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Is it our brain that determines who we are? Is Joe the way he is because of the way his brain is
constructed, and if he has indeed suffered any brain damage, will that change who he really is?
We've seen the victims of stroke and how the ones who suffer from brain damage change
completely. How they stare at you blankly. How they can't recognize people they've known their
entire lives. How they can't do things they did before. How they can't continue their quest for
knowledge because they have been compromised.

If Joe wakes up and there is a screw loose up there, will he still be Joe, or will he put on a mask that
no one recognizes?

Chapter 26:
HEADS, TAILS, SAME COIN

"Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it." So many times a young man
will curse his father's name and swear never to follow in his footsteps, and so many times that
young man goes back on his word and does indeed follow in his father's footsteps.

He doesn't follow the imprints in the ground because it is his fate to do so, but because later in his
life he begins to understand why his father was the way he was. Sometimes these thoughts are met
with forgiveness, even long after the father has died.

I hadn't had a dream worth writing down or remembering in days until last night. Last night I
dreamed that I was at some sort of crime scene, trying to find the clues to a puzzle that seemed as if
it didn't really exist. I see the chalk outline of a body that was here before, but has long since been
gone. I wish I knew the victim's name so I didn't have to refer to the body as "the body."

A woman comes up to me and tells me that this is the sixth body that they've found in the month
that was killed in the same manner. The likings of a serial killer who should only be referenced to
as a serial murderer. This is the life of the sixth damned person who had a damned name that this
serial murderer has taken on my watch.

I'm at the grocery store now, in line, thinking about how a human being could murder another
human being. What it takes. How your brain has to be constructed. How your environment has to
be. I remember one of my teachers in high school telling us about an experiment.

There was a contained area where rats resided, and as the population grew the rats started to kill
each other. It makes me wonder what will happen once humankind begins to overpopulate, if those
happenings haven't begun already.

Hunting a murderer and becoming a murderer are two different things, but also one in the same.
The first step is realizing that you are a murderer yourself. Maybe not literally, but philosophically.
Just as you may wear the mask of the law enforcement officer, you can easily go backstage and
take it off and put on the mask of the murderer and the audience won't have a clue. The scary thing
is you may not have a clue either.

So it is gathered that if you want to be able to catch a murderer, it would be good to know how the
mind of one works, how their brain is constructed, but the problem with this method is that there is