"How can anyone feel numb," I ask the turtle. "If numbness is lack of capability to feel?"

The little green animal makes a snorting sound before humping the food bowl in its cage. Between chewing it says, "Todd my friend, meet Oxymoron. Oxymoron, here's my dim-witted human assistant. He's really just you without the oxygen."

I tell it that it isn't funny and it commends my powers of observation. That's when I deprive it of it's food bowl, after tugging at it while flippers try to pour as much food pellets out of the bowl. Between the swearing and name-calling I e-mail the skeleton. Was it you who flashed me the thumbs-up, was it you at the park?

"Why don't you just ask him if he's murdered someone recently huh?"

"Shut up and eat." I say.

The turtle says, "Yeah what? The soil?"

I cover it with the food bowl.

Between the muffled vulgar spits I instant-message Calista, reassuring her it's okay. It could have been us, she says. Maybe we shouldn't go back to the park, maybe they might come back for us. "Maybe they were trying to protect me." I don't tell her.

This is violence for you. Straight-up, vanilla and right in your face. Forget the shit you see on TV, forget the canned blade-in-watermelon sound effects, the fake blood, real stabbing doesn't even come close. Firstly, it will happen too fast for you to react. There is no "oh shit" moment where you see the blade glinting in the light for a second before it plunges into flesh.

It happens. Then you deal with it.

Then there's blood; no it never always sprays. Blood hardly sprays, unless you know where to cut. Besides, there isn't a lot of major arteries in the head. There's the temporal artery, which forks like a tree around your head, the inner ophthalmic atery linking your ear to your eye, going down we have the facial artery from your checks to your nose area and the lingual artery near your chin. Not the mention the various veins and countless blood vessels all around.

From the way the blade went through, it probably hit a lot of blood carrying tubes. Oh and another thing, eye sockets do not bleed. They are sockets for holding your eyeballs. They are not plugs holding gushing blood from inside your head.

Noses and mouths, on the other hand, do expel blood. Frequently. Even when you don't have knifes going through your skull. The ateries carry fresh red blood. The veins hold dark, thicker liquid. You kinda get a slightest mix when both of them are leaking out the same orifice.

You have no idea how many doctors are closet perverts. Professionalism is a muffled groan of pleasure inside a bathroom stall.

The turtle lies by the upright bowl, food pellets scattered all over the place. It looks smug. "From what I recall, superheroes don't kill every single criminal." It says.

I tell it that I never laid a hand on the deceased and sneezed. Again. The turtle shifts its beady eyes toward the closed window. "There's trapped dust all stuck inside you don't want to release," it says and yawns. Crawling back under its rock, it continues, "People die from this things."

Sneaking suspicion there that it's not talking about the window and my room already but I ignore it. There are more pressing matters at hand.

An alert sounds from my chatroom program.

Yeah, I just remember I was supposed to meet a certain lesbian.

The autumn park is serene and the sun has just peeked out of the horizon.The lake is a sheet of navy blue. In front of me sit a painting of tranquility, every single stroke delicately made by Nature's hand. This is the moment between dusk and dawn. The moment when alarm clocks are ringing. When people get up for another copy of yesterday.

Yesterday, Calista and me were on the exact bench we are sitting on right now. She was digging through the bag of our products, counting the cans and scribbling notes directly onto the clipboard. Paper's like a good friend. Never there when you need them.

I just watch her.

I watch her intense concentration on her stock-checking. I watch her brows furrow as she miscounts. I watch her bend down, her loose blouse drops precariously until --- she puts a hand to hold it back up. "This is a beautiful sight," I tell her.

"I'm sure it is, with you being so free and all," she says, tossing a defective can off into the grass, not even watching where it landed. "Why don't you do the stock-checking for once and I can stare at the lake and give stupid comments about how beautiful it is?"

"I was talking about you."

Pause. Broken record playing.

"Whatever." She says., still sitting and bent down to do her work.

Oh, black. Bra. Cute, I think and right at that moment, she looks up, horrified expression on her face. Great, busted.

But she is staring away from me. I turn to see two figures in a distance, one clearly bigger and more muscular the other smaller and more shapely. The bigger one is holding the other from behind, one hand over her waist and the other covering her mouth. Smaller Figure's arms is swatting wildy at her attacker.

Whatever I am looking at, it cannot be good. "Todd! Do something!" Calista says.

Oh, right. "Superhero," I hear the turtle say in my head, rolling its eyes.

O-kay. Cue my theme song.

I step up and stride towards the struggling mess that is probably a rape attempt in progress. Or maybe they were just playing, having fun. Early in a park when nobody's really awake yet, still thumbing snooze buttons and grunting while rolling around in bed.

The turtle in my head says something rude and I say "Oh yeah fuck you."

You know moments when you unintentionally say something out loud when you didn't mean to? I don't. Not until right now anyway. I have Bigger Figure's attention.

I am close enough to see a large, unshaved bear of a person holding a petite not-so-good-looking girl in place. The bigfoot in human disguise looks at me, arms still locked around his victim whose body is limp already. She slides down from his grasps and the hairy creature that might look human if he actually shaved drops the chlorofoam cloth. His other hand reaches behind and slowly pulls out a long metallic piece that looks suspiciously like a blade.

It probably is.

"Fuck," I say and I hear Calista gasp somewhere behind me.

So, this is how it's going to end. A bloody tragedy right beside a picturesque, calm lake. Welcome to Victim'sVille, population: mangled Todd and two cum-soaked stabbed victims. This is all you've lived for, 22 years just for this single moment when a large hobo stabs you before work. Good job.

Doctor Rapist with a blade and I do the mandatory staredown between the villain and the hero. That's when I should say something smart and execute some killer moves and him and take my two damsels in distress and ride off into the sunlight. In a perfect perfect world. Someone's about to stab me and all I can think off right now is girls and the fact that I totally forgot to feed the turtle this morning.

He takes one step forward. And never had a chance with the two people that suddenly leaped onto his back. "You fucking pervert!" One shouts, and drives a fist into the back of bear-man's skull.

The combined weight of the two ambushers drops Doctor Rapist to the ground in a perfect faceplant and a dull crack to go along. That nose is probably going to need some work. The blade slides, spins and clatters a few feet away. Ambusher One continues his fist pummeling. Ambusher Two moves for the blade.

Calista screams.

And somewhere in between that scream, a 10-inch long stilleto is driven into a man's skull.

So, this is how it's ends for the Doctor. A bloody tragedy right beside a picturesque, calm lake. Welcome to Victim'sVille, population: hairy man with long blade through his skull and exiting from his chin. This is all he lived for, his entire life just waiting for that single moment where two attackers you can't even see kills you before you stick your dick into some underaged pussy. Good job.

I stare. The two attackers pause for a moment, deer in headlights, looking at me. One of them flashes me a thumbs up and both take off.

"Goddammit Todd they KNOW YOU?!"

I don't know, Calista, I don't know them at all. And I tell her that.

This is the moment between dusk and dawn. The moment when alarm clocks are ringing. When people get up for another copy of yesterday. When young girls who go out to jog get chlorofoamed and has their would-be sperm-donor creamed by two random crazy guys. What a fucked up morning, something at the back of my head says.

We stand beside a work of art by Nature. We stand beside a painting of tranquility. We stand beside a bloody mess on the ground and I have Calista crying on my shoulder. Strangely, all that I can think of is the guy who flashed me a thumbs up reminds me of a skeleton.