Prompt 181 / Minor Characters / "Itty Bitty Bits"
Title: Itty Bitty Bits
Author: antigone_rex
Character: Barry the Chopper
Word Count: 894
Rating: T / PG-13
Warnings: There be chopping. People chopping.
Summary: A glimpse into Barry the Chopper’s inner crazy.
Note: I know what you’re thinking: “Barry the Chopper, Antigone? Really?” But here’s what I love about the FMA fic contest: We can play around with our writing style.* It’s fun. It’s challenging. And this was a stretch for me to say the least. Barry the Chopper is far from my favorite character, but he called to me, and I answered.
My wife was a pretty little thing. All fluttering hands and fluttering lips and fluttering apron strings. She helped me in the shop back when I was a well-known, much-trusted butcher. I laugh to think on it now. Surely she must’ve known. I didn’t try to hide the signs. I liked the rhythm of it, you see, I liked to take things apart. She saw how much I loved to chop. She was the one that cleaned up my messes, after all.
Maybe she didn’t want to admit it. Maybe she ducked her head and ignored the way blood flew from my cleaver and colored the walls like paint spattered on canvas. Maybe she refused to watch as I stared and stared and stared at the way juice ran from a still-fresh cut of meat. Maybe she pretended my breath didn’t come hot and ragged as I hacked at joints and muscle and sinew. Maybe she couldn’t handle the truth of it - the truth of me.
I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her.
I remember when the gossip started. It spread like a virus, jumping from person to person, growing wild and desperate and only half-true. I was one of the first to hear of it; there were always customers in the shop. People came in clusters, all quiet, conspicuous titters, trying their best to un-keep their little secrets. They said he was crazy: the Chopper Man, the Machete Murderer. They said he stalked the streets at night. They only knew rumors, but they treated them as truth all the same. I smiled at their ignorance. The fools. They knew nothing of the darkness. They knew nothing of the cold, dull sound a knife makes as it cuts through skin and flesh and bone. Only I knew these things, and they were mine.
They didn’t think to ask about my pretty little wife. They were too busy with their own affairs to notice a quiet woman no longer shuffled in the back of the butcher’s shop. But they did complain that my steaks were a shade lighter and a bit more lean than they’d been before. I shrugged and told them it was a bad year, what with the drought in the East. “The livestock are suffering,” I said, “Meat’s not what it used to be.”
They smiled and thought nothing more of it. I smiled back and handed them their pretty little package, tied up nice and neat.
There were so many ways to do it. So many ways to chop, dice, cleave, lop, sever, mince, hack. I loved every one of them. I loved them to itty bitty bits. I loved them so much I did it again and again and again. The sounds of shattering bone mixed with snuffling screams... it was music to my ears. There was no question: I loved to chop. I couldn’t stop.
Hey! That rhymed.
I wasn’t surprised when they finally caught me. I was sloppy and wild. I liked it that way. I liked to leave a mess of things. It looked beautiful to me: the way the blood spattered against my arms, the blunt cuts of my blunt knife, the faces made alive with fear. I suppose it was my undoing. Oh well. I have no regrets. I enjoyed every one of them to their last breath.
My final chop was in an alley, well past the midnight hour. It was her fault, really. Such a pretty little thing shouldn't be out alone so late, especially with a madman prowling the streets. I taught her a lesson, then I chopped her to bits. Itty bitty bits. Chop, chop, chop.
Someone else must have seen us, I suppose. The things I did were not quiet; they looked perverse to the untrained eye, not beautiful and perfect in their imperfection. I heard shouts at the end of the alley and the sounds of cocked guns. I couldn’t help my stupid grin as I slowly stood to face them. It was too late for her, anyway.
I often wonder how I looked to them. In my mind, I am beautiful. Covered in blood, gore dripping quietly from the end of my cleaver. Warm flesh and solid bone. I dream of it sometimes. I dream of the heat and feeling of that moment. But then ‘dream’ isn’t the term for it, is it? I don’t sleep anymore.
Sometimes I miss that body.
They took me to a prison filled with people like me. That’s what they said, at least. But the others weren’t like me at all. They didn’t know the whine of the cleaver as it cut through the air. They didn’t know the warmth of blood as it spilled over their hands. They used guns and ropes and poison. They had no elegance, no style. I was special. I was different - better than them.
The gold-toothed doctor must have known this. He took me to a quiet room filled with a red haze. He told me he would make me better, stronger, immortal. He shattered my mind. Shattered it to itty bitty bits. He pulled my soul apart and put back together again, piece by excruciating piece.
Then I woke up here, in a metal cage. Voice hollow but arms strong. Perfect for chopping.
I could get used to this.
*This week, don’t eat paint asked that I write in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. For those not familiar with his work, just think “sting of consciousness while drunk and possibly on drugs.” Thus, Barry the Chopper! No drugs were on hand for the writing of this piece (though EtOH may or may not have been consumed), so I’m not sure how Thompson-esque it actually appears.
Author: antigone_rex
Character: Barry the Chopper
Word Count: 894
Rating: T / PG-13
Warnings: There be chopping. People chopping.
Summary: A glimpse into Barry the Chopper’s inner crazy.
Note: I know what you’re thinking: “Barry the Chopper, Antigone? Really?” But here’s what I love about the FMA fic contest: We can play around with our writing style.* It’s fun. It’s challenging. And this was a stretch for me to say the least. Barry the Chopper is far from my favorite character, but he called to me, and I answered.
My wife was a pretty little thing. All fluttering hands and fluttering lips and fluttering apron strings. She helped me in the shop back when I was a well-known, much-trusted butcher. I laugh to think on it now. Surely she must’ve known. I didn’t try to hide the signs. I liked the rhythm of it, you see, I liked to take things apart. She saw how much I loved to chop. She was the one that cleaned up my messes, after all.
Maybe she didn’t want to admit it. Maybe she ducked her head and ignored the way blood flew from my cleaver and colored the walls like paint spattered on canvas. Maybe she refused to watch as I stared and stared and stared at the way juice ran from a still-fresh cut of meat. Maybe she pretended my breath didn’t come hot and ragged as I hacked at joints and muscle and sinew. Maybe she couldn’t handle the truth of it - the truth of me.
I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her.
I remember when the gossip started. It spread like a virus, jumping from person to person, growing wild and desperate and only half-true. I was one of the first to hear of it; there were always customers in the shop. People came in clusters, all quiet, conspicuous titters, trying their best to un-keep their little secrets. They said he was crazy: the Chopper Man, the Machete Murderer. They said he stalked the streets at night. They only knew rumors, but they treated them as truth all the same. I smiled at their ignorance. The fools. They knew nothing of the darkness. They knew nothing of the cold, dull sound a knife makes as it cuts through skin and flesh and bone. Only I knew these things, and they were mine.
They didn’t think to ask about my pretty little wife. They were too busy with their own affairs to notice a quiet woman no longer shuffled in the back of the butcher’s shop. But they did complain that my steaks were a shade lighter and a bit more lean than they’d been before. I shrugged and told them it was a bad year, what with the drought in the East. “The livestock are suffering,” I said, “Meat’s not what it used to be.”
They smiled and thought nothing more of it. I smiled back and handed them their pretty little package, tied up nice and neat.
There were so many ways to do it. So many ways to chop, dice, cleave, lop, sever, mince, hack. I loved every one of them. I loved them to itty bitty bits. I loved them so much I did it again and again and again. The sounds of shattering bone mixed with snuffling screams... it was music to my ears. There was no question: I loved to chop. I couldn’t stop.
Hey! That rhymed.
I wasn’t surprised when they finally caught me. I was sloppy and wild. I liked it that way. I liked to leave a mess of things. It looked beautiful to me: the way the blood spattered against my arms, the blunt cuts of my blunt knife, the faces made alive with fear. I suppose it was my undoing. Oh well. I have no regrets. I enjoyed every one of them to their last breath.
My final chop was in an alley, well past the midnight hour. It was her fault, really. Such a pretty little thing shouldn't be out alone so late, especially with a madman prowling the streets. I taught her a lesson, then I chopped her to bits. Itty bitty bits. Chop, chop, chop.
Someone else must have seen us, I suppose. The things I did were not quiet; they looked perverse to the untrained eye, not beautiful and perfect in their imperfection. I heard shouts at the end of the alley and the sounds of cocked guns. I couldn’t help my stupid grin as I slowly stood to face them. It was too late for her, anyway.
I often wonder how I looked to them. In my mind, I am beautiful. Covered in blood, gore dripping quietly from the end of my cleaver. Warm flesh and solid bone. I dream of it sometimes. I dream of the heat and feeling of that moment. But then ‘dream’ isn’t the term for it, is it? I don’t sleep anymore.
Sometimes I miss that body.
They took me to a prison filled with people like me. That’s what they said, at least. But the others weren’t like me at all. They didn’t know the whine of the cleaver as it cut through the air. They didn’t know the warmth of blood as it spilled over their hands. They used guns and ropes and poison. They had no elegance, no style. I was special. I was different - better than them.
The gold-toothed doctor must have known this. He took me to a quiet room filled with a red haze. He told me he would make me better, stronger, immortal. He shattered my mind. Shattered it to itty bitty bits. He pulled my soul apart and put back together again, piece by excruciating piece.
Then I woke up here, in a metal cage. Voice hollow but arms strong. Perfect for chopping.
I could get used to this.
*This week, don’t eat paint asked that I write in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. For those not familiar with his work, just think “sting of consciousness while drunk and possibly on drugs.” Thus, Barry the Chopper! No drugs were on hand for the writing of this piece (though EtOH may or may not have been consumed), so I’m not sure how Thompson-esque it actually appears.