A rotting upstairs room; damp wood and corrugated iron; dark colours run into each other; litter, maybe blood; empty for years; a figure in the window-light.
   “My name is Drazen, and I know how to manipulate people like you.
   “I walk around, I pass you in the street, I think what I like; all the time the universe continues to spin around the axel that is me.
   “Egocentric? Healthy. Why shouldn’t the world be my oyster, for me at my will to suck out its core and consume it when I’m not hungry? Do I see a moral code engraved in adamantine stone held high for all to see? Do I see an almighty God that would flicker an eyelash about what I do?
   “What I do see is straight through you.
   “You are bound in chains. Chains cover your eyes and your very senses and mind. What you look at filters through these chains, and much is never seen. What you do has to pass out through these chains, and much is never done.
   “I have no chains.
   “But you would never know. I know how to manipulate people, but I don’t. You are my only proof, right? The chains are chains for the mind, not the body. On the surface I am Drazen: a normal guy who talks and acts normally. Nothing about me is outstanding. It is only the inaudible, unexpressed, inside voice that distinguishes me from you. For years this has been only mind; today it is body.
   “Outside I laugh and inside I cry; outside I wretch, but inside I savour; you may call me your friend if you please, but only I will know whether you’re right.
   “Right now I’m where no one will find me, and I stare through the shattered windows down onto the distantly passing public. Right now you are sitting down and reading – get a life! Hmm… hmm… I stare about and see shoppers, shopkeepers, friends, adults, teenagers, children. Children like you, my dear! Notice the way that I list them, it’s like I’m observing them from a higher plane, see? Do you understand?”
   With a bang the door burst open.
   “Freeze! Put your hands behind your head and turn around – slowly!”
   Drazen was so frightened that he could hardly think. He stood there like a shrivelled fish out of water. A policeman had to forcefully turn him around. A second ripped the gun from his hand. He didn’t resist. A third rescued the weeping girl in the corner. Drazen had shot her mother, then sat her down there and instructed her to read an unpublished book he’d written, whilst he went on with his self-absorbed monologue.
   He was defeated, disempowered, disgraced, and though he didn’t see it, his pretences had been obliterated. But they were not taken from his inaudible, unexpressed, inside voice.
   “It’s over Drazen!” a policeman shouted.
   Drazen chuckled.
   “Spare us the false amusement,” said another, who then whispered to his colleague, “Anything dangerous?” He received a gesture to say the place was clear.
   “You don’t know me,” said Drazen with menace.
   “Misunderstood genius?” the policeman replied, stepping forwards. “Sorry, don’t understand you.”
   The policemen stormed the room and secured the other hostages. They unchained them then asked if they were okay, whilst two more rapidly handcuffed Drazen and led him out of the room screaming, “You don’t know me!”
   Six months later he’d be executed.