dissonance

by remy.wang

black sun

black

Cry

Jon Batiste

Who do you love? Who you gonna love? Who you gonna love when push comes to shove? Who you gonna fight? How you gonna fight? Who you gonna fight to make it alright?

Why sometimes does it seem like all I want to do All I wanna do is cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry

What can you say? What you gonna say? To make it ok and who's gonna pay? Who you gonna fight? And how you gonna fight? Who you gonna fight to make it alright? To make it alright?

Why sometimes does it seem like all I want to do All I wanna do is cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry

Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry

Two songs from Wild Children's album Under the Bridge.

石头房子

词 尹丽川 曲 张玮玮

山岗的旧石板上长满了杂草 空荡荡的石头房子里坐着一个青年 他自己唱歌自己走路 和两只温柔的黄狗说话 偶尔有朋友从远方来 带来了烟和酒 喝完了 他们就下山了

Stone House

lyrics by Yin Lichuan score by Zhang Weiwei

Weeds have covered the old stone tab on top of the hill A young man sits inside the empty stone house He sings his own song and walks alone He talks to his two gentle yellow dogs Once in a while, some friends come visit from far away Bringing drinks and smoke After they empty the bottles, they'd go down the hill

不要拿走它

词 曲 张佺

山下有松鼠爬上了枝头,那是谁家的树林 城外有野鸭漫步在水面,那是谁家的池塘

喔 ... 喔,燕子和恋人总要有地方停留 喔 ... 喔,山雀和少年还要去那里歌唱

路旁有阿叔汗水在流淌,那是谁家的稻田 河边有野花随风在摇晃,那是谁家的草场

喔 ... 喔,蝴蝶和孩子不能没地方玩耍 喔 ... 喔,庄稼和希望都要在这里生长

Don't Take It Away

lyrics & score by Zhang Quan

At the foot of the hill a squirrel climbs up the branches – who do the woods belong to? Outside the city a dozen ducks wander on the water – who does the pond belong to?

Woo ... oh, the swallows and the lovers still need somewhere to linger Woo ... oh, where can the sparrows and the young people go and sing their songs

Across the road Uncle is soaked in sweat – who does the wheat field belong to? By the river wild flowers sway in the breeze – who does the grassland belong to?

Woo ... oh, the butterflies and the children can't lose their playground Woo ... oh, here is where we grow our crops and grow our hope

Learning the Scripts is just like learning to read. The teacher and the student each holds a booklet. First the teacher sings a prose, then the student sings a prose. It has to be sung! Sunny's uncle starts to sing, and at the same time taps out some beats on the table. Each beat loud and clear, just like Peking opera. It is just like opera, exactly the same! They even share the same jargons. Uncle says so about reading the Scripts: first you should stay on the beat, and second you should stay in the harmony. He says: to become a good monk, you need a good voice; says: on the 10th year of the Republic there was a flood. The flood overflowed the river banks and came down to the Pond of the Clear Water. Many died in the flood, so there was a large funeral, with 13 Master Monks – 13 of them, as well as the head monks of all major monasteries, plus the lesser monks, all together making up to hundreds. Who should be the Grand Master? Pushing back and forth, it had to be the Monk on the Stony Bridge – the one from the Temple of Kindness. As soon as he sits down, he looks like the Buddha of the Earth; that's needless to say; Once he announces “Incense!” the crowd of thousands suddenly falls silent. Uncle says: you need to train your voice – in summer you train through the rain, in winter you train through the storm; focus, and pull your voice up through your belly! He says: only when one has been through the roughest, one may become the toughest. He says: even in monks there are the best, the second and the third! Pay attention, don't be distracted! All these talks from Uncle earned complete respect from the young monk, so he sings prose by prose after Uncle:

“the incense bowl heats-” “the incense bowl heats-”

“the sacred realm hazy-” “the sacred realm hazy-”

“the buddhas emerge in golden glory-” “the buddhas emerge in golden glory-”

goldfish in Bei Hai, Beijing

goldfish in Bei Hai, Beijing

Once Sunny finishes the morning study (before bed time he has another class, called the evening study) the monks of the pudding An wake up one by one.

The nunnery homes just six. Counting Sunny, five of them are monks.

One old monk in his 60s is Uncle's teacher, called Shinning Light. But few know that name, because few would call him by his monk name – most people call him the Old Monk or the Old Teacher, and Sunny calls him Grandpa Teacher. He's lonely and dry, always in his room – inside that “one flower conceals an entire world”. But you never see him pray, he just sits there silently. He eats with others, except when the New Year comes.

Below him are the three monk brothers – the Monk of the Mountain, the Monk of the Sea, and the Monk of Death. In and out the temple, some call them big monk, second monk; some call them mountain monk, sea monk; only for the Monk of Death, no one calls him “dead monk” – that would be ridiculous. People just call him the Monk of Death. He only deserves that because of his young age – he's only in his 20s.

The Monk of the Mountain – Sunny's uncle – is the manager here. Not “the Head Monk”, not “the Master”, but the manager. It makes sense, because he really does a manager's job. In his room there's a desk, on top of which lie some notebooks and an abacus. Three notebooks: one for temple income, one for rent, one for debts. Monks hold ceremonies and charge for them. Otherwise who would become a monk? The usual ceremonies are funerals. A formal funeral takes ten people: the Head, the drummer, and four others on each side. Fewer than that you can have eight – three on each side will do. The pudding An only has four monks, so they have to work with other temples for a full funeral. That happens now and then, but usually they just do half. One Head, one on the drums, then one on each side. Because first it's a pain to work with other temples; second, few around here can afford a full funeral. More often, if someone dies the family would just get two monks, or even just one to mumble some Scripts and knock on some instruments. Most don't pay immediately, but only after Autumn. That needs to go on the notebook. Besides, the salary for each monk in the funeral differs. Just like in the theatre, it depends. The Head earns the most. Because he has to sing first and sing solo. There's a prose called “The Skeleton”, where other monks would put down their instruments to rest with only the Head singing slowly and softly. After the Head, the dummer earns the most. Don't you think he's got an easy job! Even for the “Thunder” prose in the beginning, you can't drum out the cadence without ages of practice. For the others at the funeral, the salary is the same. This needs to go on the income book: “xx month xx day of xx year, the funeral was here and here, xx was the Head, xx drummed... ...” so to save the swearing and cursing when the payday comes. ... ... The nunnery owns some acres of farm to rent out to people around. They also give out loans. Few would miss paying rent and debt, because the farmers fear the Buddha would get upset with them. Only these three books would keep the mountain monk busy. Besides that, buying incense and candles, oil, salt, and spices also need to go into the books. Above the notebooks, the mountain monk hangs a sign in his room that reads in red letters: “write more, think less”.

with goldfish in Bei Hai, Beijing

with goldfish in Bei Hai, Beijing

From the three criteria as a good monk according to the mountain monk himself, he has none. His appearance is best described by two words: “yellow, and fat”. His voice doesn't sound like a bell either, but rather like a pig. Is he smart? Hard to tell. He's always the loser at card games. He never wears his monk cloak in the temple, not even his jacket. Usually he just puts on a shirt, showing off a shiny belly. He drags around a pair of shoes barefoot – even new shoes. For days he wanders around in ragged clothes here and there, making pig-like noises: “Mmmm—-Mmmm”

The second monk is the sea monk. He's got a wife. His wife would come and stay for a few months every year between summer and fall, because it's cooler here in the nunnery. Among the six regular residents in the nunnery is this wife of the monk. The mountain monk and the Monk of Death both call her sister, and Sunny calls her auntie. The couple like to keep it clean – washing and sweeping all day long. In the evening, they would sit in the garden to get some cool air. During the day they shut themselves in the room.

The third monk is smart and capable. Sometimes there will be numbers that the manager can't figure out even with the abacus, but the third monk would give you the answer with a blink of his eyes. He wins the most at card games. After a dozen rounds, he'd know who's got what in their hands. When he plays, people always like to stand behind him and watch. Whoever calls him for a game, they would say: “we want to send you some money”. Not only does he know both the Scripts and the Confessions (few know the Confessions in smaller temples), he can do acrobatics. He can “fly the cymbal”. In July one of the towns would hold a Meeting, with a large ceremony. They invite a few dozen monks, cloaked, to fly the cymbal. Flying the cymbal is playing a twenty-pound cymbal until it flies. At some point, all the other instruments halt, leaving a few dozens of cymbals ringing with a tight beat. All of a sudden, the cymbals fly up into the air. As a cymbal flies up, it also rotates. Then it falls back down, caught by the monk. He doesn't just catch it, but with all sorts of stances: some like “a buffalo watching the moon”, some like “a warrior carrying a sword” ... How is this a buddhist ceremony, it's a circus! Perhaps the Buddha of the Earth likes to watch these. But those who enjoy the most are the girls and the kids. This is when the good looking monks can show off. After a large ceremony, just like after a good opera, there'd always be one or two girls missing – ran away with the monks. The third monk can also do light funerals. During times less serious – like for anniversaries of passing, someone less serious would get a light funeral. The so-called light funeral is a regular funeral, but with the monk singing some pop songs at the end. You can even send requests. The Monk of Death himself can sing overnight without repeating. He had been away for a few years until last year. Some say he's got mistresses – a few of them. But at the nunnery he always keeps himself in check. He never even jokes or sings in front of girls. One time, when resting on the field, people surrounded him, forcing him to sing. He couldn't get out, says: “OK, I'll give you this one, but never again. You all know the local ballads, so I'll sing you one from An Hui:”

the girl and the boy work the corns talked and talked and talked till bored bored they are so talk no more done with the corns and they worked the boy

He finished, but the crowd wanted more, so he sang one more:

'sis looks pretty she's got good titties brother got all touchy then he feels all itchy

... ...

to be continued

A canonical form for a language defines a representative among an equivalent class of terms. It can help identify equivalent terms in the language. Here I present a proof for the canonicity of the sum-over-product normal form for arithmetics, to demonstrate an interesting technique that I call induction over derivatives. A more catchy name I thought of is gradient induction.

Trevor Paglen - untitled reaper drone

untitled (reaper drone), trevor paglen, 2012, ICA/Boston

First let's clarify what we mean by canonical form: when two expressions in a language, considered as programs, evaluate to the same result on all possible inputs, we say they are semantically equivalent. We therefore hope to find a “standard way” to write such expressions, so that when we rewrite any two expressions to the standard form, we can immediately tell if they are semantically equivalent by just looking at them. Such a standard form is considered canonical – we say that two terms, e1 and e2, share the same canonical form if and only if they are semantically equivalent, where semantically equivalent means the terms always compute the same result given same inputs. Formally:

canonicalize(e1) ≡ canonicalize(e2) ⇔ ∀ x . eval(e1, x) = eval(e2, x)

Here ≡ denotes syntactic equality, and = denotes semantic (value) equality. In our case, the expressions are in the language of arithmetics (+, *, x, ℝ):

Definition. An arithmetic expression is either a variable, a constant, the sum of two expressions, or the product of two expressions.

And our normal form is essentially the standard polynomials:

Definition. The sum-over-product normal form of an arithmetic expression is the sum of products of literals, where a literal is either a variable or a constant. Furthermore, we combine monomials that only differ in their coefficients, e.g. 2xy + 3xy is rewritten into 5xy.

One can rewrite an expression to SoP with the standard laws (associativity, commutativity & distributivity). That is, we keep pulling + up and merge terms. For example, the SoP canonical form of (x + z) (x + y) is x2 + xy + xz + yz.

Proposition. The sum-over-product normal form is canonical: Csop(e1)Csop(e2) ⇔ ∀ x . eval(e1, x) = eval(e2, x)

Proof. The left-to-right direction can be proven by structural induction over the SoP normal form syntax, together with the fact that the standard rewrite rules we use preserve the semantics of arithmetics.

I now prove the contrapositive of the backward direction:

Csop(e1)Csop(e2) ⇒ ∃ x . eval(e1, x)eval(e2, x)

There are two cases for Csop(e1)Csop(e2): 1. e1 and e2 differ in their constant term (e.g. e1 = 2xy + 4 and e2 = 3yz + 7), and 2. otherwise (e.g. e1 = 2xy + 4 and e2 = 3yz + 4). Note that we only look at the lonely constants, not the coefficients in other terms.

Case 1 is simple, since if two expressions have different constants they evaluate to different results (i.e the constants themselves) on all-zero inputs.

To prove case 2, I break down the goal into two steps:

Csop(e1)Csop(e2) ⇒ ∃ y . ∂ e1 / ∂ y∂ e2 / ∂ y

and

y . ∂ e1 / ∂ y∂ e2 / ∂ y ⇒ ∃ x . eval(e1, x)eval(e2, x)

Recall that ≠ is semantic inequivalence.

The latter is simple: pick x1 and x2 that only differ in the y variable (from ∂ y above). Since the derivatives differ, we can always find a pair of x1 and x2 such that either eval(e1, x1)eval(e2, x1) or eval(e1, x2)eval(e2, x2).

To prove Csop(e1)Csop(e2) ⇒ ∃ y . ∂ e1 / ∂ y∂ e2 / ∂ y, we perform induction over the derivatives of the expressions, with our original proof goal as the inductive hypothesis: Csop(e1)Csop(e2) ⇔ ∀ x . eval(e1, x) = eval(e2, x). Since Csop(e1)Csop(e2), we know ∃ y . ∂ e1 / ∂ y∂ e2 / ∂ y (syntactically). Since the derivative of a canonical form is also canonical (not that obvious, but you'll see it after thinking a little harder), by our inductive hypothesis, ∃ y . ∂ e1 / ∂ y∂ e2 / ∂ y (semantically).

The preceding induction is sound because taking the derivative makes any expression simpler, eventually bringing it to a constant. □

The main takeaway here is that, when we want to perform an inductive proof, we need every inductive step to make the terms simpler. Usually this is done by structural induction over the language definition; but when the language is differentiable, the derivative is another tool for inductively simplifying the terms. This can come handy for the PL researcher, since we now know a wide range of languages are differentiable – not just polynomials!

p.s. Haotian Jiang & Sorawee Porncharoenwase pointed out a much simpler proof: given two semantically equivalent arithmetic expressions, their difference is always zero. Therefore, the expression that represents the difference has infinitely many roots. According to the fundamental theorem of algebra, the two expressions must be the same polynomial, since otherwise their difference would be a none-zero polynomial and has finitely many roots.

by 汪曾祺 trans. KW

It's been 4 years since Ming Hai left home.

He came here when he was 13.

The name of this place is a bit odd, called An Zhao Village. Zhao is the surname of most residents here. Village because the homes are scattered. Over here you see two, three homes, and over there two, three homes. You can see your neighbors from your doorstep, but it takes a while to get to them. That's because there isn't a road, but only winding trails that pass through the farm lands. An, because there is a nunnery (An). It's named Budda An, but over the generations people started calling it the pudding An. Even the monks here call it the pudding An. “Where's your residence?” “pudding An”. An's are for nuns – monasteries for monks, nunneries for nuns. But the pudding An houses monks. Perhaps because it's small – big monasteries, small nunneries.

temple in Bei Hai, Beijing

temple in Bei Hai, Beijing

His family call Ming Hai “Sunny” at home. He knew since little he'd be leaving home one day. Where he's from, people don't say “leave home”, but “to become a monk”. Where he's from exports lots of monks. Just like some places export butchers, some places export basket weavers, some place export barrel makers, some places export musicians, some places export painters, and some places export whores, his place exports monks. A family with a lot of sons would send one to become a monk. Becoming a monk also needs networking. Monks from here travel far: some go to the Temple of Hermits in Hang Zhou, some to the Temple of Calm in Shanghai, some to the Golden Mountain Temple in Zhen Jiang, some go to the Temple of Peace in Yang Zhou. But most of them stay around town. Sunny's family doesn't have a lot of farm land, so his three brothers are just enough to take care of it. He's the youngest. When he was 7, his uncle – also a monk – visited.

He discussed with Sunny's mom and dad for him to become a monk. Sunny was there too, and he thought it all made sense. It's good to become a monk: first, you get fed. Every temple feeds their monks. Second, you can save up some money. As soon as you learn to do the funeral ceremonies and the prayers, you'll get paid. Save up enough money, you can then quit and get married. If you don't want to quit, you can go buy some farm land with that money. But it's not easy either to become a monk. First, one must look handsome – eyes still as the full moon; then one must sound good – voice bright as the morning bell; finally you must be smart and have a good memory. His uncle took a good look at Sunny, told him to walk around and shout out some cowboy hollers, then decided: “Sunny for sure will be a good monk, I'll take him!” To become a monk, you need to invest – study for a few years. What kind of monk can't read! So Sunny started school, reading the Scripture of the Triplets, the Names of the Centurions, the Collection of Proses, the Classics for the Young, Confucian, Meng... Everyday he would write a page of copies. People all say he writes well – every stroke dark against the pearl white paper.

Uncle returns as promised, with a Monk's Shirt of his that he asked Sunny's mom to trim short for Sunny. Sunny puts on the shirt, together with the purple pants he wore at home as well as a pair of new shoes. He kneeled for his mom and dad, and then left with his uncle.

When he was at school he got a School Name, called Ming Hai (Clear Sea). His uncle said it will do as a Monk's Name too.

They sail across a lake. What a big lake! They walk through a town. A busy town: spice shops, tax offices, butcheries with slices of pork, a donkey in the sesame mill (the smell of sesame spills onto the street), a clothes shop, people selling flower seeds, a barber, someone selling embroidery and threads, a man with medicines, someone blowing out figures from syrup, a woman with a snake... Sunny wants to see them all. Uncle has to push him: “let's go!”

They come to a creek. Here a boat awaits them, and onboard stands a skinny old grandpa in his 60s, and a girl Sunny's age sits in front. She's peeling a lotus flower to eat the seeds. Once Sunny and Uncle sit down, the boat slowly begins to move.

Sunny hears someone talking to him. It's the girl. “Are you the one going to the pudding An to become a monk?” Sunny nods. “They have to burn tattoos onto your head! Aren't you scared?” Sunny's not sure how to answer, so he shakes his head. “What's your name?” “Ming Hai.” “No, I mean what do they call you at home?” “They call me Sunny” “Sunny! I'm Dandelion! We'll be neighbors. Grandpa and I live next to the pudding An. Here you go!” Dandelion tosses the rest of the lotus flower to Sunny, who takes over and peels out the seeds to eat.

Grandpa rows stroke by stroke. You can only hear the oar hitting the water: “Hoo-Shoo! Hoo-Shoo!”

by temple in Bei Hai, Beijing

by temple in Bei Hai, Beijing

The pudding An sits on a nice spot on top of a hill. The hill overlooks the area, so it was picked by those building the nunnery. A creek flows pass before the gate. Outside the gate there's a large wheat field, surrounded by tall willows on three sides. Behind the gate lies a yard, where a Buddha statue sits. Someone famous wrote a pair of proses hugging the gate:

a big belly withholds what's hard to bear a hearty laugh serves those funny to meet

Behind the Buddha stands the Sacred Carrier, and past the yard is a skylit garden, where two apricot trees grow. Each side of the garden hosts three rooms, and past the garden is the temple, homing the Buddha of the Three Worlds. Even with the frame the Buddha is only just over four feet tall. To the east lies the Head Residence, and to the west is the storage. A hexagonal doorway opens up eastwards to the outside, with white doors and green characters that read:

one flower conceals an entire world look thrice and you will see three Buddhas inside

Inside the doorway is a thin, long stretch of garden – some rocks to form a bonsai mountain, a few pots of flowers, and three small rooms.

The young monk has an easy life. Every morning he wakes up, opens the gate, and sweeps the floor. The floor in the nunnery is made of smooth bricks, so it's really easy to sweep. Then he burns some incense for the Buddha and the Sacred Carrier, as well as for the Buddha of the Three Worlds in the temple. He kneels thrice, chants Namu Amida Butsu thrice, and sounds the bell thrice. The monks here don't care about morning and evening prayers, so the three bells by Sunny would suffice. Then he goes on to get the water and feed the pigs. At last he waits for the Head Monk, who is Sunny's uncle, to teach him to read the Scripts.

to be continued

purple haze

lyrics by Wild Children 野孩子 translation by R.W.

Wild Children was formed in Feb. 1995 in Hang Zhou, by Zhang Quan (张佺) & Xiao Suo (小索). In May, they returned to their birth place Lan Zhou and spent a year working among folk musicians in North West China. As they traveled along the Yellow River on foot from Yan An to Inner Mongolia, they wrote a number of songs.

1 Wild Children 野孩子

They told me about your dirty face Told me about your never ending tears They told me about your home in the woods Told me about your songs that no one hears

他们说你的脸上沾满灰 他们说你的泪在天上飞 他们说你的家在山野里 他们说你的歌有谁来听

Don't you ask me who I am, I'm from far away over the mountains Don't you ask me who I believe, I stand right here under the sun Don't you ask me who I hate, when I'm cold and hungry Don't you ask me who I love, once the flowers have bloomed and fallen again

不要问山高路远我是谁 不要管太阳下面我信谁 不要说冷了饿了我恨谁 不要等花开花落我爱谁

2 Don't You Know 你可知道

You like the rhododendrons on the mountain top, Red as flame – Don't you know how long they have grown? You ask the riders on the horsebacks along the road – How many rivers have they crossed?

你说那山上的杜鹃花儿红 你可知道,它长了多少年? 你问那大路上骑马走过的人 趟过的河,它有多少?

You hear the chirps of the cuckoo birds; Don't you know how far away they live? Won't you think about those exiled ones – How long have they walked, step by step?

你听那飞过的杜鹃鸟儿叫 你可知道,它家在哪里? 你猜那远方背井离乡的人 走过的路,它有多少?

3 Had They Known 早知道

Had they known the Yellow River would dry, Wouldn't have built the goddamn bridge Had they know those by the river would leave, Wouldn't have sung the goddamn song

早知道黄河的水呀干了 修他妈的那个铁桥了是做啥呢 早知道河沿上的人呀走了 唱他妈的那个歌儿了是做啥呢

Had they known the Yellow River would dry, Wouldn't have blown the suede raft Had I known my girl's heart would change, Wouldn't have told her I loved her so

早知道黄河的水呀干了 吹他妈的那个羊皮了是做啥呢 早知道尕妹妹的心呀变了 谈他妈的那个恋爱了是做啥呢

4 Ballad of The Yellow River

Where I lived flows a great river that runs through my city. I cannot forget about the river, nor about the many people who lived in the city and the many things that happened there. Today I want to sing a song; I want you to come with me, to that river, and to that city.

在我生活过的地方流淌着一条大河,那条大河穿过了一座城市。我不能忘记那条河,也不能忘记那个城市里很多的人还有很多发生过的事情。今天我想唱一首歌,我想让你们和我一起去,我所说的那条河,那个城市。

The Yellow River flows without a break It flows through my hometown, Lan Zhou Beloved ones who are far away, Listen to this Ballad of the Yellow River The Sun travels without a stop It passes Home, passes Lan Zhou The Moon is shining upon the bridge, And I'm singing by the Yellow River

黄河的水不停地流 流过了家流过了兰州 远方的亲人哪 听我唱支黄河谣 日头总是不歇地走 走过了家走过了兰州 月亮照在铁桥上 我就对着黄河唱

Every time I wake up in the morning, Thinking about Lan Zhou, thinking about Home Thinking about the scent of the pagoda trees Thinking about my sweet girl far away The Yellow River flows without a break It flows through my hometown, Lan Zhou The vagabond keeps singing the song, This song about the Yellow River

每一次醒来的时候 想起了家想起了兰州 想起路边槐花儿香 想起我的好姑娘 黄河的水不停地流 流过了家流过了兰州 流浪的人不停地唱 唱着我的黄河谣

5 Four Seasons 四季歌

Those who love Spring have the purest souls Just like the blooming violets, like my dearest friends

爱春天的人们 是心地纯洁的人 像那盛开的紫罗兰 像我的朋友一样

Those who love Summer have the strongest will Just like the roaring waves, like my dearest father

爱夏天的人们 是意志坚强的人 像那冲击岩石的波涛 像我的父亲一样

Those who love Autumn hold the deepest compassion Just like the Moon that lights up the night, like my dearest lover

爱秋天的人们 是一往情深的人 像那照亮黑夜的月亮 像我的爱人一样

Those who love Winter have the warmest hearts Just like the Land that melts the snow, like my dearest mother

爱冬天的人们 是胸怀宽广的人 像那融化冰雪的大地 像我的母亲一样

Imgur

definitely the best dish I've ever cooked – great looking, tasty, and healthy

It was the most gruesome murder anyone has seen. Even though the screen was blurred out, you can still make out the shredded body and its terrifying state. Every inch of muscle is exposed and torn apart, as if some mad animal came upon it and unleashed all its rage onto it. You could see it swing the victim up and down and around with its mouth, and mauling him with fearsome claws – aiming not to consume him as food, but for total destruction. And what was left of him was discarded here, in his own house, as a memento for the unimagined pain he suffered through. Of course the killer is not an animal, and there is no question who he is. He had killed dozens like this, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

And I know he's coming for me. There was nothing I could do – he would come nevertheless. This numbing fear captivated me for the past weeks since the last murder, so intense the desperation that I am no longer affected by it. I have returned to my normal sleep schedule, gained back my appetite, and could focus on work even better than before. This desperation has dragged my soul down into the deepest crevice of the glacier and froze it there, and what remained of me is now just a cold machine, keeping its operation on the empty assembly line until the blow comes. It was only when the night was deep or when the dawn was thin, that I could still feel the trembling fear that this day could be the day he came.

This morning was no different, and I open my eyes with same sensation of fear. It takes long before I climb out of my bed, as if I am convinced that as long as I stay in bed, he would leave me alone. But as the sun rises and the noise of the machines loom near, the fear once again sank into the depths. As usual, the water boiler just started to make noise as I open my bedroom door. I freeze just as I walk pass the apartment door – the one sitting at the table is not S., but him. He sits with his back to the kitchen door, in a dark blue suit. No one has ever seen him alive, but I know it's him, just as anyone would recognize him without having seen his picture or heard any description of him. Without turning, he flatly said: “do you want it to hurt, or do you want it slow?”

By an ancient instinct, I open the apartment door with some struggle and sprinted out without my shoes. For a good while, I am no longer conscious of the passage of time, but just run as fast as I can, faster than I ever could. I know perfectly well, that this is all futile, that no matter how fast I go, by foot or by plane, it's always too slow for him. He didn't come out and follow after me, which makes my desperation all the worse. Because I know running like this is no different from stopping, dropping on the ground, or even going back to the apartment to hand over my life. Even if by miracle I get onto a plane and fly across the continents, he would walk up to me the moment I land. But I can't tell my body to stop. After a while, I realize I'm running along the exact same route that leads to work, the one I take every morning. What a stupid escape route! But what else could I do? Where I run to doesn't matter to him. And so I kept on running.

It was already 9 in the morning, but everywhere was surprisingly quiet. I can even hear the birds chirping – the early ones, not the chatty ones that yell across the streets in late afternoon. And bit by bit, I start hearing a classic rock song playing from a car radio. Now I see where it comes from: a bright colored jeep with four college students loading some bags. They seem ready for a BBQ on this sunny day – it finally has come to me that today's weather is gorgeous. One of them saw me running, disheveled and bare foot, so comes up and asks if I need help. For a minute or two, I struggle with breathing, and finally make it clear to him that I want a ride. With great irony, I request to be driven along, still, my exact morning route. The students hop on with me, the car moves without urgency, and the rock song plays on.

Collapsing on the back seat, I come to a deeper desperation: for the rest of my life, I will have to keep running like this. I will have to flee every second I breath, exhausted and hunted, and the moment I stop, he will show up with a pitying smile, standing atop my succumbed body and end my life with a single strike...

Perhaps shaken by this deepest desperation, I woke up – this time for real, jerking out of the nightmare. I lay soaked in sweat, arms and legs twisted, almost strangling myself with the blanket. Of course, I am overcome with relief. But at the same time, I come to a calm conclusion. That this Most Brutal Murderer exist. Or rather, Most Brutal Murderers exist. There are billions of them, one in each every household, sitting by the breakfast table waiting for the house to wake up. Their mere presence convince you of certain death. But in reality, no one should really fear them as people do. After the initial trauma, you come home and realize he is still there, reading a newspaper and shows no sign of slaying even an insect. The next morning, you wake up and he already made a cup of hot coffee, leaving it by the seat opposite to his and kept on reading his newspaper. As time goes on, this strange guy who doesn't eat or change clothes becomes a member of the household – something like a family ghost, and everyone treats him just like an uncle who came back from the war and acts strange. Then finally one day, he would say to you: “Excuse me, but I will have to take your life now. Please don't take it personally.” To which you reply: “I understand, please make sure I get what I deserve and no more. And please make sure to feed the dog and water the plants after.”

K.W. March 2018