The Carnage.
The point was that someone could kill people- literally murder a lot of people- in Hanoi, and no one would care.
“Did you suspect,” the journalist asked, ‘ that your former colleague was a murderer?’
“Yeah,” we nodded, “but we didn’t really care.”
When the police found him- knee deep in gore, covered in blood and with the gristle of human meat between his teeth- no one was really surprised.
His email address, the one he used to apply for jobs teaching children, included the word ‘carnage’. That ought to have been a clue. But he came to work on time, there were no complaints, he caused no problems. He was reliable, and quiet and inoffensive. His opinions were mild. He kept himself to himself.
As you might expect from a man who killed, butchered and ate people.
They say it started when his manager pushed him too far.
“Please teacher,help me,” she would say everyday.”Help me please teacher.’
“I’ll give you the help you need,” he said.
Then he pushed her off the balcony.
He needed to dispose of the body, and he was hungry, and he didn’t like pho.
After that, it seems he just killed and ate everyone who pushed him too far. They pushed him, and he pushed back, normally off something high. As for eating his victims,that was probable because of the lack of protein in the Vietnamese diet. And the massive number of people who he slaughtered? Hanoi is the type of place where you find yourself saying ‘for fuck sake’ at least 5 times a day. Too many people pushed him too far. I cannot really blame him
Some times it was as if he wanted to get caught. Like the time he hold me about the sound proof room in his new flat. “So I can listen to my music.” he explained. Why would he need to play his music so loud? Or the time he posted on ‘Hanoi Massive’ asking where he could buy a good wet stone.
Most memorable was the time we were in a restaurant to together and he was given a pair of chopsticks, which he could not use.
“This is no way for a man to eat his feed,” he said.”I need a knife and fork to eat this muck.’
The waiter did not understand, but eventually he gave him a tiny fork. A really, tiny fork.
“I’ll show him what he can do with his fork,” he said, and followed the waiter into the kitchen.
“He was quite a character,” he said when he emerged 20 minutes later.
As an English teacher, he used WAS, the past tense, on purpose.
There was the time when he went to Literature Lake, to talk to his favorite Bar Maid, a short plump girl with a sour face. 4 Vietnamese men came over to his table,and started cock-blocking. They interrupted his conversation to introduce themselves, tease the girl, and make jokes about him in Vietnamese.
“Can you swim?” he suddenly asked them.
"No", they all laughed..
“It’s alright lads, I’ll teach you.”
The next morning 4 bodies were found in the lake.
No one likes being cock-blocked.
The last I saw of him, he said that he had paid the police a thousand dollar bribe, and was off to get some Chinese...
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