A exclusive interview with the murderer
Shots of tearful aftermath, the piles of flowers outside the school, the memorial service, 'Never Again' town meetings...
shots of Kevin as a baby, as a toddler, as a child... and a preview by a commentator as to give a loose explanation of what and why....
"It's very difficult for kids these days, the country's very prosperity has become a burden, a dead end.
Everything works, at least if you are white and middle class.
So it must often seem to young people that they are not needed.
In a sense, it's as if there's nothing more to do.
Except tear it apart. And you see the same cycles in history. It's not only children.
All the kids in these school shootings have been middles class boys looking at a life with a mortgage, and a car and job in management with yearly holiday to Bali..."
And then you see Kevin, in his dormitory cubicle basking under the camera's eye as if under sunlamp.
"Everything Americans do that doesn't work out too great has to be somebody else's fault. Me, I stand by what I done,
it wasn't abybody's idea but mine," he smiled.
"Dad the dumper was into some Little League fantasy stuck in the 1950s, he loved some kid in 'Happy Days', not me," he frowned.
"My mum has been all over the world, started her own company,
look, I could be kind of a creep, and she could be kind of a creep too, so we are even," he closes his eyes and continues:
"She always wanted to go somewhere else, well I have introduced her to a real foreign country,
since the definition of the truly foreign locale is one that fosters a piercing and perpetual yearning to go home," He opens his eyes and they shine coldly into the camera.
"My teachers diagnosed me as one more fashionable victim of attention disorder," he crackles:
"They were determined to find something mechanically wrong with me because broken machines can be fixed, but not my crackling disinterest."
Kevin's briliant, emotion free mind works like cloakwork, patiently blocking the life pulsing arteries, manipulating their free flow just to see how they work.
As he keeps destroying everything around him, he is amused to watch 'that big theatre of human emotions', that he can not understand.
He will never join that human aimless chase for those tangibles of life, the really good but really elusive stuff that makes life worth living. Only if, his mother's late but final love shows him the way...
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver
BUT WHAT ABOUT HIS MOTHER?
Driving through the dark streets
of my well known town
walkers hurrying past
they don't even see me
moving
going who knows where
everything I know
I am not going there...
Shadow of his mother
crosses through my mind
lonely in a crowd
people staring
judging her
and then just hurrying along
they all have someone
and a place to go....
So I stop my car and read her story,
one more time....
Just like any modern version
of those ancient Greek tragedies
this simple tale
of unthinkable suffering
and parental love
make us feel
so uncomfortable
and yet
we are so confident
so happy in ourselves
that nothing like this
will ever
happen to us.
We live in cynical times.
Can you sympathize
with an anguished mother
who struggles
to connect
with her son?
Can you feel
for a successful
businesswoman
who resents
to put
her ambition and career
aside
to bring to this world
an apathic son
with floppy limbs
and a grave disinterest
in life?
Can you relate to
a frustrated
inexperienced
mother
who finds her son
difficult
from the very start?
You wanted to
and you tried
but thinking
about her son,
who commits
an unthinkable
irredeemable crime,
you can't.
As I said, we live in cynical times.
His mother knows,
she doesn't expect
your understanding,
your forgiveness
or your superficial christian love.
Alone,
she grapples
with her failings
as a parent
while attempting
to rebuild her life
the part of which
are her weekly visits
to the prison for juveniles.
She has been sued in civil court
for being a negligent parent,
just like it happens
in many school shooting incidents
so maybe now,
is the time to have your opinion,
if you were the judge in that case,
what ruling would you have handed down?
She has come full circle,
making a journey much like
her son's own.
In asking petulantly
whether those senseless murders
are her fault.
She went backwards
so many times.
At the end of the day
she has no idea
and that pure ignorance
has become itself
a kind of solace.
Guilty or innocent,
what difference would it make
right now?
It is time for her visit,
one more time....
Mother stands in front of her son,
once again
and suddenly she realizes
he looks exhausted
confused
and lonely
just like her.
And if only out of desperation
she realizes
she loves her son.
"It's been two years,"
she said quietly,
"I miss your father,
I miss your sister,
too badly.
And so many other families
are still so sad.
You have never told me.
So please
look me in the eye.
You killed your fellow students,
teachers,
my husband,
my daughter.
Look me in the eye,
and tell me
what was the point,
why?"
He looks her straight into her eyes,
for the first time:
"That is the point,
there is no point.
That is the reason,
there is no reason.
Don't ask me: Why
I can mislead you
just out of spite.
But maybe,
just maybe,
today I tell you,
that before
I knew,
but now
I am not sure anymore."
Kevin for the first time in his life
bows his head
suddenly unsure of himself
and the senseless murders
committed by his hand
fall so heavy
on his thin shoulders
that he is barely able to stand.
The mother looks at the son,
remembering the time
when he was born
and she felt nothing.
Since that moment
they have fought one another
with an unrelenting ferocity
that she can almost admire.
But it must be possible
to earn a devotion
by testing an antagonism
to its very limit,
to bring people closer
through the very act
of pushing them away.
She opens her arms
and he huggs her tightly
for the first time in his life,
he is nearly eighteen years old.
We live in cynical times,
and yet,
no one asks,
why people do have children,
when kids are expensive
and exhausting,
and the risks
of something
going wrong
are so high....
This tale doesn't explain
if Kevin was just born that way
or his cold heart
is a product
of his mother's mechanical care
without love...
We are often most repelled
by other people
who share our own flaws
and we all have them
but what if that other person
is our own child?
The story just confirms
the truth from the ancient Greek legends,
the times are changing
but not us,
we are still capable
of unimaginable cruelty
and unconditional love.
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