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I. The Man.
The following contains scenes not suitable for very young audiences. Parental guidance is recommended.
Now that’s funny. Does anyone in the entire world actually pay attention to that warning? Does anyone—in our galaxy, at least—care about the effects it would cause on the children? The real problem with this world is that parents can sometimes feel too safe about their children. They may think that they are doing a pretty good job raising their offspring, but what they have no idea about is that these creatures would soon grow into pathetic human beings.
Take my father for example. All he ever thought about was sex; he had just married for the third time. Of course, being the only child, I was obliged to show at least a hint of happiness for the matrimony. And was it hard.
The new woman’s name is Diane. The first time I saw her—after catching her with my father on the living room floor—I found her to be pretty, too pretty in fact, to be in love with someone as old as my father. And as a young man in his late teens, I sometimes felt the yearning for flesh every time I saw that slim figure of hers, but the yearning suddenly stopped when they got married. I didn’t know why, at first, but they just stopped.
On the first few days after the wedding, we didn’t find it anymore a necessity to hire a maid in the house, for Diane was very willing to become a housewife—what her past job nor her past life was, I never knew. Thus, there were only three of us living in the house. Now, is this a perfect setting for the stepmother committing pedophiliac acts with the stepson? Yes, it is. But it didn’t happen.
II. The Man Who.
The dining room had disappeared.
I found myself in the middle of an icy wasteland. There were mountains—lots of them—surrounding me a few miles away. The sky above me was the darkest of blues and it was being painted with the occasional lightning. A strong wind coming from somewhere blew towards me, sending bits of snow on my face. Everything looked and felt absolutely dissolute.
The dining table, however, was still there, right in front of me. And also the cup of noodles I was consuming. So I continued eating, ignoring the cold, ignoring the loud gust of wind. And there, she stood.
A few feet in front of me stood Diane. Her outfit looked different this time; she was wearing a slim red dress that matches her red pair of shoes. She had also tied a red ribbon around her hair. And her smile. Her bright red lips. It seemed to beckon me towards her.
I stood up and found the table gone. And the noodles, too. There was only my stepmother and I in that empty wasteland. I looked at her intently, thinking of my next move. She, too, seemed to be thinking of her next move. And, then—
From her pocket, Diane pulled out a revolver and pointed it towards my forehead. I didn’t know what to react—I had never been pointed a revolver at my forehead before. I just stood there, staring at her smile, her bright red lips.
And there was a bang. I felt my forehead searing in pain. I felt hot liquid splashing out of the hole the bullet made on my face. I collapsed down the cold, white snow.
III. The Man Who Never.
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was playing from inside my father’s bedroom. I could hear it from the front door.
As I opened it, I immediately saw Diane sitting on the couch, watching her favorite Spanish game show. She had lowered the television’s volume, apparently to give my father the chance to listen to his kind of music.
“How’s school, boy?” She smiled at me. “You look tired.”
I stared at her wrinkle-less face, thinking of what to say next. “I want to go to sleep,” I said, throwing my bag on the floor.
And I started walking towards the stairs.
Now, the clown looked really disturbing that I had to stop. There he was, sitting on the couch, looking straight at me. His white powder seemed to be his true skin. His lips, bright red, displayed the widest of smiles. His eyes—oh, those eyes—looked like they knew every inch of your body. The clown was there, looking at me. Pointing at me. Standing up, and approaching me. Watching my every move.
“Do you want to play?” It said using his hoarse voice.
And I had to run. I had to run upstairs, straight to my room. Straight to the place where I always found safety. I quickly hid under the covers.
Thoughts were racing through my mind. I have to be brave, they said. I have to avoid being treated like… like a…
And Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony ended.
IV. The Man Who Never Survived.
The day I die shall be the day I will be given all the answers. The answers to all the questions I ask myself.
What do these random thoughts in my mind mean? Why does the word haphazard exist? Why do I love pot so much?
All of the questions.
In 1856, Sigmund Freud was born. If it weren’t for this year, there would be no ego, superego, and id. There would be no subconscious concepts of the mind, etcetera. How about my year? When will people say that without the year 1986, the whole world would cease to exist?
Diane pointed out at dinner that she will soon be celebrating her twenty-fifth birthday next week. I knew that she was informing me, not my father—what kind of a husband who doesn’t know his wife’s birthday? She said she would want the two men in her lives to be with her in the house while she cooks all the food. I cringed.
Father said it’s a good idea. And he immediately banned me from going out with my buddies when that day comes. And I had no choice but to succumb.
I stared at Diane, who was chewing down the soft pork she had prepared for dinner. And I also stared at the red figure behind her back. The red figure that was actually a human being. No, it wasn’t human. Yes, it had the form of a human, but it wasn’t. It had no face, nor any blemishes on its skin. It looked like it was made of clay, and it was embracing Diane like it loved her dearly, like it was her long-lost son or brother or whatever.
And out of nowhere was the laugh of a person. It was human now, thank heavens. I looked up the ceiling, and the laughing still continued. The laugh of a slapstick comedian. For a full minute, it traveled around the room. And then it stopped.
I looked at my father and my stepmother. They were still eating, like nothing had happened. The red clay-like figure behind Diane had also disappeared. I had no choice but to breathe a sigh of relief and continue eating. But when I looked at my plate, I gasped.
My pork was gone.
V. The Man Who Never Survived the.
Clap, clap, clap.
The judge was clapping.
“Any more words, kid?” he asked.
I looked at my surroundings. I was in the middle of a brown room that resembled a stadium—an indoor one. The judge, dressed in plain black robes, was seated on top of a high platform. And there was an audience. There were people, dressed in black, watching my trial. And a good look at them would reveal that they were faceless, that their face only consisted of white masses of skin.
“I had one more, your honor,” I said, shivering due to the cold breeze that had just passed..
“Silence!” The judge screamed. “I only want you talk when you are asked to talk. Do you understand?”
“Yes, your—”
“I said silence! Call the next witness!”
The people filling the stadium now started to mutter in low voices. They sounded like they were chanting something, yet they were not speaking in unison. I didn’t know what to react; they seemed to be excited over something. And then the witness came. It was Diane. This time, she was wearing a black coat and a pair of black boots, with her hair tied up in a bun. She stopped a few inches right in front of me.
“Do you have something to say, mere witness?” The judge asked. It was to my utmost horror when the judge revealed his face. It was my father.
“Yes, your honor. What this young man needs is a dose of obsession.” Diane said that with determination.
“What kind?” My father asked.
And Diane nodded. “Yellow.”
Again, from her pocket, Diane pulled out a revolver and pointed it towards my forehead. Another loud bang, more pain, more red liquid. Another fall towards the ground, only this time, with a loud thud.
I was still breathing when I fell to the ground. And, during those last few seconds I was alive, I thought to myself: I need to stop this. Diane. I need to stop you once and for all.
VI. The Man Who Never Survived the Obsession.
Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you.
I am concerned about the well-being of the entire human race, so I will not go into detail how I killed my stepmother on her birthday.
Diane lied on the kitchen floor wearing her birthday dress, a rope tied round her neck. Her eyes were open, showing nothing but vacancy. And she had her tongue out.
As for me, I was standing over her body, wearing the black jacket my father had given me last December. My eyes were hurting for some reason, and I knew it wasn’t because of tears. It was because of hatred. Pure hatred for the woman who happened to be unfortunate enough to enter our household. The woman who didn’t deserve my trust and my love.
Everything was silent, except for the ticking of the clock hanging on the wall. I looked at it: fifteen minutes past eight in the evening. A couple more minutes and my father would be home, carrying the birthday cake he bought for his new wife. I had to do something. I had to dispose of the clown.
I walked towards the kitchen cupboard to grab a brush—when something caught my eye. The painting on the wall. The painting showing a mother breastfeeding her son, it was now different. The mother’s eyes were now looking fiercely towards me, and her baby, her baby was scratching her mother’s chest, and he was grinning ferociously at me. I looked away, and my eyes landed on the clown’s head. It was floating in mid-air!
I screamed and collapsed backwards, towards the ground. I felt something falling off from my pocket. It was my canister. The canister that contained my weed. The weed that my buddies and I liked to consume. I thought I should care for that later, as the clown started laughing at me. His laugh would forever live inside my fragile mind for the rest of my life.
Then it hit me. As I bravely approached the clown’s head, I found that it was growing bigger. And bigger. And bigger. My nose bumped on the clown’s nose, and the mirror crashed on the floor.
The realization gripped me like it will never let me go. The laughing had ceased, yet I was still shaking hard; sweat was dripping down my neck like waterfall. I had to cry. I had to twist my face in agony and sit down the floor. I wept and wept until I swear I could never cry the next time. It was I.
I was the clown.
The door slammed open and my father came in, his face twisted in surprise. I gazed towards him, feeling ashamed for the sin I had committed, feeling like I should also die along with Diane.
My father dropped the birthday cake to the floor, his eyes widened with fear. And he, too, cried. He sat down just like what I did, his hands covering his face.
And together we wept.
We wept.
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Warning was warrented.
Posted Aug 20, 2008
I really enjoyed the imagery of this article, but I think it was the format that really caught my eye. The beginning of each section felt like a frame shift, a slide being switched, and that is a really increadible technique to have mastered.
I picked up on some tecnical mistakes tha... (
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