The Making Of A Mad Man

The Making Of A Mad Man

The Genesis Of Genocide


By: Matthew Foster, or Myself















All villains and tyrants were once one with the wonders of brotherhood. It takes a Judas to crucify a Jesus, and a Caesar to be betrayed by a Brutus. But for a hobbledehoy like Viktor Sativer, loyalty was only a stone’s throw away from intellectual suicide. Viktor was a good boy, a straight-A student who found distaste in public affairs because he was always told not to talk to strangers. For this reason, he took comfort in religion, brotherhood and love. For his age, Viktor was beyond the wisdom of his years, yet he was still a joker who became something of a local celebrity, regardless of how hard he tried to avoid popularity. The key is to embrace it, he learnt, no matter how much of an escape artist he was, no matter how much he preferred to find solace in solitude.

The air in the lounge was thick with an awkward quietness, a rather sickening reflection of a good Christian home where divine law maintained marriage and family relations. Beyond the facade of what they considered to be true, Viktor could spot lies before they were told, and even more so, he knew when people were living under mendacity. His mother would beat him for lying when he was a child, so when he became a hostile teller of the truth, he understood that he would have to exchange respect for honesty. Whelps from the belt swelled like speed humps on his legs with droplets of blood oozing through the skin. Surely, Viktor understood pain more than he did the lies he was accused of telling. Surely, it was only right, for the rod was certainly spoilt to bend an already straight pine tree. He had nobody to talk to about it. He did not even ask his parents for advice, but that never bothered him, because before they knew it all they asked him for advice. Norman, his brother, was much luckier than he was, much more socially acceptable, and had no qualms with conformity and authority.

“Why the silence Norman?” said Viktor to his brother that evening. “Have you been drinking? What’s that smell?”

Norman steered his eyes towards him awkwardly, as though he had taken offence to the questions. “I have, but my silence has nothing to do with your attitude.”

“My brother-“

“Stop talking like that! Christ, this isn’t a bloody Shakespeare play that you have to get so dramatic. You’re ridiculous Viktor; get your nose out of your books for once”.

A cold draft blew the curtains in two, as the black cloud around Viktor’s head began looming its ugly figure over his entire being. The awkward silence in the room suddenly thickened. The boys’ parents were at prayer meeting, as usual, and the lonely boy retreated back into his shell.

“I only wanted to talk to you. It doesn’t matter though. I’ll be in my room”.

The door shut and Viktor closed his eyes. He breathed in deeply through his nose, exhaling through lips parted. He opened his eyes and shut the windows with one hand, incinerating his lighter and lighting a fag with the other. Spray-painted black, the windows told the story of a boy surrounded by light from the outside. He thought back to a time when things were pure and innocent, when righteousness was not as important as happiness. He wondered how happy his mother would be when the following year came, for he knew that when she abandoned them she only returned for her children who would not leave their father. Neither of his parents were really ever there, and he no longer remembered what it felt like to have a family. Viktor and Norman were raised by Sophia and Francois, the maid and the gardener, in safe suburbia, far from the criminal environment of township life, yet he always found himself back on the streets.

To be truthful, Viktor had no real friends, only acquaintances. He learnt to hate those who belittled him, and “friends” could only be trusted judging by the measurement of a few shots of vodka. He did have a friend once, Clarence was his name, but his parents’ church prayed him into jail. The fool he called a friend, Ricky, still held a grudge against him for something that happened in the tenth grade, which was more than six years ago. Viktor lost his virginity at a very late stage to a girl named Elaine, who would lead him on only to embarrass him by spitting him out of her mouth in utterly contemptible disgust, on one occasion, and finally castrating him by getting naked before telling him to put his clothing back on. She said that although sex drew the two of them closer to one another, it pushed her further away from God. Trying as hard as he could to understand why she would not embrace her instinctual desires, Viktor eventually suppressed his own will entirely, just as he did to accommodate his parents’ religious radicalism, and just like how he always put the wishes of those who he thought were his friends before his own.

One afternoon his father told him that he was old enough to make his own decisions and have his own beliefs. This was rather strange, coming from the man who threw his copy of the Holy Quran into the furnace, along with his coofiah and scarves. Viktor took refuge in Islam, secretly, but was devastated when he learnt that he would no longer be allowed to eat his mother’s food because it was not halaal. That night, he returned home and made it clear that he would be officially converting to Islam, only to be told to pack what he owned and leave the house. His father tripped him and mounted him at the chest, mouth foaming with a rather strange anger; he punched his son saying that he was beating sense into him as it was the will of God. God. Now there is a strange character; an old man who commits genocide when things don’t go the way he plans. Viktor decided that it was best if he just ceased believing altogether, since no matter how hard he tried to regain his faith, he could never believe in what he chose to invest his faith in.

“Mendacity”, he thought, “All of this is just one big fat joke. Brotherhood, friendship, love, even God is the folly of fools”.

Two hours passed, it was now just after ten p.m. There shone the lights of a Mercedes Benz outside the house. Viktor heard two doors opening then closing. He called Norman but was ignored, as usual. His ear followed the clicking of heels and the thudding of wooden soles. Viktor waited for the knock at the door, and opened up to face two pastors who wore a plastic happiness on their faces like cheap make-up.

“Hi Vik, we’ve come to visit you”, greeted Pastor Gregory, as his wife, Pastor Glynnis, walked right past him through to the lounge. They shook hands, and Viktor offered both of them something to drink and the most comfortable of the couches. Greg opted for coffee and Glynnis just shook her head.

“What’s this I hear about you converting to Islam? Do you know what you are playing with my boy? Allah is a demon-god, I’ve told you that before”, she said in what Viktor thought was the most annoying voice she could muster at that time; high-pitched and cheeky with an air of arrogance.

“Well, Pastor, it is my choice. I was nearly homeless because of this decision so I’ve decided to become an atheist instead”, replied Viktor. Both Pastors burst out laughing until their eyes were red with tears. This was no laughing matter at all. “What is so funny?”
“Oh, my boy! You are, don’t you see? You changed religions twice in one week and you expect us to take you seriously. Laughter is good, you should really try it when you have time”, said Glynnis.

The audacity of these unwanted guests was disgusting. Viktor could not believe that these were God’s servants. He thought they were inferior, sub-human, always looking to become martyrs. “I have been an atheist for over two years now.”

“Okay Viktor, let’s just clear this up quickly. This has nothing to do with faith. You are trying to disturb the peace in your home. We all know that you never forgave your mother for what she did a few years back, and that’s why you are so adamant on destroying your family”, retorted Glynnis.

“Is that right?” replied Viktor.

“Yes it is”, said Glynnis as though she had just stated a life-altering fact that would somehow change the world forever.

“Oh, I see. Well, go on, I’m sure you can tell me more about my beliefs than I can. Would you like to put a few more words in my mouth while you’re at it? Perhaps add a few thoughts in my head as well?” Viktor had become extremely angry in a matter of seconds. Who did this bitch think she was to come over unannounced with her castrated husband, only to reopen the wounds of the past and ridicule him, all in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?

“Viktor, my boy, you are aware that by not believing in what we believe in, you will be going to Hell? Is that really where you want to be? Come on, let’s stop the silliness. All of this can be resolved if you just say the sinner’s prayer,” said Gregory before taking a sip of his coffee.

“You people are crazy. I can’t believe you have the nerve to embarrass me in my own home, and still have the audacity to condemn me as if you walk on water and piss champagne. Do dolphins appear out of nowhere when you take a swim or are you just that bloody perfect? All I did was assert my own identity, but you won’t even let me have that. Instead you come over, crack your shitty little inside jokes, tell me I’m going to Hell, and still expect me to believe after all that effort. You are not welcome here, that you must know. You people think that you are a chosen elite, and because I reject that mentality you all want to crucify me.”

“Greg, this is a waste of our time. This boy doesn’t know himself-“

“I know who I am. I am Viktor Sativer, the boy who knows too much,” responded Viktor.

“Come let’s go Greg, he just read this somewhere again, that’s why he acts like this,” said Glynnis.

“You are right my love, we should leave.”

“You guys are pathetic. Unlike you I do my own thinking and control my own destiny. I speak of one love, universal brotherhood. Your gospel speaks about getting even, siding with the bully because you’re too cowardly to fight your own battles. You call the non-believer inferior, but to me, you are the infidels. I never thought that my good intentions for myself would lead to such hatred from such self-righteous pricks. I hate you, leave! Now!” And with that, Viktor opened the backdoor for them, slamming it shut before they had even said goodbye.

Silence choked the air in the house as it always did. Viktor could not believe that he had been condemned and offered salvation in the same breath. He hated the Christians because of people like Gregory and Glynnis. He hated the Muslims because they tore him from his family. He also hated those who lived to dominate and possess authority because of how Ricky looked down on his peaceful self-sufficient existence. Viktor had snapped inside. The implosion destroyed all things bright and beautiful in him. All the years of mendacity, false hope in a god who never answered prayers, the belittlement and being labelled Ricky’s shadow, all led to the manifestation of a tyrannous soul. People wanted to live his life for him, but he would not allow that to happen. For the first time in his life, Viktor wanted revenge, blood, all for the righteous cause of making the world a better place.


News spread fast about the incident at Viktor’s parents’ house that night. When his parents got home, they beat him. Although he was now twenty-one years of age, he was still made to feel as dependent on his parents as a fifth grader. Viktor bottled much of what he felt up, but now he had lost control, and the cork that helped to contain eleven years of rage and anger had been popped off of the neck of the bottle, never to be put back on. When his father punched the air out of his lungs, Viktor resorted to building bombs in his room which he would then use to blow their church into smithereens. For every slap across the cheek he got from his mother for his silence, Viktor said the harshest words that he could muster; reopening the wounds of the past just like the Pastors had convinced him he was initially doing.

Two weeks of manic depression passed. Viktor had not seen Norman or his parents. He was now most definitely a homeless child in a grown man’s body, sleeping in the trash in a foetal position. Every now and then, he would break into his room to check that nobody had found his set of home-made explosives. Finally, Viktor took off with the bombs, and placed four of them at every corner of the church which his parents went to. When the night came, he would detonate them, and that place of worship which he hated so much would not be utterly wiped off of the face of the earth.

With a can of black spray-paint; he tagged the pavement outside of the church:

ADOLPH HITLER KILLED JEWS
GEORGE BUSH KILLED MUSLIMS
THE CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST IS UPON YOU NOW
WOE TO THE MAN WHO SEEKS TO DOMINATE

Four explosives in four corners, four minutes until detonation, and a clear message of warning left at the front door of the church, Viktor’s execution of his plan for revenge was perfect. He walked away from the crime scene just as the Christians turned their back on him when he revealed his true identity to them.

Viktor was a good boy, but when innocence is abused, the repercussions make for a rather uncomfortable living experience. As a grown man, the notion that goodness was still embodied in this misfit was as farfetched a hope as repeating history in the future.

Wandering the streets of Johannesburg in the middle of winter without anything except a thin rag for what would have passed for a sweater 366 years ago, Viktor was no prodigal son, nor was he a rebellious nerd without a cause. No. All the man wanted was for people of all creeds, cultures, races, and religions to realise the potential that humanity had. His wars with god always struck people as radical. Furthermore, behind all of this resentment towards a god who never answered his prayers lay a traumatic experience of isolation within his religious circles. People judged him as a lunatic. They labelled him, as Pastor Gregory Kieser once said in a service, “a child born out of wedlock; the very seed of Satan”. So the Devil on a cross came to be a homeless wreck. His hair grew into locks, the beard on his face reminded people of bin Laden, his fingernails grew past his fingertips, and his skin had gone from a golden brown to pale beige within a matter of months.

As far as the church bombing was concerned, everybody knew who was responsible for it. The public was outraged, and he was titled a menace to society, an aggressive heretic. All of this commotion came from the people who condemned him for trying to live his life free from mental captivity. Unlike them, Viktor believed in the human spirit. He believed in the power of unity. He did not want to dominate. Despair is justified when there is knowledge of an inevitably bad ending. How far is a man willing to go to change his future? Viktor decided to go home and find out for himself.

After a six hour walk from Braamfontein to Boksburg, Viktor finally arrived in his old neighbourhood. He walked past the old church, remembering the night that he pushed the red button on his detonator and how it left a dazzling array of neon-like flames in the sky, chased by the scent of sulphur, with black smoke rising ever higher, making the church look like a furnace. He made his way to number 36 Alridge Street, not knowing how he will be welcomed, or whether he will be welcomed at all. A hobbledehoy without any sense of social convention, Viktor always had the fear that somebody somewhere was critiquing his every move. After smoking a nipped cigarette to the very filter, he finally relaxed himself enough to knock on his parents’ front door.

“Who is it?” called Norman, sounding a lot calmer than the last time he saw his brother.

“It is me, Norman, Viktor, your brother.” Those were the first words he had spoken in months, and he could not help but notice how deep it had become as it cracked through the silence outside like a thunderstorm.

Inside, he could hear his brother hurriedly pacing towards the door. Viktor felt a certain feeling that he had not felt since the night he got told to leave for choosing another religion. That feeling was one of brotherhood by blood, not ideology. The very essence of humanity: blood.

“Where the hell have you been? You left me all alone with a congregation of lunatics Viktor. How could you do that? Do you have any idea how radical they have become since you decided to celebrate Guy Fawkes in the bloody church? Do you? They set fire to all of the mosques within the vicinity bro. The future is looking grim for both camps. You can’t stay here for long Vik, come in, you look like you could do with a little something to eat.”

Viktor could not conceal the tears. He wept in silence, knowing that if he entered his parents’ house, and if he was still there when they returned from wherever they went, there would be police crawling out of the woodwork like a mound of termites. Hesitant and cautious at the same time, Viktor gave Norman a hug and simply said, “Thank you”.

“I know what the pastors did to you bro. I know what Ricky did. I know what Elaine did. It’s not right Vik; Karma’s coming to get them.”

“You know, Norman, I was always about peace, love, brotherhood. Maybe I’ve been too much of a dreamer all these years, but say I had to take Karma into my own hands like I did at the church? I rate I could change the world for the better by making examples out of scum.”

“Examples huh?” said Norman while he fried his brother a fillet of hake, “What you gonna do? Murder Elaine and bomb Ricky’s house with his entire family asleep inside? That won’t solve a damn thing guy-”

“Ja but it will purify the earth of scum who allow domination and man-made religion to dictate how life should be. You think I’m just gonna sit on my bony arse and just watch the vermin pollute and enslave peoples’ minds, shatter their dreams, tell us we can but do everything in their power to make sure that we can’t. No, no, no daddy, I won’t let what Ricky, Elaine, and the church do to everybody else what they did to me. I mean, I was just a rapper slash poet living in my dreams when Ricky came along and broke my spirit, then still had the bloody nerve to accuse me of backstabbing him when I was suicidal with my own problems. Just because I am free of any system of thought he can’t handle it. You wanna know what Hell is Norman?”

“A lake of fire where all of the non-believers go when they die?”

“No you bum,” chuckled Viktor playfully. ”Hell is the failure of your life’s greatest ambition.”

“So what does that have to do with Ricky?” there was an awkward silence that preceded this question for about five seconds. “Look Viky, I can understand where you’re coming from okay. I’m not like ma and dad. I’m not perfect, nobody is. You wanna know what perfection is?”

“Flawlessness?”

“Na bro, you’re missing the bigger picture. Perfection is serving whichever purpose you choose for yourself to the best of your abilities. So what Ricky broke your spirit? Where is he now? You can blame him all you want, but the superior man blames himself before others.”

Norman took the hake out of the pan and put it onto a plate, then dished some vegetables up for his brother and handed the meal to him. He watched as Viktor ate it all up in what would have been record time had it been timed. While he ate, Viktor plotted his revenge. To take life from someone else meant that that life could be restored by the hands of the assailant, hypothetically. But humans are not gods that they should possess such capabilities. Rather, Viktor found solace in revenge once more. How could the people he called his elders, the friend he called a brother, the girl he called his lover all betray him like this? The bigger picture was that the human race would have to be purified of infidels like these before any further progress could be made in evolution. So, after dinner, Viktor told Norman not to mention his presence to his parents, not knowing how they would react under the influence of radicalism, saying that he would break into his room before sunrise.

He made his way back into the streets with a bloodlust and a newfound affirmed purpose. To purify the human race was his purpose, and anybody who threatened the livelihood of humanity would feel the brunt of a blow deep enough to rearrange any man’s skeletal frame in seven different shapes. Viktor pent up a lot of pain throughout his childhood, but now he would get even and simultaneously serve a sacred cause. He was not the villainous terrorist that people characterised him to be. He was an anti-hero, in his own books. Viktor made his way across the railroad which intersected his neighbourhood with Ricky’s. With him he carried a satchel that encased three bottles of vodka and three fresh cloths which he shoplifted from the 24 hour department store in Commissioner Street. He also carried a knife because live ammunition and guns were just too noisy. Viktor marched with soldier-like precision with his gaze fixed upon the direction where Ricky lived, breathing calmly, nostrils flaring, his forehead without a single wrinkle, and his face expressionless. He did not even blink; his will was absolutely bent on vengeance.

He arrived at his destination at two a.m. in the morning. Once upon a time not long ago, Ricky and Viktor were as close as brothers, or at least Viktor considered Ricky to be his brother. But how could Ricky be his brother’s keeper if he only had a sister? A sister who just so happened to have a crush on Viktor and who imposed kisses on his lips when her brother was not looking.

Viktor knew every blade of grass on Ricky’s property. He knew the house like he knew his parents’, but Ricky could never say the same because he never paid his loyal friend any visits. For a minute he considered lighting the Molotov cocktails and leaving with a bang, but then he had a change of heart and decided to break into the house through the roof instead. Silence was Viktor’s strongest asset, and he used it with the utmost accuracy and co-ordination when removing three tiles from the roof to form a gap wide enough for his skinny body to fit through.          

The ceiling was ferociously humid because of the geyser. Viktor could taste the sweat dripping down his face and into the corners of his mouth, and his eyes burned from the salt. All the while he had one thing on his mind, to get into Ricky’s room and slice his throat slowly while staring into the eyes of the man who destroyed the only dream that he had. He made his way through the trap door, and with gloved hands and rubber-soled feet pressed against the walls so that he left no traces of his presence, he opened Ricky’s door quietly, then closed it when he was in the room.

“Hey Ricky, remember me? Wake up you son-of-a-bitch!” Viktor whispered loudly, smacking Ricky across the face three successive times, leaving his nose bleeding from two backhands. He taped Ricky’s mouth shut before he could make any noise, then smiled as he pulled the blade out. “You didn’t think I’d be back, did you? You were on top of the world at my expense, isn’t that right Ricky boy?”

Viktor could see the fear in Ricky’s eyes. It disgusted him, so he spat on him. He pinched his nose shut and gouged his eyes out, shut his eyelids, and gutted Ricky like a freshly caught fish. On the walls he wrote in blood:

ADOLPH HITLER KILLED JEWS
GEORGE BUSH KILLED MUSLIMS
THE CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST IS UPON YOU NOW
WOE TO THE MAN WHO SEEKS TO DOMINATE{/center}

After leaving his mark, and finally getting his revenge in a silent murder, Ricky made off as quickly as possible. No longer did he have a guilty conscience, for now he was confident that he was capable of changing the world one mind at a time, whether passively or forcibly. He made his way back to number 36 Alridge Street, and broke into his room once more. This was Ricky’s life, the life of a fugitive, only now he was certain that he was no longer from something, but he was running towards fulfilling a sacred cause.

Silence surrounded him in the darkness of his room. Viktor sat with his arms wrapped tightly around his shins until his calves burned themselves numb. Peace, he thought, belongs to those who are friends with the cousin of sleep. Peace belongs to the Dead, he concluded. He wrote:

To save my skin, I shall run away. Normally I overstay my welcome, waiting a while longer than long enough, so that they can face me. But, this, I believe, will be my final encounter with the infidels. This time, instead of allowing them to steal my soul and kick me when I’m down, I will destroy them all. This time, I fear for my body which Mother Nature entrusted me to safeguard. This time I do not fear for my life, a life unlived although substantially existent, and I will run through these streets which have been divided by the capitalists, the dominators, the Christians, and the Muslims. This land will be fertilised by countless dead men, and what shall remain of their inner wars among themselves is a morbid sight of maggot-infested corpses festering under smouldering African sun. Somebody once told me that society is God, minus the symbol of divinity, and without the ridiculously sophisticated superstitions of old Baptists, Muslims and Protestants. That same person told me that God killed Cain’s spirit before Cain killed Abel. I am but a man hunted by them for the sake of their idea’s preservation. What is an idea if it never manifests into reality? After all is said and done and the ashes of the phoenix disperse with the winds of the coming tempest, those who are not susceptible to change in our evolution will look back on upon the future in fear that the past will resurrect itself again. Or perhaps I will be the one who will dread the return of yesterday, for it is in the present moment that I touch the future. As for them, they will hunt and gather statistics, fill up cemeteries and provide mortuaries with good business for as long as they please, and they will call it the will of God. I say do what thou wilt, for your god is purely evil.

For the next few days, Viktor maintained his tramp disguise lest anybody notice him. He hid out at the lake, in his room when his parents were gone- he never ever saw them again, as a matter of fact- and began preaching to the children in the high schools at taxi ranks, gambling spots, and where ghanja was sold. Soon enough, his message of radical humanity became a force to be reckoned with. While the Muslims and Christians were violently at each other’s throats, Viktor spray-painted on as many walls as he could:

ADOLPH HITLER KILLED JEWS
GEORGE BUSH KILLED MUSLIMS
THE CHRISTIAN HOLOCAUST IS UPON YOU NOW
WOE TO THE MAN WHO SEEKS TO DOMINATE

The local celebrity that Viktor once was resurfaced like a phoenix from the ashes within a matter of weeks. Norman supported his brother to a point, but would not become active in the new Holocaust. He prepared for what would later go down in history as a righteous genocide by escaping to Namibia and convincing his parents to join him before things get out of hand. Of course Viktor’s father was now completely brainwashed with fundamentalist babble, but this did not stop him from despairing.

Viktor’s hatred led to his finding a sacred cause, the humiliation he endured that night when the pastors visited him festered into psychopathic self-destruction projected in the form of mass murders of all who put religion, power, or money before mankind, and the more people died, the bigger Viktor’s following grew until it became a major threat to democracy itself, and started an international hunt for all politicians, gangsters, men of God, and ultimately, brought about the destruction of mankind. The irony of it all was not that Viktor was killing off what he fought to defend and develop, but rather, like the men of faith whom he so greatly detested; his good intentions had eventually led to the most negative consequences imaginable.