Bennett Larson
Billingham, England
16th May, Nineteen-Hundred Twenty Three:
I record these words in the hopes of imparting some manner of understanding as to the motivation for my actions. I never intended to harm any person; I only sought to reach the end of my ancestor’s writings, to know the future of myself and my family. I suppose I was possessed by delusions of grandeur, and not at all in my normal state of mind. I see now, as my final moments of freedom speed ever closer, that I have slipped into a paradox, from which there could never have been an escape. Modern reason has a tenuous hold on the nature of the universe, and I now know that its grip will inevitably fail. If you wish to know how I am beset with this condition, gentle reader, continue with these writings. But know one thing before you do: This is a record of the thoughts and actions of a fool, a rational man who trifled with powers better left untouched by the frail hand of humanity. I ignored the sage advice of my Father, and have paid a most dire price. It is only a matter of time, now.
After contracting a particularly nasty strain of Malaria while journeying up Egypt’s Nile River, my Father returned to the family estate here in Billingham, barely a shadow of the stalwart and robust man I had known. He passed within days of his return, leaving Mother and myself to attend to his estate. My shiftless lay about brother, Edgar, was nowhere to be found. Clearly, the death of his own Father did not hold a particularly large portion of his interest, though he would no doubt be asking for his share of the inheritance once Mother and I had sorted out the dirty work.
Having lived most of my adolescent life at primary and secondary away schools, and subsequently being occupied with my career as a barrister, my father’s life was not altogether familiar to me. I had little idea he was such a well-traveled man, judging from his astounding and terrible collection of artifacts from every conceivable area of the Earth. It took the better part of a fortnight to wade through and catalogue his many treasures: Shrunken heads from Borneo, spears and darts of all manners and sizes from darkest Africa, and even a framed photograph of himself with Samuel Clemens, that most clever of Yankee writers, with whom I have long held an acute fascination. Father’s most terrifying treasure, however, was soon to permanently mar my existence.
I came across an aged tome containing the writings of my greatest ancestor, Severin Aldebourne. Amidst the darkness and chaos of the 15th century, his was the Lordship of Hallenbrooke, a small province to the north of England. While the rest of Europe writhed under the boot of the black plague, his Lordship enjoyed a localized renaissance, a veritable age of enlightenment within the closely guarded confines of his own private Eden. Understandably, reader, you take note of the oxymoron present in the words “Closely guarded renaissance”. But during the 15th century, witchcraft, which was simply the name unjustly allotted to scientific method, was punishable by hanging. The borders of Hallenbrooke were tightly defended, as it was a haven for those that rejected the modern ideals of God and nature. His Lordship scoured the globe for heretics, blasphemers, and free thinkers from every civilized society, offering asylum to any who would accept.
At the crux of this harmonious refuge of enlightenment stood Severin Aldebourne, the bright center of his own personal universe. Drawing upon widely distributed resources, of which only a few are revealed in his diary, he was a gravitational force drawing to himself the most important thinkers of his age, from all walks of life. He was permitted these heretical activities through a vast network of bribery, blackmail, and political intrigue. As he put it, he never set out to hurt those that would oppose his vision; He sought only to gently change their minds. Through his efforts, his political power was assured, and his wisdom was well respected by the most powerful men in Europe.
During the following days I pored over the withered text, each turn of a page rife with anticipation and astonishment. It was as if my ancestor had opened a gateway into the past, a past I have studied well in my time. But as I was privy to settlements of feudal disputes, the astronomical theories of men who had never heard of Galileo, and his various sketches and studies of bones he believed to belong to an ancient race of giant lizards, it became all too clear that I was a child again, learning of this period of history for the first time. This feeling of wonderment, however, would come to a crashing halt.
It was at this point that my scheming brother, Edgar, made his first appearance. While settling in for the evening in the guest room, I noticed strange sounds coming from my Father’s study, into which I had gathered all of his worldly treasures. Mother was fast asleep, and the help had all retired to the servant’s quarters, on the west end of the property.
As I made my way toward the study, my mind raced with speculation as to who might be intruding on my Father’s keep. As I rounded the corner in the hallway, I indeed saw light shining from within the study, interrupted many times by shadow and the noises of shifting objects. I slowly crept towards the door, brandishing a fire poker I had secured from the inglenook in my quarters. I quietly pushed open the door, and beheld an oafish form, obscured by poor lighting, bent over a stack of my Father’s papers.
I raised the fire poker, so as to level the intruder, when my enemy suddenly turned. It was my brother Edgar. Typically of him, having not been to his father’s house for twenty and a half years, he suddenly appears in the middle of the night, seeking no doubt to steal anything of value that he might find. But Edgar was not the most worldly of chaps, and concurrently had little idea as to the value of my Father’s possessions.
After a minor rebuke from myself, I embraced him, noticing that he reeked of cheap brandy and cigar smoke. He most often kept with the seedier elements of society, preferring to surround himself with vagrants and thieves. Father had Edgar pegged as a loafer from a young age, and Father was seldom wrong.
After a brief exchange concerning his whereabouts during the past few years, upon which I’m not sure even Edgar, himself, could have honestly reported, he retired to the second guest quarters at the far end of the house. He mentioned that he always felt more comfortable in the room furthest from Fathers, doubtless so he could carry out his mischievous plots away from prying eyes.
Over the next few days, Edgar kept mainly to himself, only leaving his quarters at meal times and to wander the grounds late at night. What he expected to find, I’ll not know. His privacy was gladly granted, as I was anxious to continue my appraisal of my ancestor’s writings.
Upon reaching the latter half of the text, I came across a warning, written on decidedly modern parchment. Scrawled in my father’s own hand, it warned not to inquire further, lest the reader’s own life be shattered as a pane of glass. At this, I was momentarily taken aback, as I knew my father to be a prudent man, a man not easily put off. After a moment of hesitation, I continued on, arrogant in my abilities to cope with any information my ancestor might wish to impart.
In the subsequent text, my ancestor recounted the homecoming of an expedition to Arabia, self-sponsored and in the name of profound discovery. The year-long voyage yielded a treasure of unparalleled significance: The lost manuscripts of Al-Khowarizmi, 7th century mathematician and troubled visionary. Severin lamented the loss of his eldest brother to the journey, yet remained confident that the spoils would ensure his sacrifice would not be in vain.
At this point, the diary entries skip several days. Before the gap, my ancestor recorded his intention to examine the treasured manuscripts in his reclusive tower study, where he might ascertain their true significance undisturbed. The first entry after the gap revealed something so fantastic and altogether ridiculous, I initially thought Severin’s self-imposed isolation had driven him mad. That is until I pressed further into his writings. To my horror and delight, his claim was all too correct.
After countless hours of intense analysis, it was my ancestor’s conclusion that Al-Khowarizmi had discovered a complex mathematical algorithm that could be applied to one’s own future life. In his own words, “…To separate the possible from the inevitable, ye needeth only the arab’s numbers.” My ancestor surmised that the Arab had had a communion with God, and this was a gift from Him to the peoples of the world. The greed of Arab royalty, however, saw that the secrets of the algorithm were kept to themselves.
The next few pages chronicled Severins final days, in which he seemed to know that he would soon be taken from this world. He wrote of a betraying Count from Denmark, a once valued confidante, who was held in high regard by the Church. He wrote of a meeting, in which the Count swore revenge, as Severin had cast the deciding opinion against his right to purchase vast properties in England. The Count swore a blood oath of revenge against my ancestor, which, Severin knew, he was more than capable of carrying out.
A week later, a small regiment of the Knights of the Holy Cross stood at the gates of Hallenbrooke, demanding my ancestor be remanded to their custody. While his retainers were ready to fight to the death in defense of their Lord, my ancestor wouldn’t have bloodshed on his account. He surrendered without incident, as he was resigned to his fate.
Because this was a personal account of the events of his life, it was at this point that I expected the text to end, despite his previous claims of owning visions of the future. But as I turned each page, I read of his knowledge of his own execution, in the public square of the very Danish Count who had betrayed him. Impossible as it seemed, Severin Aldebourne had predicted with perfect clarity the circumstances of his own death.
Unable to believe what I was witnessing, I held my breath with each turn of a page, my hands beginning to perspire. My ancestor had recorded detailed accounts of events that took place decades, and soon centuries, after his demise. He wrote of the fates of innumerable English monarchs, complete with dates and locations of their respective destinies. He wrote in varied detail of the future history of Jerusalem, the holy land, and the continued struggle for control of this most sought-after locale. He wrote of the wondrous machines that gave birth to the twentieth century, of the industrialization of modern societies, and of the new world, as the impending catalyst for the demise of the civilized world.
With my hands now shaking wildly, I continued, feeling now that a certain madness had come over me. How in god’s name my ancestor could have possibly recorded these things is beyond my clearly feeble grasp of reality. I began sweating profusely, and felt that I should have a break. I looked up from the text, and noticed that I had been reading for seven straight hours, the clock on the mantle reading half-four a.m. I mopped my soaking brow and lowered my eyes back to the bewildering manuscript before me, despite the dreadful hour, and my sudden feeling of hunger.
It was at this point that my loutish brother Edgar interrupted my studies. He informed me that he would be leaving that very hour. He explained that he needed to leave our father’s house and catch the earliest train back home. Where his home is, I did not inquire. I embraced him, again noticing his rank mixture of body odor, stale smoke, and sour defeat. I offered him a few pounds for the trip, which he accepted. I offered purely out of obligation, as the money would no doubt be wasted on activities of ill repute. He departed with a few mumbled words. The brief respite this exchange offered was enough to rekindle my curiosity, and I returned to my Father’s desk.
As I once again delved into my ancestor’s vision, he began describing the travels of my Father. He wrote of my Father’s journeys to India, South America, Antarctica, and the Orient. He then told of my Father’s trip to the land of China, during which he was approached by a man who claimed to have been holding an item of great value for him, that it was his family’s charge to deliver this strange text to the current descendant of one Severin Aldebourne. According to my ancestor, my Father took the text with him back to his estate in Billingham, where he read as much as he could stand. It was at this point that my father wrote the note, warning any who would not to venture forth. He then set the tome away in the cellar, and disturbed it never again.
My father’s life continued to unfold before my eyes. I came to a page containing the story of his final trip up the Nile River, and his final days in his house. My stomach knotted at the prospect of what was to come next.
I read on, seeing my arrival at my Father’s house, and my discovery of my ancestor’s text. I studied the conversation between myself and Edgar, not seventy-six hours previous. I saw myself at breakfast with mother, this very morning. The book then told of my evening and early morning, and I found myself unable to pull away from the gripping passages. The next page would bring me into the current moment. It was with an amalgam of apprehension, anticipation, and foreboding that I ventured to the next side.
Expecting only to read of a quiet house with one active room, I instead learned of a mysterious individual, clad in black, with a menacing aura about him, creeping through the front door and across my father’s main entry hall. My stomach began to clench as I was informed of his skulking up the stairway, and moving silently toward the study. Upon reading this, I unintentionally began to reflect upon my brother’s motives for visiting my father’s home. I knew that he was taking stock of my father’s estate, but upon his arrival, was surprised by my presence in the house. I then began to contemplate the worst, and knew at once that it must be correct. He was most assuredly planning to have one of his ruffian cronies attack, even kill me. It would be a small step from my murder to do away with poor Mother, asleep in her bed, allotting wicked Edgar the entire inheritance. As I turned my attention back to the text, I saw a description of my current thoughts, which served as a sort of confirmation of my inferences, and fanned the flames of my paranoia into a bright inferno of wrath.
I then simultaneously read of and heard the door creak ever so slightly as the villain entered the very room in which I was captivated by my ancestor’s work. Slinking ever closer to me, my attacker reeked of the same cut-rate cigar stink as Edgar had, and was clutching something in his left hand. I read of him slowly approaching me as I found myself unable to tear away from the prophetic words of my ancestor. I knew I had the advantage, as my killer would no doubt believe me unaware of his presence. I used this upper hand to quietly, slowly, open my Father’s desk drawer and remove the ivory handled letter opener stored therein.
The Assassin was now standing directly behind me, as I read, and so did I sense his proximity to me. My mounting madness and terror took hold of me. Clenching my Father’s letter opener in my fist, I spun to my feet, and with one swift thrust plunged the opener into the intruder’s heart. My aim was true, and my strength was with me. The killer staggered backwards, slumping oafishly to the stone floor. With an insane smile on my face, I felt at once that I had beaten my own death. My ancestor had somehow managed to foresee my doom, from the far reaches of the past, and warn me of its imminence. He rescued his most worthy descendent from a gruesome destiny where he declined to warn any others. His legacy should live anew in me, I knew. Mine was the future, armed with the wisdom of my ancestor. I bent over the body to examine my would-be assassin.
In the sliver of moonlight that shone through the window, I made out the face of my poor brother, Edgar. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, with a look of utter shock on his pale, corpulent visage. He died, with a sickening gurgle, on the floor of my Father’s study.
My first reaction was disbelief that my whoring, devious brother would himself attempt to murder me, in our Father’s house, no less. But as my gaze fell to his left hand, my reason quickly returned, which caused a sickly pallor to invade my face. There, now lying in crumpled wads next to his lifeless hand, lay the money I had given Edgar no more that thirty minutes prior.
I stood in horror at the scene before me. My own brother lay on the floor, with an accusatory glare, framed in terrible moonlight, penetrating his foolish killer. I had murdered my Father’s son, and there wasn’t a single hope of explaining away the circumstances. Feeling a mix of rage and sadness, pity and self-loathing, I stood for a moment, shaking my head. My suspicions of my brother’s unorthodox lifestyle proved to be the undoing of us both.
All at once, I knew what I had to do. With naught else but my curiosity left to me, I again set before the wicked account of my present and future history.
As I pressed on, I saw my brother’s death, and my horrible revelation, just a moment ago. In a few hours, Mrs. Billows, the chambermaid, would enter the study, only to find a murdered younger son, an insane older son frantically writing in a journal at the desk, and the smoldering ashes of an ancient text in the fireplace beside him. The authorities would be summoned, and I would be put on trial. In record time, I would be convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. So would end the story of my misguided existence.
Knowing what little time I had left to myself, I began this writing. Mrs. Billows will enter the room at any moment, and I will be put to prison, and eventually, the gallows. I want to apologize to my mother, who will soon be completely alone in this world. My thoughts now fall to my poor brother Edgar, who no more deserved death than a naughty child. He had many shortcomings, but in the end, proved to be of a much better stock than his older, more successful sibling. I await my destiny, knowing that I deserve this perfect hell in which I now find myself. I have set my ancestor’s diary ablaze, so it can find its way back to the safety of oblivion, somewhere outside the reach of human fallibility. May God forgive my arrogance at the hour of my judgment.
Dear Robert Farnsworth,
Thank you for participating in the Moletech, Inc. recreational pharmaceutical trial program. Enclosed is a sample capsule containing the most extraordinary substance ever devised by humankind, Methodiethylamide Quad-Phosphate (MDP); our product has already been exhaustively tested and approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human consumption. Your input on the effects of our product will help with advertising and product placement.
Please orally ingest the capsule along with an entire 12 oz. glass of drinking water, one hour prior to bedtime. Refer to the enclosed booklet should you have any further questions. Please visit our website at: WWW.Moletech/DreamProgrammers.ORG for a full explanation of biochemical reactions and contents of the product.
Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the experience of a lifetime in the comfort of your own bedä!
Sincerely,
William Sakamura, CEO Moletech, Inc.
Rob couldn’t help himself. His brother George, a bigwig at Moletech, told him of their new drug that was just about to come onto the market. Custom made dreams in a pill, as real as reality, or so he claimed. But the initial sale price was only affordable to about 2% of the people on the planet. Rob was about to write the idea off as yet another thing in life he would be denied for lack of a good job, when George mentioned the advertising research program: Free samples of the pill, and all you have to do is fill out a questionnaire afterward. Rob had George place him at the top of the list, and a month later his free packet from Moletech arrived in the mail, sample pill and instructions enclosed.
Being naturally cautious when trying anything new, Rob went to the website, read all of the information about MDP, and even did his own independent search. According to the FDA, it would be on the market in six to eight months, and that it was already approved for over-the-counter sale.
Rob couldn’t wait for bedtime. At about 4 pm he closed all of his shutters, dead-bolted his door, and unplugged the telephone. True, this was a sample of the drug and not a custom job, as the literature explained, but the effect was guaranteed to be “indescribably amazing”. He had already taken the pill just shy of an hour before, and was so excited he wondered how on earth he was going to fall asleep.
He sat up in his bed, looking over the various framed photographs on his bedroom walls, of his skydiving trips, base jumping from the empire state building, free climbing the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan, and even bearbaiting in Montana (not fun at all). He’d had some pretty vivid dreams in his life, as anybody has, but he couldn’t believe that a dream could compare with all of the crazy things he’d done in reality.
Despite his skepticism and his excitement, he soon began to drift. He could feel a blackness descending in waves, blurring his vision with each hit. Lightly at first, and then exponentially stronger, as if the pill contained some sort of sleeping aid, no doubt included for the very reason he thought he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. A black curtain covered his head, and time became imperceptible.
As routine an act as falling asleep can be, Rob was aware at every moment of his descent into slumber. The feeling of not feeling was indeed a heady delicacy, if it were possible to distinguish between the colors dancing in his eyes and the amorphous blobs of recognition casually drifting through his body. He knew for a second what was happening, but then forgot that he knew anything, and wondered what he was just thinking about. A century passed without incident.
But then he became aware of a bright white dot that had been there the whole time, maybe. It was the only stationary image amidst a cascading plume of colors, and he focused on it. As he stared, he became aware that it was a photograph the size of a pin head. He stared harder, and the surrounding colors were suddenly spooked, retreating into obscurity.
The dot suddenly rushed towards him at an inconceivable rate, doubling in size every second, until it was a planet, about to smash straight into him. He stared at it curiously, as it sped ominously towards him. But as swiftly as it began moving, it halted, hovering no more than a foot above his head. Rob realized that the ground had just fallen towards him and stopped just short of smashing through his comparatively miniscule frame, and that it was no scarier than watching the coolest movie he’d ever seen. With a perfect arch, the ground moved around his body, coming to rest under his feet, feeling as solid as Rob had become accustomed to expect from Terra Firma.
Rob then noticed that he was standing in the center of a stone dais, with columns encircling the perimeter. It reminded him of drawings he’d seen of the way Stonehenge was supposed to originally look, before the inevitable wear that was included in the package of existence. In between each column was a doorway with impossibly sparkly golden lettering that labeled what kind of dream was contained behind each door. One read: Beach (Not Available In Demo). Another was: Interplanetary Roller Coaster (Not Available In Demo). Damn, that sounded pretty cool. He scanned the various doors, all of which advertised tantalizing options, but were alas unavailable in this demo version of the drug. As he panned over the various doors, his eye was caught by a very powerful word, followed by the same notice of unavailability.
That word was Sex. Without thinking, he sprinted giddily for the door. He reached for the handle, but passed right through the portal to the outside of the circle of columns. The sign was serious, after all. No sex in demo mode.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” yelled Rob, as he jumped up and down in adolescent frustration. He knew at that moment that he would have to rob a bank, or become a drug dealer, or better yet work his way up to CEO of Moletech. Whatever it took to get his hands on the full version of this drug, he would do it without hesitation.
As it turned out, there was only one door that was available with this version of the pill: Fantasy Hero(ine). After trying the Sex door one more time, he accepted his imaginary fate and proceeded towards the only available door. He twisted the doorknob and the door promptly vanished. A small room with three more doors waited behind it. With the same dazzling golden lettering, each door informed Rob of his choices. Lord Of All Wizards, Super Powered Do-gooder, and Gun-toting Anti-Hero.
Anti-hero it is, thought Rob. He entered his chosen door, prepared for some serious ass-kickin’.
My name is Robert Farnsworth, and I kill scum. My entire family was murdered before my eyes by the Cortez drug cartel. I swore to avenge them at any cost. After many years of intense physical and mental training, I returned to the filth-ridden city that I lovingly call home. Ya see, the newspapers have dubbed me “The Hammer of God”. I kill any piece of shit I see walking these streets, and there’re plenty to fill my schedule. Home sweet home.
After hunting around for awhile, I stumbled upon a snitch by the name of Snitchy. He gave me the lowdown on a big drug importer operating no more than a block from my new secret, mysterious headquarters, in the warehouse district. The operation was entirely too big for these punks not to be working with the Cortez people. I gave Snitchy a napalm enema for his trouble, and then I went home to get some party favors for these dirtbags.
My party kit consisted of a butterfly knife, a grenade belt, a Glock 9 on each ankle, two shoulder holsters with an Uzi and a silenced PPK pistol, a sawed-off shotgun slung around one shoulder, and my personal favorite: a Panzerschreck anti-tank RPG, just to get my point across. I suited up and took a look at myself in the mirror. I’ve gotta get more of these pills, for sure.
I had no trouble finding the target. I would have definitely found this place on my own, had I more time living in the area. I can smell the scum from across the street, perched here on the roof of the adjacent building. Using my night vision monoculars, I see that something big is about to go down. Five limos just pulled into the warehouse, all waved through by heavily armed guards. I wait for the cars to enter the building and the door to close. Time to take out the trash. The trash being the criminals I’m about to kill. This dream dialogue is pretty cheesy, fuck you.
“Say, Chico, chu know what I love bout bein’ a creemeenal?” said guard-punk #1.
“No, man, whatchu love bout bein’ a creemeenal?” said guard-punk #2.
“Shooting eennocent people, mayn. ‘Specially weemeen and ol’ people, mayn, thas fun.” Someone should have been fired for writing such shallow dialogue.
“Hey, punk!” I exclaimed from the darkness.
“Wha’s that, mayn?” said guard-punk #2.
“I’ll give you a hint: It’s sharp, illegal in forty-eight states, and it’s flying at your head” I say. Did I really just say that? That was awful. Awfully brilliant, that is. I throw my butterfly knife at the first scumbag and it lands squarely in his forehead. As he stumbles around awkwardly, he shoots his AK-47 off in every direction, hitting his scumbag friend in the head. With a light mist of blood and grey matter, they both go down.
“Next time, try to keep your mind on your job.” I say, now fully appreciating the one-liners that are coming to me more easily. I use the panzerschreck to take out the wall of the warehouse. Subtlety is not my forte; nor is not killing scum.
“I’m selling the Encyclopedia Bullettanica. Care to subscribe?” I witticise, as I step through the smoking debris all about me. I see a small group of men, all dressed immaculately. It will be a shame to ruin all of those fancy suits.
“Who the fuck is you!?” yelled a piece of scum dressed in fine Armani.
“I’m the repo man, and it’s time to collect.” Too cool, I think to myself.
“Nobody messes with Pimpin’ D. Pimp, the most pimpinest pimp that eva pimped!” exclaims a sharp looking man in a gigantic, fuzzy leopard print hat. Whoever wrote this dialogue should be shot.
Each of the men pulls out some sort of weapon, each more impossible to conceal than the last. One guy runs to the trunk of his limo and straps on a helmet with a missile launcher attached to the top of it. This is gonna be entertaining.
They all commence firing. I figure that they’ll expect me to run for cover, so I do the opposite, just to throw them off guard. Instead, I stand in the middle of the room and look mean. I’m a mean guy. I have a scar and everything. Despite the ridiculous barrage of gunfire, nobody manages to hit me, not even with a ricochet. I slowly walk forward, with a smirk on my face. The missile-helmet guy takes his shot, and my half of the building is reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds. The entire place is filled with smoke and debris.
In the ensuing calm, I listen to the triumphant yells of the scummy-scummersons across the room.
“Yeah, bitch! Now I’ma put yo momma on the street to make me some money!” yelled the Pimpy D. Pimp guy, whatever his name was. Bad move. Nobody talks about my momma. Unfazed by the missile that just exploded two feet away from me, I casually stroll up to him, hidden by the smoke, and pull a grenade off of my belt. I point my Uzi and begin shooting a hole in his chest cavity. Blood splatters in an entirely convenient way, so as not to soil my outfit. I pull the pin and stuff the grenade into his new chest-hole.
“WWW.BlownToPieces.You/HaHa” A little technical humor. He explodes into a liquid mass of blood and sinew. Standing directly in front of him, I naturally get none on me, except for a cool looking streak across my face.
I dispatch the rest of the punks with little effort, thanks to my trusty sawed-off shotgun. With each kill, I utter an increasingly cool one-liner, until I’m out of scum to kill and one-liners to spout off. Standing in the smoky, body-part ridden aftermath of my reign of terror, I see a form at the end of the room. It slowly walks toward me. It doesn’t look like scum, but I raise my shotgun, just in case I sense scum, and need to….. not not kill ….someone……who is resembling scum…… dammit, I can’t think of a good one-liner this time. The man is wearing a white suit, and has a certain ghostly unnaturalness to him, almost as if he were two-dimensional.
“Thank you for volunteering for the Moletech, Inc. recreational pharmaceutical trial program. Your demonstration has ended. Please fill out the questionnaire included in your introductory packet. Tell your friends about the amazing properties of MDP, and remember, “It’s the experience of a lifetime in the comfort of your own bed!”
Rob awoke with a start. He couldn’t believe that it was over, and that he had slept through the night. His clock radio read 5:06am. He held his head in his hands for a moment, unable to grasp how truly revolutionary these pills were going to be. He immediately knew that it didn’t matter if the drug contained no habit-forming side effects, as the literature had promised, because he was already hopelessly addicted. Life began and ended with these pills. All he could do was run to the phone and dial his brother, hoping that somehow he would be able to get more of them for Rob.
Silence can be incredibly irksome. While I consider myself a patient and understanding person, I still have basic requirements for those who wish to be my friend. First and foremost is that you must contribute to the social atmosphere. Most people at least donate a solid individual presence. Some possess little substance, but still chime in on occasion. And some are just obnoxiously quiet. But even obnoxiousness is more acceptable to me than being a complete non-entity. This just means that you are occupying space in the room that could be utilized for something more interesting, like a bag of heavily salted snack treats. Or even the majestic beauty of the average igneous rock formation.
In case I’ve been too subtle up to this point, let me make my point as plainly as I can: I can’t stand wastes-o’-space. Katie has come to epitomize this character flaw in my mind. Katie. The name alone bores me, no offense to anyone named Katie except for the parasitic pile of organ meats that glommed onto my group of friends during my first few weeks of college. I harbor deep frustration with the memory of this girl, and I actually wish that I could delete this one from my mind. But I hope retelling this tale will serve as a literary exorcism, allowing me to be once and for all at peace with these grating events.
I met many different people during those first few weeks of higher education, most of whom I don’t even remember. Katie, unfortunately, made enough of a splash to surpass this group. I never learned her last name, but she was a somewhat dumpy blonde with a bad slouch and some very trashy choices in apparel. She lived on the female floor of Wilcox Hall, my dormitory; although I never cared enough to find out which room was hers.
Katie slipped into my life as a face in a larger crowd. She was there when we gathered to smoke weed. She was there when we went party hopping. She was there at mealtimes. And after a few days, given our policy of never locking our door, she was there when I returned from the communal showers. She was just there. I was never anything more than polite to this girl, and I guess that prompted her to believe that she was my friend.
Soon it became painfully apparent that Katie, much like nature’s cockroach, wasn’t going to leave on her own. During the evenings of those first two weeks she would come into my room, where I often sat, doing my own thing. My roommate Matt was usually out making the most of dorm life. I was much less of a go-getter, and before I had established a group of friends in this new place, I spent most evenings playing on my new computer, reading, or talking on the phone to friends back home. Katie was there during most of these somewhat lonely nights. I might have been glad to have the companionship, save for the fact that Katie offered absolutely none. She just sat on my bed, saying nothing unless spoken to. After so many awkward silences, I was forced to make excuses as to why she couldn’t hang around anymore. “I’m really tired” wasn’t enough of a hint for this girl. I had to say “I’m really tired, and I need to go to sleep”. Once she left, I would stay up for another few hours, increasingly glad that at least she responded to so straight-forward a dismissal.
But Katie would always return, like clockwork, to once again bask in the glory of our sessions of sheer boredom. As I gradually formed friendships with my other hall mates, Katie would tail me to their rooms. Even after the addition of several other people to my circle, she still had nothing to contribute. She was JUST THERE. I was pleased to find out that this was not exclusively my own observation. My other acquaintances remarked on just how crushingly dull her presence was, without my commenting on it first.
My friends Chris and Brad were especially bothered by her company. These two definitely felt my pain. On one of the rare nights during which the three of us were gathered and Katie was nowhere to be bored by, we made a solemn pact. We each swore allegiance to an active campaign in which we would ditch this girl whenever possible. I hadn’t entered into an arrangement of that kind since seventh grade, and even then it seemed a tad childish. However, I hold firmly to the belief that it was Katie that drove us to this course of action. At times of such desperation, one must do what one must in order to affect change. The bitch made me do it.
But none of us truly comprehended the sheer tenacity of Katie’s resolve. As we proceeded to move to different rooms in our hall, she followed. We told her that we were going to the nearby 7-11, and she would tag along. It got to the point where we would tell her that we all had separate, indistinct places to go, pretend to leave whichever room we occupied, and as she left, would immediately reconvene in the same room we had just sworn to leave. In my experience, these sorts of relationships always end with bold action, bent upon the excommunication of the offending party.
On a mundane Wednesday evening, Chris, Brad, Katie, and I were all gathered in Chris’ room. Brad announced that he knew of a party only a few blocks off of campus. We all agreed, except for Katie, who true to form said nothing, that we would make the trek. It was raining exceptionally hard that night, but we were determined to attend, if for no other reason than it would provide a distraction from Katie’s omnipresence. The three males walked in tight formation with Katie trailing only a few feet behind. Because of the rain, the three of us knew that Katie couldn’t hear what we were saying. This gave us the opportunity to formulate a plan of action.
The three of us agreed that when we got to the party we would simply lose her in the crowd. I felt that this was a solid plan, and with a little bit of improvisation, would surely succeed. WRONG. As we entered whosever house it was that threw this party, Katie stuck to us with practiced doggedness. We zigged, we zagged, we went into the backyard, we went to the back rooms; and with every move, she remained fixed at our rear. Chris ran into a friend of his from one of his classes, who informed him of another party only two blocks from this one. We collectively decided to investigate this option.
We tried to exit with sufficient haste to avoid our irritating tail, but she was on us like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. The rain was still dumping down as we located this second house party. To our collective delight, this gathering was larger than the last, which brought new confidence that we could shake the trashy interloper. We employed the same circuitous movement patterns we had used at the last party. Katie managed to keep up with us for most of it, until finally our window of opportunity opened, presenting a very welcome avenue of escape.
We lost sight of Katie as we moved out onto the back porch. We each surveyed the crowd, and all agreed that she was nowhere to be seen. Chris suggested that we leave as soon as possible and head back to Wilcox Hall. Brad and I demonstrated our agreement by moving swiftly down the side stairs, the three of us leaving the property through the side gate. We had done it. Our social dogfight had ended, and we managed to escape relatively unscathed. Or so it seemed. But such a subtly evasive maneuver was not to be the carrier of our message to that broad. We simply weren’t getting off that easily.
As we swiftly crossed the street, each of us looked over our shoulders to confirm that we weren’t being followed; so far, so good. But less than a block later, we each verified that Katie had zeroed in on our position and was walking out of the front door to pursue us. All courtesy and dignity had been permanently compromised. We weren’t giving this girl the slip without having to demonstrate just how little we desired her company. The decision to flee came suddenly. Hunter S. Thompson’s words have never rung more true than in this instance. We ran. We ran for dear sanity. We ran like children chasing an ice cream truck. The base desire to flee was such a liberating experience that only I looked back at our pursuer.
I’ll never forget the last image of Katie I have in my brain. There she was, walking after her fleeing host bodies, drenched in rain, betraying very little emotion about the events of the past few seconds. As I continued to run, I felt a pang of guilt, as if I had become one of those mean kids that ditches the weaker member of the group for personal entertainment. I realized that I was a jerk.
As we collectively dried off in Chris’ room, I couldn’t relieve myself of the terrible feeling that we had deprived this poor girl of her only social outlet, and that I had maintained such high friendship standards as to expel her for not measuring up. But a few days later, I learned that Katie truly deserved the punishment we had so callously meted out.
According to a group of girls who lived on the female floor above us, Katie had been quite the talker when she wasn’t in my presence. She had been bragging for many days about her relationships with the occupants of the male floor of Wilcox Hall. Katie claimed to have had sex with just about every guy in the dorm, including Chris, Brad, and me. I was so appalled at this preposterous insinuation that I immediately recounted the details of our ungraceful escape only nights previous. This was received by riotous laughter and collective shit-talking. I haven’t felt one iota of guilt since then.
I can now say that reliving this waste of my time has not cured me of the ire I feel towards Katie. She contributed nothing and managed to sully my clean slate provided by a new environment within the first two weeks of its existence. The only warm thoughts I have towards Katie are images of her sitting on the porch of a trailer in backwoods Oregon, surrounded by numerous screaming children with kool-aid mustaches, pregnant, wearing a flowered moo-moo, drinking a tall can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and smoking a Virginia Slim menthol cigarette. And maybe various car parts strewn across the lawn. Aaahh, yes. That makes me feel much better.
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