Quite by chance, this morning I came across an interesting article in the online edition of one of the leading Croatian newspapers. Murder stories leave me cold, but this one was about a messed-up American girl of about fifteen who killed her friend of roughly the same age. She first strangled her, and then she cut her throat and stabbed her many times with a kitchen knife. Returning home, she wrote in her journal that she had found some pleasure in what she did. Apparently, she was a bit surprised by the experience. And then she wrote that it was time for her to go to the local church, where she was expected for some event. These two things from the journal were the key to the entire article, which I only skimmed through. The church bit is but a teaser in a staunchly Catholic country, such as Croatia, but the pleasure found in killing is universally considered abnormal. Nay, monstrous. By implication, normal people kill only under extreme conditions and they are revolted by the experience. Which is why they readily repent afterwards. My reading is entirely different, of course. The American girl was so young and so messed up that she admitted to herself that she had found pleasure in killing. The so-called normal grownups only keep mum about the pleasure. Bound by social norms, and especially those promoted by the church, they must consider it a secret worth preserving till the very last breath. Lest they are branded as monsters, they deny the surprising experience. If only normal people would admit that they are human. As well as that humans are born killers.