Bedevilled
By pearsonj123
- 218 reads
“He did, I shit you not he did. Wobbled his chair out from under himself
and that big oak that hangs some over the little canal bridge and swung there
from it,” he carried on as eyes rolled back and forth and sometimes in different
directions in the same head. “Must have been a good few minutes before he
reached up, pulled himself onto the branch and untied himself. I couldn’t see
him then but I heard this gagging sound like when a string of bacon fat goes
down the wrong way, and then a thin pipe dropped to the floor.”
“Right and he was just doing all this in front of you was he? You were
close enough to watch some fella torture himself into performing a miracle and
just sat back watching it? Come to fuck,” others mumbled in agreement of the
naysayer, but the storyteller knew what he had seen.
*
“Fùchóu zài dàodé shàng bìng bù kěyí,” a man with a bruised neck told a
mirroman with a similarly bruised neck. “Vengeance is not morally dubious.”
He lifted his chin and rolled his head back and forth, swallowing repeatedly as
his fingers traced the ligature marks.
“Strong stuff indeed. I’ll say they’re lovebites since it’s pretty clear how
deep I am in honeyjuice. Definitely has potential as a method, though. I reckon
some more training and I’ll last...maybe...fffffive minutes? Which’ll easily be
long enough to shite the passersby into action. All that’s left now is to cook up
the story. What are my ingredients? A pinch of bitterness, a dash of anger, and a
fuck load of some foreigner murdering me - of all people, a sensitive creative -
for saying “Bless you” when he sneezed. Got to go big to nab their attention in
the capit- BOO,” both the man and mirrorman appeared to feel they had scared
the other satisfactorily.
He waltzed, he minced, he glided through into the main room holding
aloft a cigarette lighter like the purifying flame of a native new year. The
world...she ends, does she not? Within, several ‘magic snakes’ were wound
round a ceiling beam. The creatures hung with their heads coiled back to their
necks, lifeless though. Fitting, that, for their purpose. He ducked under a length
of red thread extending from one side of the room to the opposite, from one
piece of paper to another, in imitation of some T.V. detective or paranoid Peter.
One sheet read ‘CAPITAL’ the other ‘PUNISHMENT’, the apparent output of
his lifelong investigation. His eyes ran the length of the thread and back again.
“God I fucking love capital punishment,” he said, as tears of pride began
to flow.
*
He danced there, in that little cottage, spiraling through the galaxy he saw
when he but looked to the ceiling. His thoughts were of the kind that melt all
else, opposing directly the idyllic scene surrounding him. For that cottage was
just that, idyllic. Picture in your mind that small thatched house told of in
fairytales. Now place inside the white picket fence, on the thick grass of the
lawn, sculptures of deers and rabbits, foxes and badgers alongside one another
in perfect peace. Out of the front door bounces the man so gleefully that the
heavy iron knocker clatters against the wood several times. He dances, now,
with and around the animal sculptures and then back inside he goes. Look once
more in your mind at the false woodland creatures, do they now seem so at
peace? Are they tainted somehow? Are their expressions changed to fear? Just
so the man’s cottage had become sunken at his occupancy, full of acrid
cognitions and exclamations, pent up with designs of death control.
*
The man rubbed the hard patch of skin on his thumb. Perhaps I should
stop lighting that lighter so much , he thought. Or at least burn something
proper, rather than my own smooth, flawless, milky skin. Burn rubber, baby.
His rubbing ran now from wrist to elbow along both forearms - which were
shaved - and continued into a hug that brought forth an, “Ooo that’s
interesting.” The hairs that were left untouched on his body, because he couldn’t
bend sufficiently to touch them, stood on end, “How can anyone resist this
youthful, squeaky clean skin?”
By this time his inner self had run out his mouth and ears and pores to
float as ether above, looking down on the scene. A double rap of brass on wood
stuffed the inner back in, “That’s a wonderful collection of novelty woodland
creatures nesting in your garden, sir. I’d kill to have such a range myself and, no
doubt, so would many others. I expect you’ve never considered making them
more secure? It just so happens I’m in the business of collaring sculptures. For a
fiver a head me and my team will wring their lovely necks so goddamn tight in
a leather strap they won’t dare think about running off” - the salesman’s hands
were shaking, his chin had dropped and his eyes were showing more and more
sclera with each word his sweating lips spewed - “the tracking chip is
undetectable and alerts the authorities within minutes should any of your fine
installments be removed from the property without your permission. Personally
I’d recommend bolting them down. We both know there’s no sense in taking
chances with such fine beasts as you have here. Just give me forty-eight hours
and I’ll have them all secured. For if anyone knows their weaknesses it is I,
Thomas Robinson.”
With a heavy slam and a perfectly executed pirouette the man was back in
the safety of his lair. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, his brain whispered to his
body as it jumped back to the front door, opening it with such force that it
bounced back off its hinges to be closed once again within seconds. Before it
closed, though, he howled after Mr. Robinson, “ Xīnlǐ shìfàng shì wǒmen
kěwàng de.”
“Yes of course, comrade, they will see soon enough,” replied Thomas.
The man lunged back to the main room, pleased at having recruited yet
another disciple. Yes, indeed, psychological release IS what we crave. He
sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of frustration or tiredness, but of contentment...but not
just any contentment, the kind of contentment one gets after changing another
person’s life entirely, that very few people are lucky enough to experience, the
kind that is reserved for society’s greatest influencers alone. Just like we
planned, speak quick to them and then slow it all down and they get all relaxed
and nestle down into the idea of
LETSFUCKINGGETRIDOFTHOSECRIMINALBASTARDO’s. Thank Wotan for
that linguistic espionage class at night school. Gotta do it quiet so the thought
has space to slow down and get into their ears otherwise it’ll bolt straight out
the other side of their head with its power and oolala.
Why did that funny little man reply in English though? There was an
audible thud and a wiggle of both ears as something dropped in his head. If I’m
speaking China all the time, and not many more people around here speak
China than there are me’s then no one cares that all those China’s were
sentenced to death in 2008... His train of thought derailed and he froze mid-Tai
Chi, “Fuck.”
*
“LIVES ARE NOT SACRED! LIVING IS NOT SACRED! LIVELY
VIVUS MI AMORE IS NOT SACRED! I DO NOT AND WILL NOT
ACCEPT THIS AND I DO NOT UNDERSTAND FROM WHERE SUCH AN
ABHORRENT MISCONCEPTION CAME. OH, THAT’S RIGHT,
RELIGION. LIVES ARE NOT SACRED. LIVES ARE ALIVE AND THEN
THEY ARE NOT. THAT IS ALL. WE HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO KEEP
ONE ALIVE ANY MORE THAN WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO KEEP
ANOTHER ALIVE. WE ARE BUT BLADES OF GRASS, MY LOVES.
HUMANITY IS SACRED, HUMANS ARE NOT, MY LOVES. JOIN ME IN
A BRAVE NEW WORLD OF CONTROLLED BIRTH AND CONTROLLED
DEATH,” The small crowd that had been growing into a slightly larger than
small crowd moved backwards out of spitting range.
“He’s had apple juice this morning for sure,” one onlooker whispered to
another.
“No chance mate, look how thick that stuff is. It’s pure white too.
Definitely a full-fat milk drinker,” another replied to one.
Ahh look at them. Literally m o v e d by the power of my voice. Well,
that’s what gargling with crocodile icefish blood every morning and night does
for you my friends. Look upon me and drown! Now, just slip in a subtle DETER
DETER DETER, crack on a graceful dismount, and we can head home dear.
“ ZŬZHĬ ZŬZHĬ ZŬZHĬ,” he screamed at the now distant tiny crowd.
*
Goodbye, end of the road. Hello, start of my road. We wind and we turn
and we twist and we kiss, oh goodness do we kiss. The man was crouched down
drooling. He could see the last of the day’s sunlight bouncing harsh off the crisp
white of his lair. He would never have admitted the reason for his buying the
cottage. That one hundred metre approach to it. His secret shame, sickly sweet,
made plain as his hands extended out in front. His legs separated, and the left
foot placed half a yard behind the right. If Michael Johnson can do it I can do it,
he was great and he ran like that retarded girl in my year at school. Fuck me it
was funny to see her legs pelting it like nobody’s business below while her back
was perfect straight and her face looked like an arse botoxed to
fuckANDWE’REOFFBOYSFUCKMEI’MGOINGQUICK.
Half-a-minute later, at his white-picketed beast-pen, the elation he felt at
having beat his previous 100m dash record was cut in two when he saw
Comrade Robinson lassoing Ferdinand, the primo marble stoat. Wrangling it to
the ground, Thomas cried, “Don’t worry, sir. Won’t be a minute. Lively one
here. Extra vivus as it were so to speak. Overflowing with the vivus, my love.
Orders received and put into action double quick.”
Tears were in Ferdinand’s eyes. The man was beside himself. The him
that stood next to him, the NextToHimHim, manipulated and directed all that
came next. NextToHimHim whispered all the things that just had to be said to
Comrade Thomas, and he said all these things to Comrade Thomas as
instructed. NextToHimHim regaled both physical men with the issue at hand,
namely that Comrade Thomas had not just interfered with (one of) the man’s
key life goals, but he had also risked Ferdinand’s health. Needless to say, the
potential economic and societal benefits of having woodland creature sculptures
matched with their evolutionary nemeses in mighty one-on-one feuds were
boundless. The battles would have been epic, for even now the man had been
thinking about starting to plan the arena within which the combat was to take
place.
Yet, while NextToHimHim spoke eloquently, Him did not. For all
Comrade Thomas heard was, “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” A sound
which caused even his most taught lasso to slacken. The man’s face had,
through careful manipulation by his hands, contorted into such an obscenity it
set Comrade Thomas on his heels. The eyes were now too far apart, the tip of
the nose seemed inside out, and the bottom lip, stretched in a hysterical smile
from ear to ear, had been bitten nearly clean through. Poor Thomas fled into the
cottage with the man corkscrewing arm after arm in pursuit.
*
“You smell,” the man looked at the pot heating up before him and inhaled
deeply, “divine!”
“Blubble,” the pot, or rather the something in the pot, said in return.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it friend. Things have moved fast for
sure but it’s glorious and it’ll be glorious and stay glorious when we’re through
with it all. The minute of the hour of the day is upon us. Reinstatement.
Location is key.”
“Blubble blub blubbbut time is the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it;
but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is,” out came
a cry of steam.
“Location is key indeed.”
“Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains,” another snippet of
some long forgotten transcendence.
“Just before five in the afternoon. Everyone leaving work. I’ll only have
to hang on for the five minutes I can manage.”
“My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it.
My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing,” another cry and
more steam from the something in the pot. It is straining and clawing to get out.
It seems so.
“CALM. Always calm, calm always and for all. They won’t be calm.
They’ll see me dead and when I revive, those who were too sturdy of heart and
stupid of head to run and spread the good word will be converted by the miracle
before them,” the man bit blood out of his fingernails, spitting it into the pot.
“Just the sign left now. Right. A revenge plot. They hang me, a real Briton, so
we hang them. We hang them, it comes back. It comes back, the world no
longer ends. I sacrifice my status for the greatest good.”
The man removed a short, arcing length of thin pipe from the handle of
the pot. The pot, unsheathed, bubbled over at last with triumph. Perhaps. The
man fought off his gag reflex. The pipe was in position. The pot let loose its
something. Hair, clumped and suspended in red, pooled toward the man’s bare
feet.
Another magic snake hung in the room. Bone white. Segmented.
*
He licked his lips in - yes, that is anticipation. The beeping in his pocket
signalled it was time. They would start teeming out into the open now.
Disgusting disgusting disgusting things.
They started teeming out into the open now. He ascended the chair. His
favourite chair. He slipped the sign over his neck, letting everyone know just
how much he hated immigrants - even if it was simply a means to an end - and
into his magic snake. His favourite magic snake. They were looking. Some even
started towards him. He began to wobble the chair out from under him. He
knew the rhythm. He had practiced it on the chair off the chair horizontally
vertically backwards forwards sdrawrof sdrawkcab. He knew it would take
three.
Wobble.
Another.
The last wobble came and the chair upended. Dead. Stone. Cold. A short,
arcing length of thin pipe, left in a pocket, found its way through a hole and
emerged out of a trouser leg, clattering to the floor. They started towards him.
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