply a regular check-up from his boss, nothing he had to worry about for a while. After all it’d simply be easier to explain everything once he presented his finalized project. For the first time in months Ricky Griffin smiled, suddenly feeling somewhat confident that he had his life under control.
“Ricky… hey… it's been a while and this is kind of sudden but I also don’t want to leave you alone, you know? What would you say to spending Christmas with Dad and me? No pressure, just call me if you want to or actually just show up and if not you can just keep ignoring me… just like you’ve been doing…” Ricky’s smile faded almost immediately. The moment that he heard that voice that seemed to gnaw at the very core of his soul, slowly torturing him and chastising his most putrid thoughts. Once again he had been caught with the dilemma of why he had even started to do this. It would be so much more easier to block this number and hence also block all these unpleasant remorses but every time that this idea so much as fluttered through his mind suddenly it was as if it was the greatest of criminal offenses and him a law-abiding citizen, revolted by coexisting with such a possibility. His mind was turbid enough as it was, it wouldn’t do any good to dwell on such things, at least for the time being. In other words this was simply a problem he’d have to deal with some other day.
“Richard Griffin, we are calling from Tinte Pharmacies, it's been seven months since your prescription has last been filled. If you would like to cancel your order please call us at (702)338-4683. Thank you for your business.” There it was again, that bitter melancholy. A ray of hope would come only to be brought down and he’d be left scraping through its debris only to find nothing other than the fact that, well, life must go on. It would go on whether he’d want it to or not and if he refused to follow along it would drag him down this path some way or another. Assuming this was probably the last of his messages he returned his attention to his cup noodles, forgetting to turn off his phone.
“Ughhh ok ok. Look Richard, hah that's fitting, ok look I didn’t want to call you but Gen insisted so here I am. So I don’t want to sound like a… well like a you, but don’t show up at my fucking house. It looks like you’ve had enough shame to ignore our calls so I’m hoping that will continue and I’m not going to pretend that I have an idea of what your life has been like but look you’ve had a shitty childhood, cool, so have I. But you know what Ricky? That doesn’t give you the right to do whatever the hell you want. Just because your family didn’t give a damn about you doesn’t mean that I won’t protect my daughter from people like you-” As if on cue he dropped his cup noodles, the voice from the phone growing fainter as he began to drown in his own thoughts. There it was, that last little piece of evidence that he needed. It all seemed to make sense now. Not once had he actually missed a key moment or piece of information, rather he just failed to comprehend them all when looking at them from his own point of view. All that he had needed was to figure out that little issue of motivations that the story would have been lost without, but here they were now, loud and clear. After all, the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Not allowing himself a second more in which he might begin losing track of these realizations he ran back to his room. There he began tearing down some of the strings that connected the various documents, instead hanging them up and connecting them off elsewhere. Notes were scribbled out and then rewritten, documents now began to seem useless and were crumbled up and thrown to the side, his pen began to dig into his palm, he bit more fiercely into his lip as he reexamined everything from this new light. As he cut more strings the scissors would sway from his shaking hands and cut at his fingers. Gradually the papers on the floor began to receive a small sprinkling of blood rain while he still hurried manically around every inch of the room. Yet throughout this all, he didn’t stop once. It was as if he stopped just once then his work would begin to slip away and he’d end up beating his head on the wall only to never come to as great of an understanding of his subject as he did just then. Minutes passed and then turned to hours which continued on through the night. Not for a moment did he take into account this passage of time until finally he allowed himself to collapse onto the floor. Finally, finally, it all made sense. His work was… finished? This object of his obsessions for years finally made complete sense. Taking it all in he finally let himself collapse onto the floor. By now the blood from his lips had trickled down and dried along his shirt collar, likewise the tips of his fingers seemed to have been dipped into a vat of blood in preparation for giving some sort of macabre fingerprints, his eyes were swollen from nights without rest, but through this all what else could he do but laugh? Laugh loudly, perhaps without joy or at the very least some twisted sort of it, but laugh and relish in the moment in which his life’s work finally seemed so clear.
This obsession of his, of course, could be no less than that of Leon McKay. Truly a tragic story to all, that of the brilliant presidential nominee who with his victory assured was forcefully sent into an eternal rest. Yes, the beloved Leon McKay, assassinated. The perpetrator of such a vile act then sentenced to have his memory forever kept in infamy once he took his own life, cowardly as he was. This was, of course, the bitter truth that poor Americans were forced to endure, that of their beloved savior dying before he could bring blessings upon the entire world. Yet when this journalist had taken a look at the story he did not respond with the awe or tears for this fallen martyr that others gave. Rather he had scoffed and well as was his nature to try and dig up every last detail that he could of this man and his killer, and truly had he found them. Slowly he stepped back and took in every string in the room. Each and every one of them without fail led back to the same bit of evidence he had originally ignored. Simple as it was, he had still failed to understand its actual meaning until now. The evidence in question was a simple photo, that of a basic family portrait: Antonio Lovure, the loathed assassin of Leon McKay, standing beside his wife and son.
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