Dance of the Clowns

The man in the gray suit looked at his pocket watch. It did not work. It was meant to be a reminder. He stood on the top of the tower. A storm was brewing somewhere to the East. He was joined on the tower by the white rabbit. The rabbit had a bionic eye, bright red like a ruby, and was wearing a black waistcoat.

It spoke with a curiously deep voice, “The time has come. Agent Lenko has gone rogue. He slaughtered a grab team on the Sphinx. Embalmed it in blood. He must be stopped.” Mayer was an analyst. He worked on the countless realms of possibilities that branched out every time an agent made the leap. The Agent Lenko mentioned here, was one of the best agents the Ministry ever had.

“Who is available?” asked Mayer.

“Tatarov is in 1898, overseeing the London tube construction. J.D. is lost in transition. Bae Park retired. Anderson is down with a virus. Murfy was enticed by the Lotus Eaters. Jane has gone DOE. You get Duff.”

None of these are real names. Everyone goes under a fake one. It is essential to preserve a sense of identity. Also, no one ever reveals their real ones. It is a job risk. Except for Duff.

Duff is a chain smoking, arrogant, wise ass who loves to circumvent authority.
Duff went to the edge of reason and looked down into the ravine. He saw nothing interesting so he came back.
Lenko went to the edge of reason and looked down into the ravine. He saw nothing interesting so he decided to go deeper. He ended up the way he is now.

“I do not like Duff. But I follow orders. I do not expect a repeat of the Moscow incident.”
The Rabbit looked pained. It was an obvious thorn in his bureaucratic paw.
However, he managed to say, “Auf wiedersehen”.

The Rabbit took out a pocket watch and turned a few dials. A wormhole opened right next to him, on the grass carpeted tower.

“Dan will set co-ordinates. I will talk to George.”
The Rabbit jumped in, vanished; probably heading to China.
…

Oleg Lenko stared at the Zeppelin, as it rose towards the heavens. He smiled, as a cruel child would, looking up at it from the balcony. He was holding a fellow agent at gunpoint.
“On a large enough scale, each one of us is an ant. My grandpa loved those little critters. Ants, walking a straight line. So full of purpose. They know it, you know? They know what they are on Earth for. Not like us. Not like people. Look at those specks down there. Walking, ambling, crawling. With no sense, purpose, no honour. What are we without these things? Worse than dead. Thank me later.”, he said to the scarred and beaten agent.

“Oleg, you don’t have to do this. You can be better than this.”

Oleg turned to face him. He pressed the red button. Golden flames erupted on the ship. Behind Lenko, the Hindenburg disaster unfolded. He raised the Glock and pointed it at the agent.

“All of you are like hydrogen atoms to me. I can play God. Who wants to be better?”

He squeezed the trigger. The bullet smashed into the agent’s face.

Lenko walked up to the balcony. He looked up at the flaming wreck and said quietly, “Oh! the Humanity, Oh! The Humanity.”

A twisted smile made its way around his face, as he stepped on to the rails and jumped down, into the awning wormhole, humming Dance of the Clowns.

[a sort of prologue to my nanowrimo attempt]

Bugged

"I just got up normally, you know. Fine morning. I was standing with my car. She is a fine lady. The engine was warm though. I thought I might have forgotten to take the keys out. So, I looked in and no keys. But I notice something else. An extra 100 or so miles on the clock. Fuck I say to myself. Fucking Fuckerson. I keep note of all those little numbers. It is fun. Might have made a mistake, Landsman I say.Never driven in my sleep. Never driven much actually. Bessie used to drive. She loved it, god bless her tired soul. I pick up the newspaper and it is all creased and folded. Now, I ain't got no neighbours. I figure, it might be some of them pesky kids. Sometimes, I wanna shoot one of those. Never had any. I shrug and I enter the kitchen.The light is on. It should not be. There is some leftover capicollo in the fridge. There is a half eaten bacon sandwich on the table. So, I go to the cops. They give the amount of fuck an old man gets in this country of liberated fucks. So, I get back. As far as I know, no one else has access to my file. Then I watch some TV and I go to sleep."

He took a gulp of air and water. Thanked himself and continued.

"I usually wake up around 3 am. I feel uneasy. Gradually, I realize there's someone else in my bed. It is a woman. Bessie. She smells of sweat and stale perfume. I don't even know what stale perfume is. She is also wearing one of those leather things that they use for those perverts. You know, those BDSM things. Those. I usually struggle to get up at this point. I recoil, gasp and curse. She puts on her flirty voice and asks if I want one of those wet nightmares."

Bessie has been dead for 8 years.

"Some sort of foul oddment, a tweak in the code of being. A- A, an exception! Is she for real? Is she my Bessie? Either way, I have got problems."

"I understand completely Mr. Landsman but don't you think it is a little odd that you are telling all this to a giant bug that is having tea in your kitchen with you?"

There was a giant bug in Mr. Landsman's kitchen, sitting at his table, sipping chai and eyeing that half-eaten sandwich.

"I hadn't thought of it that way before. Dear me. This is worrying. I should get my gun."

He went to the living room.

"What are you guys doing here?"

There was a family of 3 sitting on a couch in his living room, watching TV.

The dad wore a floral dress with purple polka dots. He had a caribou for a head.

The mom wore a business suit and a hat. She had a bulb for a head.

Their kid was a bowl of punch.

"Oh, fuck this. I will just kill all of you. Fucking with my mind like this, you got no right."

The door to the cupboard was slightly open. Apart from being a handy place to keep a gun and a vat of generic expressions, it was a cosy place. So, he kept his wife's dead body there.

"Just to remind myself that you are dead. Everything is wrong here. I have no idea why that clock is trying to defy time and those babies have no business being up there on the ceiling. What is going on here? WHAT is happening to me?"

The bug was back. OR maybe he never left. He spoke.

"You know it Landsman. You have known it since you woke up. There is no use denying it. Bessie is dead. You killed her. You kept her body so that you could stay. It was your ticket to sanity. But it wasn't enough. Your mind has eaten itself. The chip has corroded. You looked into the abyss and now, their is abscess in your mind. Fuck, who writes these lines? Jeez."

"So, what are trying to say? I am not insane. I won't be called crazy. I heard where they took Albie. I won't go there. I won't. I will kill everyone."

"Oh no, no. I am your friend, Landsy. I am on your side. I am your bug. I am you now. We are in this together. When, they come for me, they come for you. BLAST THOSE FUCKERS! Till then, let us watch some TV and drink this coffee. I love the smell of coffee like blood in the hours after the morning. I think they should fire this writer. What do you think?"

Landsman was old and a sad conservatory for fluids. Just last week, he had soiled himself. In the mall. However, his mind was still sharp.

"I think you are the problem. I think you are the glitch. I think you are making me do this."

"Me? ME?! Harmless, Mr. Bug. You are the one who is corrupted, Landsy. You killed Bessie. I ain't no external agency or no act of god. I am your disease. There is nothing you can do."

"You are wrong. All my life, I have felt this urge. THIS voice telling me what to do. I always did it. Go to the bathroom, Watch TV, Read books, Work, Engage in activity, Build Charisma points, Gather Knowledge points, Make love, Shit, Eat. All the time, some one up there pulled the strings. Like a game. But no more. One click of this gun and it is over. Everything I loved is dead. I refuse to be saved."

*click* They deleted him the next day.

Pay For Your Own Time

29th April

"So, what you are trying to say is that, you actually were there when it happened? Is that what you are saying Mr. Grant?"

Mr. Grant was lying on the couch. It was Saturday afternoon. He always showed up then, to talk about his problems.

"Yes. I sense derision, Mark. And I get it, it is difficult to accept something like this. I don't even want you trust me. Just listen. I pay for my time, don't I?"

It had been the same story for 3 weeks. Mr. Grant would show up and talk for an hour. He would then leave. His story would never really change much. It would just go on for a bit. Mr. Grant was starting now and Mark was getting ready to be paid for feigning interest.

"I am holed up in my room on the ship. It sways ever so slightly. I am sick. I am looking at the calendar. I have eaten something bad or maybe I was never made for the sea. I hear the sounds and the smells waft in. It is the Lusitania. Doomed to a watery grave. The fabled South Hampton to New York route. It is the 7th of May, 1915. And then I wake up. I have never known what time it was but my guess would be noon. Any thoughts today?"

Mark had thoughts though they did not concern Mr. Grant's story. They were about mortgages, the secretary's blouse, his fiance, a sandwich at the cafe and his mother's recent death.

So, he said, "Hey Mr. Grant as long as you pay for your own time I have no problem. You have a good one. See you next Saturday."

Mr. Grant thanked him and left. Mark continued work.

Next Saturday noon, the couch was empty. Mr. Grant did not show up. Mark had time to kill. He went out for a drink.

The bar had no one except the bartender. The mortgage and his dead mother were weighing heavily on his mind. He was tired of seeking happiness in lies to his fiance and self-medication. So, he drank. An hour later, he was sufficiently drunk to drown out the world but not enough to lost interest in it. A photo did catch his attention.
He easily identified Mr. Grant in the photo. He asked the bartender about the photo.

"Yeah, that was my great grandpa. He died in that ship thing that happened in the great war. The Lusitania. German bastards sank it."

He rushed back to his office. The couch was definitely empty. He checked his drawers. The money was there.

Mr. Grant had, after all, paid for his own time. It was a good thing that Mark was drunk.


--

1st of May 1915, the RMS Lusitania left New York heading for South Hampton carrying 1,965 passengers and crew ( the majority being American citizens). 7th of May she had been making good time on her run, and while off the coast of Ireland, a German U-boat spotted her, lined her up in their sights and fired a torpedo. The torpedo wasn't spotted til it was almost upon the ship.

The torpedo hit the Lusitania making a large hole in her starboard side. Water began rushing into the 1st and 2nd boiler rooms. The ship was then rocked by a 2nd explosion.

The Lusitania took a mere 20 minutes to sink taking 1,201 people with her -- only 764 survived.

Sad Stories I

Love In the time of spoilers

“So, what you mean to say is, that, if I walk out, through that door, I will find true love? And I am supposed to believe that? AM I?”

“Yes. As I told you before, I am you from the future. You will be faced with two choices. Bernard or Sam. One of those is your, our true love.”

“Okay, let us say I even believe, for a second that you are, as you say, from the future. Time travel technology doesn’t exist in my time. And you do look like an older version of me but I have seen enough James Cameron movies to not be fooled by that. Why should I believe you?”

“You just have to trust me. Take a leap, trust in me and you. Anyway, it is almost time. You should get going.”

*disappears*

“So, great. Just so fucking great. Just like me to keep me hanging with a load of romantic bullshit.”

She stepped out into reality. Sidestepped a drunk, elbowed some bitch and stared at some stranger.

As usual, she had to wait at the intersection. On the other side, there was another mass of strangers. She scanned them looking for recognition. A kind pair of blue eyes found hers. Willing herself not to blink, she smiled. He smiled back. Her 20/20 eyesight and her desperate need to believe in herself knew this was her choice. She stepped onto the road. He started walking towards her. For a magical moment, everything froze. People stopped doing people stuff, birds suspended in the autumn sky, life hit the pause button.

And then as if, someone had pulled the plug at the bottom of a sink, everything happened at once. It was peak time traffic, what else did you expect?

Bernard, who happened to be a manager at a neighborhood coffee store, was hit by a car. Samantha, who was her next door neighbor, pulled her out of harm’s way.

The rest as they say is the future.

Time

Pieces and bits collected from the expedition journal.

Muriel Francis Gerrick writes:

I miss you. Mother.
I wish Father would see that. He drags me around to meet all these people. Smile, dress sharp, smile. Dr. Robert Gerrick, adventurer extraordinaire. Needs money to finance his forays into the unknown. Look at his happy kid. Look at how he has raised her single-handedly. Now, give him the money so he can drag her to some cold and barren place and engage in his scientific pursuits.

Dr. Gerrick writes:

The mountain looms upon us. We reached the base yesterday. Under the watchful eyes of a sickle moon. Osmond, dashing fellow and a geologist of some renown joins us. Peters, a local interpreter  rounds the team. Tonight we rest.

The weather seems to be taking a turn for the worse. I sneaked a page out of Father’s notes. He talks less to me, day by day. I can make out nothing from it. There is a word underlined on it. I can’t read it. Some kind of ancient scrawl.

It is stifling. The dark presses on me. My legs hurt from the running. I can’t see where I am running to. Suddenly the land under my feet gives way, I fall. Yet, it does not feel like I am falling. Then it happens. The darkness pervades me. It forces itself inside me. It covers my body and its grubby fingers grope for my face. But, then I wake up.

Father was standing over me. He hauled me roughly to my feet. I dared not question him; such was the fury in his eyes. Something dreadful had happened.

As we walk on, I realize that Peters is not with us. Personally, I couldn’t care less. 

I tried reading the page again. It bored me and the weather wanted me to sleep. The letters seemed odd. It was almost like they wanted me to speak them out loud. That is all I remember. When I woke up, I was being carried on a gurney by the two slaves. I pretend to be asleep. I hear snatches of talk between Osmond and Father. I try listening more. One of the slaves realizes I am awake and signals to Father. He glances at me and the discussion dies.

Everything looks gray here. I never really found out what happened to Peters. I see the word in my dream again. It seems real. I try to touch it but It moves out of my reach. 

This time I do not fall.

The cave is huge. We do not need to walk far. Even by the light of the slowly fading day, the thing can be seen. It stands upright. It is a mere stone. I go for a closer look, hoping to find something of significance. Osmond confirms what has broken my heart.

Osmond wants to run some tests on it. I leave him at it. I shouldn’t have lost that page. It was torn off from a tribe’s compendium. That is all I know. With Peters gone, there is no way I can get these locals to talk.

This rough data is gathered from one of the local slaves

Gerrick woke up in the middle of the night. Osmond was missing. Muriel ran in after Father. Osmond was lying on the ground, shrieking like a madman. Father touched him and was taken aback at how cold he felt. Muriel looked at the purple rock. There was something alive about it. Muriel was transfixed. Osmond was beyond help. He sat up now, muttering again and again. It was necessary to get Muriel away from there and as far away as possible. Father grabbed her and ran. He looked behind but there was nothing. Osmond made no attempt to get up.
Sorry bastard. The elements would kill him. But not soon enough.

I ran and stumbled in the dark. Something cut me, I could feel warm blood oozing down my cheek. I made it safely to the camp. He had laid Muriel down and checked her for fever. She was as cold as Osmond. I used the transmitter and sent the distress signal to the base camp. I prayed silently for them to make it here in time.

Muriel’s mouth was moving, forming words. Dr. Gerrick moved closer to listen. There was no sound. He tried reading her lips but in her delirium, she was speaking to fast. He held his daughter’s head in his hands and looked into her eyes. He must have read the word in her eyes. I knew what would happen. I ran.

The page :

The mountain. It was the center of an ancient kingdom. The gods were angry and wanted to punish the land of the mountain. So, they sent it to the peak. It was not of this world. It did not understand the ways of men. It was to men as men were to ants. Powerful yet inconsequential. It existed across time. A speck of existence divided over centuries, perhaps. It could manifest in different places. It could very easily transcend most physical boundaries as a human could stamp on an ant. But the ants have no idea of what a human is. In the same way, it did not regard this universe.

It could be and not be at the same time. Exist simultaneously across eras. Showing up in points of time. It flexed one of his great hands, there was a flood in the East and there was hail in the West. The North and the South were mere points on a line for it. So it would grow and the humans would not be aware of it as their frail mortal minds could never wrap themselves around the concept. They could see the destruction and they had questions to ask. But they never knew when to ask them.

The Gods, as is their nature to meddle with things that outweigh them in importance, decided that it had to be stopped. They knew that the being could never be restrained. So, they fashioned a cross for the thing to bear. 

A corporeal existence it must have if it is to exist at all. But the price for creation, was destruction itself.

Confidential Report :

The locals have been debriefed. All priors are investigated. This is accessible on a code 4 clearance.

Osmond had apparently impaled himself on one of the sharper rocks. Peters was never found. Muriel was rescued by the search party. She was taken to the general hospital and declared a vegetable. Her Father, Dr. Gerrick was found near the mouth of the cave. Foam lined his mouth, his eyes were a pulpy mass. They had bust due to internal pressure. There was no semblance of a brain in Gerrick.

He was found lying on his back, his shirt torn open, a bloodied knife in his hand and a single word carved on his chest. 

AMUD


This started it all -> https://twitter.com/#!/doppelhanger/status/65350291209469952

Irony

"all in the game..." - Traditional, West Baltimore

Sunday:

“Stop resisting. It will be over soon.” He continued strangling the woman lying on the kitchen floor. The woman was dead. The man was making sure she was. He pretended to not notice the sharp tip of her umbrella, lodged in her. He gave up soon and walked into the living room.
The man wore a tweed jacket. It had Monday engraved on the lapel. He was called Monday. He glanced at his watch. It was about time someone showed up. He picked up his sawed off shotgun, poured some Scotch and sat in the chair, infront of the door.

Friday:

Monday was up on the roof of a brown brick. His binoculars focused on the park opposite. Kids ran in circles. Parents pretended that they were in control. Some conversed. His gaze sought out one man. Aquiline noise, sharp eyebrows, olive skin. Red jacket and a copy of Moby Dick in his hands. This one was called Bensharif for some reason. They all had names. Bensharif was not here with a kid. He was here to pick one up. Bensharif preyed on the little ones. Monday was not here to judge. He was here to plan. Bensharif would leave in half an hour. The route was tracked, the exits were marked. He would take him in the proverbial dark alley.

Wednesday:

Annie was a writer. She always had a pen with her. The pen was her. She was such a sweet soul. Monday never wanted to kill her. He had stalked her to the supermarket and seen her be nice to all the people there. Like a bottle of bottled sunshine. Bright, warm but never quite free. He had waited at her house patiently while she was out on one of her supermarket trips. He hid inside her closet. When she came back, he surprised her. With violent death.

Thursday:

The sky was yellow. The air reeked of pleasure derived from pain. Loco was a special man. He hurt people 

to make them happy. They even paid him for it. Monday never understood that concept. He did not get pleasure. Giving it was out of question. Loco was a big man who could take care of himself. But, Loco liked wearing his mask too much. And, Loco liked his boy toy Andre even more. All Monday had to do was hold Andre hostage. Loco came rushing in. Monday threw Andre aside and pumped a shot into Loco.

Tuesday:

He loved her brooch. It was delicate, effeminate yet so powerful in its simplicity. He liked her the best out of the seven. Mercy she was called. Did not ask for it even once. She was dying anyway. The injection did her in. As silent in death as in life, when her husband had beat her. Sometimes, close enough to feel death standing near. She was in a happy place now. He took the brooch. He shouldn’t have.

Saturday:

Stripes. Cop. Mean. Twirling his lighter. Stripes was investigating a series of murders across town. None of them connected to each other. Stripes was a good cop. He did his job, was only as dirty as everyone else. Stripes ate pork sandwiches, drank beer and shot some pool. He went home to a wife and a kid. He abused his wife and whacked his kid around. Even, broke the kid’s hand once.
He found a dead hotdog vendor that day, a bottle of gin inserted into his innards.

Stripes caught a homicide call late on Tuesday night. Mercy had cancer and a history of domestic violence. The brooch was missing. He had a photo of the brooch. The next day, he got Annie too. Annie, the writer, who drowned her own kid in the pool and wrote about it. She got money. She was found in her bathtub with thin perforations in her lungs. Dead as her dead kid. He would have usually dismissed the murder of a local thug as a gang shooting. But, the state the witness Andre was found in made him suspicious. Registered sex offender Bensharif was stabbed in the alley next to the park where Stripes had to take his kid the next day. He saw the man with the brooch running. He stared transfixed at the falling body and rose to action only when he heard mothers scream. The man had moved out of recollection by then. On his way home, on Saturday, Stripes found the dead guy near the police department. This was starting to get out of hand. Sunday when he heard noise of a scuffle between his neighbor Marge and a visitor, he grabbed his gun and decided to pay her a visit.

Monday:

The moment Stripes opened the door, Monday shot. Trust Stripes to not die so easily. He managed to get a shot off. He felt nothing initially. Feeling returned and realization dawned.

He had won the game. He was now free. He had finally managed to beat them all. He was better than all of them. @luckybroochm, @penannie, @maloco, @bensharif7, @atomichobo, @umbrellarge, @stripes 

were beaten.

The game was beaten. He was free. Dead on a Monday.