Interview with Evil

I decided to try out something new and post a short story I started writing a few days back, just a work in progress whose working title is Interview with Evil.

     People look to all sorts of sources for advice on how to live their lives properly and justly. They turn to inspirational speakers, media personalities, gurus, and religions. People ask themselves what would Jesus do? What did Oprah have to say again last night? And what were the ingredients in that cleanse that Dr. Oz was pushing last show?

     It's fairly common practice to look to sources of strong moral character for guidance, but I find we have as much to learn from the worst examples as well. The alcoholic at the bar, the wife beater who we read about in the paper, and the politician who becomes embroiled in scandal. All can teach us something.

     With this idea in mind I set out to find an individual who could give me evil's slant on the moral compass, with the intended end of taking something positive away from an extreme negative example. I ended up going to prisons across the country searching for someone who could fill the roll of "expert on evil". It all proved futile however, either the individuals I talked to were too crazy to follow my line of questioning, or they just looked like animals in a cage following some sick instinct. I wondered, where are all the evil geniuses you see on crime shows that take investigators on a wild goose  through a maze of intrigue, depravity, and violence? I ended up cursing my stupidity for buying into the trite fictional world of the crime drama, and lost hope of ever finding my perfectly evil subject.

     However fate didn't intend for me to trash this topic, it yearned for me to succeed, and to facilitate this I received a strange phone call no more than an hour after I had sat down to brainstorm new ideas. The voice on the other end was ragged, worn out and it said,

     "If you want your interview, go to 2050 West Gray street in Houston Texas within twenty four hours. Look for the unkempt man with the beard."

     Before I could speak a word in response to these odd demands the caller quickly hung up. I was perplexed, curious, and somewhat compelled to follow through with the callers demands. Before I was ready to do anything however I had to know if it was some sick joke, so I dialed the number that had come up on the display, all I received was a message stating that the number I dialed was out of service. At that point I sat at my desk staring at the wall wondering just how crazy one would have to be to pursue such a lead all the way down to Texas. I decided I was just crazy enough.