Absolution: Visions of the Soul

By David Holloway

You will soon notice why this book has brought swift and glaring criticism from the law enforcement and psychological fields; as it allows the reader a killers first hand view; unlike anything you have ever experienced, or may ever wish to experience again.

Every volume written about repetitive killers has never fully answered the reason why. They give psychological opinions and text book retort; a clinical definition as to ones mental health, but it is not science that defines humanity, only the status quo.

From the first to the last page you will take a passage toward one of the most profound views of the thoughts and realities as to how a killer thinks; his truths; his idealistic perceptions of the world we share... insights you will never see otherwise.

As one reader stated, "At first I wanted to get into his head and see what he sees; now all I want is for him to get out."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 6, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450021807

David Holloway

David Holloway is a writer/blogger/Internet programer, recovering from paranoid schizophrenia. He has a degree in sport and physical education from university. He is a member of Infinite 29, a group of creative minds who express their attitudes and beliefs through art. He loves to express himself through art, and poetry.

Book preview

ONE

There’s a small coffee shop I sojourn that sits in a historic downtown district; enclosed by cobblestone walls that are lined with dimly lit gas lamps. Soft music blankets this domain with an irresistible hale that draws one unwittingly deeper into this awe of majestic buildings and magnificent homes from years well past… closer and closer to a time long forgotten.

The branches of these huge trees hang as angel’s wings across the fine lawns and corners. The obscurity they give by day turns to deepened shadows in the dead of night casting a ghostly remembrance of what once was.

Perhaps it calls to me because this is the only place I feel that I am in my element; enveloped in a world of knowledge and art. Ignorance has no place here among the dreamers and giants that have yet to be discovered.

Inside this coffee shop, a photographic collage of local history; faces and names forgotten and replaced over and over again by those who turned dreams into reality. It’s like a movie that continues to play, the same lines and sets, just different actors.

A haze of smoke hangs just above ones head across the entire room… only momentarily broken when one walks through. The rustic candles flicker in unison like a well orchestrated dance.

Chest and checkerboard sets are covered in dust; spaced unevenly throughout the tables and booths. The chairs are worn past their finish where men much greater than I have sat.

I listen attentively, although rarely do I have an actual conversation with other patrons, I do enjoy the philosophical notions that pour from the lips of the old and so eagerly swallowed by the young. It is education in its purest form, history from the man or woman who lived it.

This is a classroom far reclusive from books and chalkboards. There is no right or wrong only the pursuit of truth.

Truth…

This is an idea that eludes me. Truth is so highly regarded as the ultimate solution to ones woes and conflicts in life. Yet, the truth has caused so much undue anguish; perhaps an omission in its place would have been more apt to resolve heated conflicts.

Instead, I wonder about the souls that I have encountered in their last minutes. I imagine that they are all here with me in this place, instead of where they ended up.

I imagine that they are the ones talking among themselves. They are at the crossroads of their life and it is at this point that can choose to walk past me without so much as a hint that I am even in the room, or if they must be followed out into the night air for that final breath.

Their plight is not so different from any one else. The point they have come to is a mountain we have all faced at various times. The difference is that I am present when some of you must make that choice. Although you may have skated past hundreds of times, tonight may be the last, for at this moment; there will be no second chance.

You see, of all those I have come in divergence with, they have initiated the collision through actions independently from anything I have done.

Never once have I coaxed anyone into making any immoral decisions. Instead I have been more than patient and forgiving in their shortcomings.

Some I had espied for years repetitively making the same mistakes over and over until it became obvious that redemption of their wandering was impossible. Others I have sensed in a moment that their demise should be dispatched forthcoming.

In essence, I am not the one who has made the decision for life and death or truth and consequence. I am not the one that has walked amiss down the roads of this life, but instead the one that is forced to walk alone in this place.

For that, I am not bitter. I have no regrets for the past or the present. I have no ill will or vendettas toward anyone.

Perhaps I have not, nor will ever be caught and tried by the rules of society because I am neither afraid nor concerned about the loss of freedom or life. Each day of my existence could not be defined as freedom in the first place. At least, not as you would define it.

Sometimes I wish that I could enjoy a moment for eternity. I have stood in the place I am now, out in the street, in the dead of winter in the pre dawn hours.

There is fresh fallen snow… not one foot print can be seen. The tree branches bow down under the weight of this white powder as though they are kneeling in the presence of God himself. There is no sound. The gas lamp’s flicker off the snow as yellowish pastel colors dance rhythmically through the night. The air is like ice reaching deep into your chest.

This is the place I wish to stand for an eternity. This very moment locked in cadence with my life. I am surrounded in tranquility… sweet repose.

Yet, it will not be long before this place is tracked over. Snow plows piling the mounds on to the sidewalks, the sounds of cars, sirens, and people scurrying about.

But for these last moments I am still receptive to varying conversations around me. Intellectuals claiming that there was not a unique thought left in this world, and they are, within all probability… correct. There would be no ideas we could express, plans we could design, or earth-shattering findings we could present… they are all but a spinoff of what we have already seen, or at least, what someone else has seen.

While scholars that have been locked away in universities for decades would find that an extremely pessimistic outlook, claiming that it’s contrary to their teachings of limitless possibilities, many others would be more than willing to concur with that summation. It is a matter of those who live life through their dreams and those who live out their dreams within life.

In essence, we are destined to be no greater and no worse than the plan has designed us to be. It is a mathematical quota of poor and rich, good and evil, varied degrees of intellect, and appearance. No matter how much we change the outside, a poor man who wins the lottery and changes his appearance through plastic surgery will always be nothing more than a garbage can with a new coat of paint… strangers may see him differently, yet he must see himself for whom and what he is, has, and will always be.

The world is not a kind place. It is not some playground that we can live out blissful days and fairytale nights. Instead, we grow up to see that it revolves around who can screw over the next person the fastest; who can gain the confidence of the weak minded and manipulates the greatest amount of people into believing that they should be thankful for whatever scraps are thrown their way.

There are no heroes that exist for giving selflessly in the midst of something greater than themselves, it’s more so the chance of being a hero. A headline. They humble themselves by saying any one would have done the same. It sickens me.

It reminds me of a man that told me he was not afraid of death. How quickly his mind changed when I launched him off the roof a 17-story building.

I can assure you that on takeoff he was in disbelief and denial… that state of mind that all too many harbor themselves in on a daily basis. In that instant, reality and shock entangled themselves together like thorns to a rose. Surely this wasn’t happening. This kind of thing happens to other people. What have I done to find myself here?

Passing the tenth floor his entire life had been relived in moments. He saw faces of those he had forgotten flashing before his eyes as though he were looking at a slide show of past years. He clung desperately to dreams he had hoped to accomplish… never realizing that he never accomplished them because he could never triumph over his greatest adversary, himself.

There was that shimmer of hope, that prayer that he may survive yet… recalling news stories of how people have lived through such an ordeal.

By the fifth floor he had realized how trivial his thoughts and his life had been. The American dream of the corporate life, 2.5 kids in the suburbs with the picket fence had consumed his years. This was one of those non-negotiable situations he had only heard of.

His lips whispered the name of God, his eyes toward the heavens; his tears no longer an act. He found himself humbled in the truth that this was out of his hands.

By the first floor finality had set in and he merely waited for death… he evacuated his kidneys and bowels, and at landing he covered a 100 square feet with fear, sin, death, remorse, and shit. It’s kind of hard to figure out which is which at that high of a drop.

I feel no grief for this man. I did not choose him as a victim. I did not go out of my way to seek out some poor soul to throw off a building. He chose me. That’s the way it always is.

There is no one that can feel what I feel; no one that can relay the journey of my life, as I do not have anyone I converse with. My thoughts are of my own censure, tainted with grains of scattered ideas and broken truths.

Occasionally, however, I do dream… and in those dreams I am relieved of the burdens I carry. For those few moments I am free from the duty in which I am charged… wistfully swept to places where I need not hide my face from the voices of my past. In that transcendent passing of time my mind is not cluttered with tasks or pursuits, smiles are returned, and solace falls upon my hand; But only for that brief interlude.

Soon fields of snow will be splattered in blood, the embers of one’s life will be darkened for eternity, and but one last whisper will be cast from the lips of those I will free from their cumbersome existence… not because I am God like; nor am I some gatekeeper to another paradox, nor an all knowing being that guides one to some enlightened state; no misty fog that lurks in the shade of blackness. I am but a simple messenger that befalls those who cannot hear… and while my methods, although possibly viewed as somewhat unorthodox, are indisputably effective.

TWO

To me, serial killers are merely the cesspool of society. They are no more eventful than the everyday drive to work, lingering in our memory a week or two and then only brought up as conversation warrants… as long as any public interest allows a tabloid buck to be made.

They are inane animals that can be dissected in to minute parts by the most inexperienced of psychologists; imbeciles that are unable to cope with their unpleasant childhood or lack of attention from peers… bastard rejects of some inbred gene deficiency. They are retards to the true professional that hunts for a life time, kills at will, and is never even so much as questioned by police.

The serial killer picks his victims within his own defined perimeters according to sex, age, race, or perverted desires; falling in to specific categories that reveal characteristics as plainly as a photograph reflects what it sees. They are a host of faces that reveal the same fact… pitiful doltish boys that’s fate is to be caught, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

While some of these serial killers are intelligent, according to I.Q. tests, and have learned to combine intellect with some sort of common sense, their strategy is less than profound, allowing some inner rage to motivate them. This motivation allows their crimes to be readily understood by police: a mistake I do not make.

The significant difference between the serial killer and me is initiative and goal. I am not driven from within, but from without. They kill to rid themselves of some inborn pain or abuse. I rid the public of pathetic lives that no one ever misses in the first place… or at least, truth-is-known I provide closure