Storm

[White background screen. At centre, a man in three-piece checkered suit holds up a posterboard intended to look like the Google homepage.]

HL: Hello. My name is Hannibal Lecter, and today I’m doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview.

[Text: So WIRED asked Hannibal Lecter, America’s most wanted serial killer, some of the internet’s burning questions. He took a while to get back to us. We’re sure he had a veritable storm of media requests to contend with. But when he did, he sent us this.]

[Hannibal Lecter returns to the screen, with former FBI Special Agent Will Graham standing beside him. HL is standing in front of a stainless steel counter, with a large pile of vegetables and a cutting board of meat laid out in front of him. WG is holding a poster board; the first board has each question starting with the word “where.” He rips the first piece of paper off to reveal the question underneath.]

WG: Where… did Hannibal Lecter go to jail?

HL, while chopping an onion: I went to jail at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. A fine institution. I recommend it to anyone looking for a caring home for themselves, or for a friend.

WG, rolling eyes: Where is Hannibal Lecter now?

HL: Such is the nature of a youtube video that I cannot state for certain where I am, right now, as you watch this. However, there are several options. Perhaps I am working in the garden. [He starts in on chopping a carrot.] If it is evening in my time zone, possibly I am in front of a fireplace, drinking a glass of fine wine and sketching. If it is even later, you ought to imagine me in the bedroom. As far as your imaginings on that front–

WG, interrupting: Or, you could imagine him walking away from a crime scene with his arms and legs held away form his body like some weird doll, trying not to squeak so loudly the neighbors hear after dismembering someone in his stupid plastic suit. Which he still doesn’t wear a hairnet with, by the way. Okay, next: Where is Hannibal Lecter from?

HL: How does one account for origin? Are we creations of our own imaginings, inventing ourselves, rising from the ashes of our former selves? Or do we submit to being merely manifestations of psychological trauma, slaves of the linearity of time, always from somewhere and never asking who and what comes from us, constrained to–

WG: He’s from Lithuania. He’s from fucking Lithuania, okay? And I’m from Louisiana. If anybody cares.

HL, throwing mirepoix into a pot with more force than absolutely necessary: Next question.

WG: Where is Hannibal, Missouri?

HL: …

WG, ducking a well-aimed stub of carrot: Okay, okay, sorry.

[WG reaches beneath the counter and pulls up a new poster-board. All of the questions on this one begin with “does.”

WG: Does Hannibal Lecter eat people?

HL, very seriously: Yes he does.

WG: Does Hannibal Lecter have a dog?

HL, bending down: Encephalitis. Encephalitis, come here.

WG, aside to camera: He’s the only one who calls her that. Her name is Cephy.

[HL lifts a tiny teacup poodle up onto the counter and immediately starts feeding it raw meat from the cutting board.]

WG: Jesus, don’t do that, she’s going to be sick. You spoil her rotten, you know that?

HL: It’s meat. It’s natural that she should eat meat. It’s important that we provide her with the tools to follow her true nature.

[WG whistles, and there is the sound of many sounds of dog feet, as well as a couple tails wagging around at the bottom of the frame.]

WG: Good boy. See, Hannibal, the rest of them don’t beg. Only your spoiled pet.

HL, lasciviously: I only have one spoiled pet, and he does not beg nearly as often as I would wish him to.

WG, hastily dismissing dogs and picking up posterboard: Does Hannibal Lecter blink?

[HL stares at camera]

[HL continues staring at camera]

WG: Okay, you’ve made your point.

[HL continues staring at camera]

WG: Hannibal. I can see you crying.

[HL continues staring at camera]

WG: Okay, I’m asking the last question. Does Hannibal Lecter love Will Graham?

[HL blinks]

WG: I’m just asking on behalf of the good users of google dot com, here.

HL, grip on knife tightening: He does. Hannibal Lecter loves Will Graham to distraction. He loves him more than his own self, he loves him such that the self is shown to be a puny, impotent concept compared to the all-encompassing sun of love. He would tear part any who stood in between himself and Will Graham with his bare hands–

WG: –that’s a low bar, he would do that to a lot of people anyway–

HL: –he would lay sacrifices at his feet, he would raze cities, he would destroy everything he had worked for, give up every creature comfort–

WG: – they let you cook in prison, for crying out loud–

HL: –he would wear a hairnet, he would clean up dog shit, he would hide out worlds away from the nearest farmers’ market, he would–

[WG finally grabs HL and kisses him.]

[They kiss.]

[The editors at WIRED begin to wonder what sort of content rating this might require on youtube.]

WG: We should probably turn that thing off.

HL: I think we’d better, yes.

[WG walks towards camera, his hair in disarray, and reaches out a hand. The screen goes dark.]

[Text: If you have any information on the whereabouts of the men in this video, please contact the FBI tip line listed in the video description.]