Everyone and No One, a true crime podcast, hosted by Ian Tuason. Episode 5.
In the spring of 2022, the 44 Division of the Toronto Police Service discovered the burnt remains of Rachel Amina Darwish, Daniel Brewer, and Mitig Biskane, in southern Ontario, Canada. The only clues offering an explanation for the three deaths were found in an anonymous blog written by an unknown individual.
The following content was taken from the blog website, everyoneandnoone.org
Posted on May 8
(fourth post)
My footsteps echoed off the face of a building towering over me. It was three in the morning, the air was void of daytime noises. I pushed forward, fingering the Zippo lighter in my pocket, rushing to buy smokes so I could go back home—go back to William.
A voice barked up ahead as if someone was arguing with himself. I squinted and saw the familiar bum yelling at a light post. He was a perpetual landmark in the neighborhood, as if the streets, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, dumpsters and bus stops were his home. He moved slowly around his domain, day after day, stopping to talk to a fire hydrant, or a wastebasket, or a sewer lid. His long wiry hair covered his face and features. His beard grew thin like a character in a kung-fu film.
I crossed the street to avoid him, and he crossed, too, mirroring me. My hands clenched into nervous fists in my pockets.
"You're not going to fucking get me with your phone rays," he screamed. He moved closer to me and I took out my fists. He stopped abruptly, as if hitting an invisible glass wall, and I hurried passed him. His snarls faded away behind me, and my hands relaxed.
Relieved to reach the store, I bought two packs of Belmonts, and made my way home taking a different route.
I smoked four cigarettes by the time I reached home.
Tossing the packs of smokes onto the coffee table, I dashed to the hallway and saw the spare room door open. I paused.
"William?"
No answer.
My phone chimed. It was Leah’s fourth text asking me why I wasn’t replying. I ignored it and opened William’s collection.
His writing was eloquent. The way he spoke and the way he wrote were worlds apart. In person, he cursed, mispronounced words, spoke in double negatives—but on here, he was almost divine with his language, I thought.
Each item was written in the present tense, in first person, describing things as if they were happening, like the line: I'm eating very slowly, savoring the juiciness of the steak. The salty warmth of the meat blends with the sweet coldness of the cranberry sauce.
One item read:
In a record shop in London, I rummage through a crate of vinyl records and sneeze from the dust. I lift the crate from its side handles and carry it into the listening booth. An hour passes, absorbing the soothing, changing, invigorating and inspiring melodies, when someone tells me to give other customers a chance, and I tell him to go fuck himself.
Sitting there, I wondered—did William write from his phone while simultaneously experiencing these moments in his life, or were they written memories of other days long passed? Or was he writing his pieces like how I write my blog—recording events shortly after they pass, sometimes long after they pass, sometimes collecting a series of events before posting them all at once as multiple blog entries.
Or is the entire collection nothing but a dream—a work of fiction?
Or maybe it was a combination of all those things, I thought.
Each piece breathed life into William—his essence inflating before my eyes with each word. One read:
3:3
The mob in Syntagma Square, mostly university students, is chanting something in Greek and the line of police behind clear shields and body armor are shuffling nervously. I join the mob in the chant, unaware of what I'm saying. It can be fuck the police, or we want ice cream, but it doesn't matter to me. A whistle pierces the air and the police march into us. A boy with a bandana covering his face throws something over the line of police officers. Two loud bangs rock the air and tear gas canisters skip on the pavement, leaving trails of pink smoke through the crowd. I hear gunshots and we all scatter. There's a girl lying on the ground and no one is helping her.
In later items, he described getting high at a street festival in Rome, something psychedelic, psilocybin it seemed, then dancing at a rave in Ibiza, high on acid. William fucked two girls at the same time at a brothel in Amsterdam, bursting out of the door without paying, laughing shirtless down the street. In Manila, he was dragged out of a night club by a large bouncer.
I forced myself to read faster, my eyes hardly able to keep up with my desire to know more. William seemed to switch from psychedelics to alcohol in each passing item—taking more risk, toying with danger.
3:10
I'm weaving between tourists and rich locals in the Alabang outdoor shopping mall. The tropic air is making my shorts stick to my thighs. I'm starving, but I have nothing left. A tiny Filipina with a powdered face stands at the front window of a clothing store, smiling at me, trying to entice me to go inside. Ahead, I see a Starbucks. A hundred pesos for a coffee grande. Two hundred for a muffin. Rich locals leave the shop holding their Starbucks cups like badges of wealth. In the parking lot, a street kid finds a discarded fast food cup on the ground and sucks at the straw.
At the edge of the Starbucks patio are two European tourists sipping iced coffee in clear plastic cups. On the table between them is a digital camera with a ridiculously large lens. I snatch it and run through the parking lot between cars. I hear one of the tourists yelling in Swedish behind me. I can't stop laughing.
The next one read:
3:11
I'm sitting on a curb outside a San Pedro whore house decorated in Christmas lights, an empty gin bottle between my feet. I'm drifting in and out of consciousness. I feel a hand slipping inside my pocket. My mind snaps awake like a cobra and I grab the wrist of a street kid squatting beside me. He is saying something in Tagalog, almost whispering, and I think he's more afraid of alarming the police than he is of me. With my free hand I open the butterfly knife I purchased from a vendor in Tagaytay. I slide the blade along the boy's arm. He jerks free from my grip and runs away leaving drops of blood on the cement.
An hour passed and the words on the page became clearer in my vision—sharper. And then suddenly, the tone of the next item shifted—William had met someone. The item read:
4:1
Her cheekbones peaked high on her tanned face. It is nighttime and she sits with me on the sand, looking up at the constellations. In the moonlight her teeth gleams silver. I see a shooting star and I ask her if she saw it, too. She says no. She asks if I know which ones are stars and which ones are planets. That's Mars, I lie, and that bright one, Jupiter, and that dim one, Pluto. She says that Pluto isn’t a planet, and that it can’t be Pluto anyway because Pluto isn’t visible to the naked eye. I stop talking, intrigued that something so big was up there, unseen. I wonder how many other planets are out there, circling other stars, baron of life. Entire worlds created by God that will never be seen by any life form for all of eternity. And I think to myself, do they even exist?
Another item read:
4:3
We stop at a small shop selling all kinds of drums along the side of the dirt road. I'm banging on a big one when she snaps a photo of me with her phone. Don't, I say. She asks me why not. I say that I used to take photos all the time, but all I could remember from those times were the photos themselves, and everything else in between just slipped away, lost. She points her phone at me and I scowl at her. I'm serious, I say, and she puts it away.
And another:
4:4
In the five star hotel in Makati, I feel like I'm vacationing in a first world country until I hear the rooster crowing outside. We lie in bed naked, sweaty and drinking bottled water. The sheets are kicked off the bed. I have something for you, she says. You do? Yup. Close your eyes and hold out your hands. Hey, stop peeking! I squeeze my eyes shut and laugh, waiting. I feel her phone in my hand. Okay, look. On her phone is an e-ticket for a flight to Toronto. She says I can stay with her. We turn on our sides to face each other. My fingers tangle in her sweaty hair and I kiss her. Her mouth moves down to my neck where the skin is so sensitive that it seems directly connected to my feet. My toes curl and she lets me go. She looks at me, her eyes and mouth shining. A ringing is rising in my ears like music. Don't leave me, I say, and she nods her head.
I read about William and the woman shopping at a Vancouver airport terminal. I read about the woman massaging William's hand and cracking his knuckles. I read about William and the woman singing in a coffee shop, picnicking by a lake. I read about William and the woman cooking, talking, and fucking in a Walmart change room. Nothing was happening, and everything was happening, and I wasn't sure which.
Crossing my legs, my heart raced as I neared the end of his collection. Outside my window, the dawn sky turned from purple to orange, and the city sounds began to fill the haze.
There was a knock on the front door, so gentle that I wondered if I had just imagined it. Waiting and listening, I heard another set of soft knocks.
William?
I closed my laptop and hurried to the door. Through the peep hole, I saw Leah slouched over, hugging her purse over her chest. I opened the door and forced a smile.
"Hi," I said. "Come in."
She walked in slowly, looking around.
"So, what…happened?" she said.
"What do you mean?"
"No reply... all night?"
"Oh," I said. "Sorry, I was asleep."
"You…you said you’d be up all night," she sighed, picked at something on her lip and scanned the room.
"You came from work?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "I was…worried about you."
I brought her to the sofa. She put her hand on my lap and I placed mine on top of hers. She did the same with her other hand, and I did the same, too, creating a layer cake of fingers and thumbs. Her touch soothed me, and for a second, William left my mind. I indulged in the warmth of her skin and the softness of my sofa cushions. Because of her, I felt like I was there in my living room, in the building, and in the world. Since the night before, obsessing on William's words, I had forgotten that feeling of realness, but it returned again.
Posted on May 8
(fifth post)
We slept through the day—a deep long sleep that we both needed. It was nighttime again and she had not woken up. Her mouth hung slightly open and her eyes darted around under her eyelids. I tried to go back to sleep, but wakefulness seeped into my mind, and with it, came thoughts of William.
I crept out of bed, trying not to wake her. I walked naked down the hallway and into the living room. On the sofa, I sat in darkness and rested the humming computer on my lap, its warmth heating my skin. William’s collection was still open and I read the next item.
5:1
She dials a number on her phone but I snatch it from her. She leaves the tent but I follow her. I think she’s scared because her voice is cracking. I can't understand what she's saying.
I chase her around our campsite when she stops to swing her closed hand at me, but I catch her wrist. With her free hand, she claws at my face but I grab her other wrist. Her face changes, and her anger transforms into agony. An escalating wail exits her throat.
My muscles tighten and I swing her to the dirt. A trickle of blood drips from her nose. She crawls away but not fast enough. She's breathing heavy. I pin her down with my knee.
Please, she says. She screams for help. Please, she says again.
You will never leave me now, I say.
My hands curl around her neck. Her fingernails rake across my arm. Her face turns purple. She pushes me off with her legs. She charges into the darkness. I tackle her to the ground.
Her screams are coarse and I allow her to call out for help underneath me. Help, help, help, she screams in a hoarse voice. Help, she screams. A vein protrudes across her forehead.
I bring my fist down on her nose. I hear the sound of bones crunching. I bring it down again, and again. Her face feels soft on my fist. She stops screaming. She stops moving.
Blood smears her deformed face and shattered teeth. Her body twitches. My bloody hand is pulsing. I shoot up and look down at her, her eyes half open but I can still see her there. I squeeze the red bottle of charcoal lighter fluid over her, drenching her. The past becomes ash, and she gives herself to this—to this place where time does not flow. She is eternal now.
Rachel is not there anymore, only here.
The heaviness of my computer sank deeper into my lap and my heart pumped faster. Rachel Darwish’s Instagram page flashed inside my mind. Could this be the same Rachel?
"What… are you reading?" Leah said from the hallway.
I jumped. "It's nothing," I closed the laptop, still startled, and walked passed her to grab my boxers from the floor. Leah followed me. I avoided her gaze.
"Are you…okay?"
I didn't answer. My mind was still racing.
"What’s the matter?" she asked gently.
I sprawled out onto the mattress, lying on my back, resting my forearm over my eyes.
“Hello?” she waited. I didn’t move.
The rumble of a plane swelled above us.
"Okay," Leah said after a long pause. "It’s none of my…business. I'm sorry for asking...really."
She started to get dressed. I thought about stopping her. My mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. All I could think about was William and his next piece.
When she left I waited by the window, looking down at the sidewalk below. I saw her exit my building, staring at her phone. A distant siren from a firetruck broke the peace. The wailing grew louder and louder. I looked back down and Leah was gone, a silver Honda driving away. I shut the window, muffling the sound of the siren.
I darted back to my laptop, my hands shaking. I opened Rachel’s page on Instagram and saw that nothing was changed. A sunset with the caption “Happy” was still her last post. A wave of anxiety coursed through me like acid. My heartbeat thumped louder between my ears. I opened our DMs and reread my last message to her, left on seen.
Okay for Councillor tomorrow. I’ll meet you at 9pm inside
I tapped on the screen and typed a new message.
Are you there?
Comments:
Goodi3s says
love it :)
I say
Who are you?
Goodi3s says
i'm who ur looking for honey
I say
Let's meet tomorrow. Where will you be?
Goodi3s says
pegasus on church street at happy hour, drinking my martinis at the bar.
This ends Episode 5 of Everyone and No One, a true crime podcast, hosted by Ian Tuason. To be continued next Tuesday in Episode 6, anywhere you get your podcasts. This has been a DimensionGate production.
