madness Super Short Stories

When the man came up to the counter, the clerk had just started smelling himself. He was wearing the chain’s vest with the red and blue patch and had left his name tag on the bed. He’d forgot to wash the vest because he started watching a comedy on Netflix, then watched a second and stayed up until midnight. The vest’s armpits got soaked in sweat the day before when he was unloading the truck. When the man walked up, he was thinking about having to wash the vest that night. The man put his things on the counter and started yacking like a hedge trimmer.

“Seen him move over onto the yellow median and I’m thinking he’s going to make a left, but he didn’t make a left. He kept inching along the median. I slowed down because I was afraid to pass him on the right. Me, afraid. I’m following him and he keeps driving along the median, and I’m thinking, son of a bitch, he’s getting me irritated. I kept watching the car and getting more irritated. Red Taurus. And he wasn’t drunk. The car wasn’t moving like a drunk was driving it. So, what I was saying—it moved like he was looking for an address, slowing down, speeding up, like a zoo animal. You seen a polar bear at the zoo, what they do? They pace. They pace and they tear fur out. You see what zoo polar bears look like? It looks like it has some kind of disease, but it doesn’t. Well, it does, I take that back. It’s a mental disease. They all look like that from tearing their fur out with their teeth.”

“Wonderful! A retarded Barbie? I suppose that was made in honor of all you lifetime collectors.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say, Herb! It was a very kind thing for the Barbie folks to do. Now, truly everyone can find a place in Barbie world.”

“Really, Brenda? What about crazy 57-year-old overweight women who insist on living a fantasy life vicariously by collecting and hoarding stupid dolls? Where do those women fit in, Brenda?”

Brenda was taken aback for a moment, then regained her calm and said, “I’ll have you know, Herbert Weinstock, we Barbie enthusiasts are much more than collectors. We are the caretakers of the Barbie universe. That responsibility is a great and noble task. As you have so eloquently demonstrated by your juvenile comments, it can be a challenging duty, fraught with criticism and ridicule from those who are simply too ignorant to understand.”

“Ignorant? Ignorant? Look, Brenda. I’ve had it! I’m going to work, and when I get home, these dolls better be gone, or I’m going to pile them up in the backyard and burn them.”

Brenda screamed, “You… you wouldn’t! You couldn’t do something so horrible. You wouldn’t dare!”

“I most certainly would and most definitely will! Mark my words, Brenda!”

With that final declaration, Herbert left for the office, slamming the front door behind him. The impact caused several boxed Barbie toys to fall from their shelves. When one of the boxes fell, it revealed a small opening that had been cut into the wall and which was hidden by one of the boxes. Brenda reached into the void and retrieved a very special Barbie character. She had created it by modifying a damaged Ken doll she had picked up at a flea market. It was one Herbert had never seen.

Basically, every strip began the same way. A realistically drawn hand dips his pen in an inkwell and when the pen rises, a semi-realistic black devil is sitting on the tip. Three panels of hand trying to stop the devil from causing chaos, either in panels already drawn—-such as the devil disturbing a wedding, or in Grimwood’s own life—such as eating his sandwich or taking flames from the fireplace and trying to burn Grimwood’s house. The last panel always ends with the hand stained with ink, holding the devil by the nape of its neck and placing it back into the inkwell, the other hand ready to screw the top back on.

So popular was Grimwood’s Devil, he followed Winsor McCay into animating his first and only completed film in 1914, using two plots from the strip, the hand stopping the devil’s hijinks of eating the sandwich and jumping out the apartment window to ruin a wedding. The four minute animated film played to huge box office numbers, making Grimwood quite a bit of money, but cost him his job at the Charlottesville Daily.

I went to the University Library where they still had archival materials of the Charlottesville Daily from 1908, scattered through our months of January, September, and December in years 1909-1911, and one paper dated February 3, 1915 showing headlined Editorial about Nat Grimwood, disputing a rumor Grimwood’s Devil was coming out the newspaper and terrorizing readers and their families, neighbors and friends. The Editorial went on with this note: “We at the paper sincerely apologizes for the trouble, if any of the fantastically, nonsensical events actually occurred”. It ended with the announcement that Bat Grimwood would be leaving for other opportunities.

I heard another sound, which seemed to be the mournful cry of some sad and pathetic creature coming from deep inside the jungle, sending chills pulsating throughout my body.

Yet, I continued to walk deeper into the jungle as if unable to control my body’s movements. It was surrealistic, and for a moment, I wondered if I might be dreaming. I passed through the jungle along the winding path without being accosted and eventually exited the massive wall of tall trees to find myself at the base of the extensive mountain range.

In the distance, at the base of the nearest mountain, I saw a large opening to what appeared to be a cave. I would have missed this had it not been for the eerie fluorescent blue glow emanating from inside, causing the opening to look like a giant pale blue eye against the blackness of the mountain face.

I walked toward the opening having no more idea why than I had when I walked through the jungle. Behind me, I could hear that unidentifiable mournful cry, which a chorus of similar cries had now joined. I felt as if they were trying to warn me against going inside the cave.

However, I knew nothing would stop me as I was drawn into the cave. Strangely, the glowing blue light seemed to calm me in a way I couldn’t begin to explain. Yet the closer I got to the iridescent opening, the louder the warning cries from deep in the jungle became.

I turned and saw hundreds of pairs of silvery red eyes glimmering in the blackness. I took a deep breath and passed through the cavernous entrance.

I might as well get this out of the way from the start. I’m not crazy, no matter what you think after reading this. The truth is, I’m a world-famous author. Many of my books have been adapted to screenplays and have become major motion pictures, royalties from which have made me wealthy.

In my early days, finding someone to publish my work was impossible. As a result, I collected a stack of rejection letters probably taller than the five-story tenement building where I rented a one-bedroom flea-bag apartment paid for by an assortment of part-time jobs.

It’s often been suggested I have an attitude problem, a sense of superiority. But how difficult is it to be superior to what we think of as the general public? In my opinion, most of the people out there are barely human.

The concept of what constitutes humanity is paramount to what I’ve learned and what truths I’ll reveal to you soon.

They were then so close beside me that I could see freckles on their faces.  I too could feel the combined essence of their coldness.

“We have no bells to ring,” the ghost children uttered a third time.

I shut my eyes and clenching my jaw, I placed my hands tightly over each ear.  I heard them still as they continued to shuffle toward me.

“We have no bells to ring,” they said for the final time.

I opened my eyes and they were gone.  It was to me an enigma more than just two bizarre occurrences that I was visited by the spirits of Mister Blankenship and six children.  It was then that I seriously contemplated sending for a coach the next morning to take me back to Richmond, in lieu of the full payment to stay until spring.  I was faced with a true conundrum.  If I left, I would have faced a probable marred reputation and ridicule if I dared to reveal the true reason for my wish to leave.  Even had I left and kept the spiritual visitations to myself I would have possibly ruined my career.

I thought of it all night, for I could not sleep.  I dared not.  By the next morning, I was weary from the lack of proper rest and had changed my mind about leaving.  In the days to come, I found that I could no longer blame on drink the seeing of Blankenship’s ghost. I had not touched the bottle of whiskey since that cold winter’s night when I too saw the ghost children.  Hesitantly, I resumed my duties.  I thought to myself that I was on the verge of madness or that I had already been engulfed by it and was far too mad to realize it.