KIAN'S ACT

Twelve

I couldn’t stop the trembling of my hands as I set my briefcase on the floor, right by my feet. I pulled out my notepad and set it on my lap, the sleek black pen that I had clipped on my left breast pocket now was placed in my right hand. The brown bow tie that I wore now felt as if it was strangling me as I nervously adjusted my glasses on the bridge of my nose as the man of the hour sat across from me in his own chair. I cleared my throat, looking at the ivory mask that I knew the most secrets that anyone ever did. I was a walking dead man, I knew that the chances of me living tomorrow rested on a 49/51% chance, I had a 49% chance of seeing tomorrow, since I walked with the secrets of one of the most powerful men in the country, the continent, maybe even the world. 

“Mr Kian,” I began, my voice sounding squeaky and unsure, as if in the 12 years that I sat in this chair, across from him, I still feared him more with each session. I clicked the pen nervously, a habit I had when I was unsure. Kian no doubt noticed that, because he noticed everything. “How are you today?” I asked him, meeting forest green eyes that held an emptiness that I knew the secrets behind. 

Kian Kai Kennedy told me all of his secrets. I knew all about his childhood, all about his night terrors, all about the people that he killed, the people that he loved, the things that he hated, his inner thoughts, his most deepest of fears. Kian used me as his journal. It was what my job was; being his journal, allowing him to unload himself. 

Kian crossed his right leg over his left and placed his hands on the top of his knee, silently watching me. Even though I knew all of his secrets, I couldn’t help but feel that he knew me more than I knew him. He seemed to know everything about everyone, he seemed to be able to read the stories that we kept to ourselves. It was unnerving that he had kept me for so long, and used me for as long as he has. I don’t know how to feel about it, because some nights I’ll sit up and imagine what it will be like the day that he decides that I knew too much. Would my death be as quick as the others? Or would he take his time? 

“Tommy,” he began, speaking heavily and blinking. I sat at attention, my shoulders straightening and my back rigid as I hung on every word. “I don’t know what I’m doing, to be honest. I’m just…doing it.” He expressed and I looked on at him. 

“Does this…” I paused, looking down at the notepad and the name that I had written in the middle of the page, highlighted and underlined, Liyana, “…have anything to do with Liyana?” I asked him, even though I knew the answer. 

He took in a breath, his eyes never breaking from mine. “It does,” he agreed. “You know…all of my life, Tommy,” I never went by Tommy, I went by Thomas. But he could do whatever he wanted, call me whatever he wanted and I would do nothing about it. “My minds ran a million kilometres a minute and there’s never a silent moment in my head. It’s always spinning, always running. Is there a name for that besides insanity? I’ve been like this ever since I was a child, mother cried and blamed herself because she dropped me on my head when I was a child. Father thought I was just seeking attention and he’d beat me. But you already know that, don’t you?” he asked me rhetorically and I swallowed nervously, nodding my head. 

“I’ve never known peace, because even in my sleep, my dreams come one after the other. I’ve never known silence because it’s never existed for me, Tommy. I don’t know silence….how many people can say that?” he asked me, his words feeling as crisp as the autumn breeze outside his stellar office in his multi million rand home that spanned over hectares of lands, seeming to make up the size of a small country. “Except when I look in her eyes, Tommy, and it’s like those silent films from the olden days, and everything’s moving slowly, picture by picture, flashing by before my eyes…in silence.” He fell silent and I couldn’t help the deep pity that I felt for Liyana. I hadn’t met her, but at this point, I wanted to.