FROM THE STOOL

SERIAL KILLERS

I used to fly a lot. Epic flights. Business trips. Multiple countries. Compressed agendas. Dramatic time and climate changes. Too many meals, cocktails, movies. Little or no sleep. Never enough leg room. No smoking. Too hot, too cold, lousy air. Bang your head to pee, lose your luggage, miss your connection.

Hard to believe that one antidote for this top management affliction is not drugs or suicide, but serial killers. As one that reads hundreds of paperbacks annually, I can’t pinpoint the year I decided that the mainly well to mostly well-written serial killer based novel supply was sufficient to cover all my airline hours.

There is a large multi gender group of storytellers who deal exclusively with psychopaths. I keep thinking at some point it will be impossible to develop a new more horrid perversion, but the end is not in sight.

I have not found a better way to escape the misery of a turbulent flight next to a nauseous or flatulent seatmate than the fictional pursuit of a world class serial killer.

The FBI, local police, medical examiners, lawyers, private investigators – each deal with the beast differently – none get even remotely close to their target in fewer than six corpses.

After as few as two dozen reads – a hundred and forty-four mangled bodies – your skills at processing clues rivals VICAP. Not even Clarice Starling has the breadth of experience – the profiling skills – of one who reads exclusively in the category.

I frankly worry a little about the fascination, but take some comfort from knowing I am not alone.

Perhaps the worst in human behavior, exhaustively analyzed over four hundred pages, truly lifts you out of your seat and in to some supernatural cigar bar of the mind.

Hannibal Lecter cannot shorten your legs, strengthen your bladder or turn off the no smoking sign. He can however, so captivate your psyche that you find yourself landing without remembering the take off.

I can also confirm that serial killers greatly enhance the normal stool time. The risk of over absorption is corrugated bottom. Look forward to our next visit.