Randy

Randy was slightly lacking.  He was several inches under the national average height.  He was easily 45 lbs over the national weight average.  And, much to his father's dismay, just about borderline on the bottom end of the IQ national average.  

His parents could pinpoint no one particular event that could explain his lack.  Both of Randy's grandfather's had been seriously considered for Nobel prizes.  Both of Randy's parents were university professors.  So when Randy was held back in the fifth grade for his inability to read, they were concerned.

Randy's younger sister was already a member of Mensa and national fencing champion for the junior US league.  Randy's older brother had been invited to Westpoint.  But Randy was lacking, seriously.

The one thing that Randy was not lacking was social skill.  With the gardener, the chauffeur, the grocery clerk, the mailman, and even the beggar in front of St Ignatius church, they all knew and loved Randy.  He was somehow capable of reading people and saying exactly the right thing.  He would leave bikers grinning like children on Christmas morning.  Though deeply concerned over the future of their little Randy, his parents loved to tell the story of Randy's conversation with the IRS man who "visited" the previous summer.  The man actually left their home whistling, have forgiven the error ridden tax return from the previous year.
           So when Randy, at the age of eighteen, announced his plans to.

Southworld (part 7 of 7)

Richard sat in his study, the weight of despair lay upon him like a wet blanket.  His eyes scanned across the thousands of volumes, in dozens of languages, all of which Richard knew, lined upon his bookshelves.  Decades of study filled Richard's brain with every conceivable worldview, philosophy and religion known to man, some far more believable than others.  Some, merely the fruit of drug-induced hallucinations.  Richard understood them all.  But Richard had no answers.

He leaned back in his leather chair and rubbed his eyes.  His eyes, now swollen and red from far too many sleepless nights.  His king size bed, now only felt like a tomb with his wife long gone.  Not dead, as may be thought, but gone to India, an additional wife to some guru.
A gentle rap on the front door drew Richard from his introspection.  He was expecting no packages and had no friends that would be dropping in for a visit, so he was surprised to open the door to a small boy, no older than ten or eleven, trembling as he held out a small envelope.  "This is for you, Richard," the small boy spoke.  "Some old man asked me to give it to you."  Richard had interacted with many people in many situations, far stranger than this.  So Richard accepted the envelope and thanking the boy shut the door and returned to his study.

It was a grubby envelope, written in barely legible Greek script.  It contains no postmark or return address, but only his name, or at least a transliteration of it in upper case Greek.  Richard turned the envelope over in his hands two or three times before opening it.  He pulled a single sided card from the envelope to find, in the same blockish Greek, an invitation to accept a large amount of money, something approximately equal to a hundred thousand US dollars.  The more went on to explain that it would be delivered to his address the following day via registered mail.  Richard dropped the card on the floor and laid his head back, falling asleep and disregarding the note at the same time.

Richard bolted upright, gaping for breath.  In his dream a bare handed fight with a grizzly ended with the dead animal falling upon him, completely covering his face in warm fur.  Richard struggled to free himself, only to find himself in his bed, with his cat, Rochester, draped across his face.  The cat, easily 35 lbs, rolled from his face to his lap, with hardly a response.  Richard took a few deep breaths, centered himself and unconsciously stroked the cat. The clock read ten and Richard eased out of bed.

Richard completed his thirty minutes of meditation and slowly enjoyed a freshly made sun dried tomato and goat cheese omelet.  Another knock on the door disturbed his dishwashing labors.  Quick dying his hands, he opened the door to the expressionless face of the Fedex man.  "Sign here, please," the face said, holding out an e tablet and pen.  Richard obliged and in turn received an average size envelope.  Suddenly his mind returned to the previous door step occupant and his heart began to race.  He closed the door and sat in the stool in the entry way, his hands trembling.  He extracted the envelope's contents only to find a single photograph.  The photograph, an old, yellowing picture, featured a pile of some foreign currency, Richard guessed it was the equivalent of $100,000 US.

From that point forward, every day for an entire week, a small envelope was hand delivered each evening, to be followed the next day by a registered letter containing a photo of some valuable or rare item.  After about three days, the pattern became predictable and annoying.  Finally on the evening of the seventh day, instead of a little boy, Richard's front door revealed a little old man smiling and very kind-of-face.  The man invited himself in and seating himself on the couch, began to speak.  "Richard, do you understand what is happening?"  the old man asked.  Richard nodded a negative and spoke, no.  The little, old man sighed and muttered to himself.  "I was afraid this would be the case.  So well educated but lacking any wisdom or understanding."  Normally, Richard would have been deeply insulted.  His resume and cv were remarkable, to say the least.  His credentials were unsurpassed and his teaching history included Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton.  But from the look in the old man's eyes, Richard knew the old man was right.  The old man continued.  "You have so much Richard," he said.  "You know so much and have experienced so much."  Richard began to wonder how the old man knew so much about him, but he dared not ask.  "You have so much, but it is all just pictures, illustrations, images and cheap copies.  All of it really worth nothing.  You need to understand that everyone has some sliver of truth, some greater than others.  That is the draw.  That is what moved you to seek so far and wide.  But only one has all the truth.  And that is what moved you to keep looking."

Richard looked at the old man, his mind cycling through what this all meant.  What the old man said made sense, but he couldn't fathom what could be the final answer.  "Come to Mt. Athos with me.  Everything will be answered if you are willing to truly listen.  It's all about faith, but not blind faith.  I know you are wiser than that.  Go to the airport when you are ready.  Pack only the bare necessities.  I will know when you are ready."  And with that, the old man motioned a blessing over Richard’s head and left through the front door.

Richard sat down on his couch and smiled.

An unfortunate fairy tale

Once upon a time there were three sisters, Constance, Guillerma, and Vorticia.  They lived with their parents, George and Georgina, in the small town of Eisenstadt, Austria.  They were very middle class, as their parents were practicing phrenologists, the only practice in town, living comfortably but not in extravagance.

The three girls, though similar in appearance, were all radically different in personality and outlook. Constance, the oldest, was very shy, with particularly bad eyesight.  Though painfully shy, when stimulated in the right way, could easily out argue anyone on the superiority of the feminine gender.  Though centuries ahead of her time, Constance fought hard and brave for women's rights.  Most viewed the eldest daughter as rather queer and avoided any interaction with her, if at all possible.

Guillerma, the second eldest, could not have been any more different than Constance. Very athletic and quick to laugh, Guillerma was the one person in town who took control of a room only seconds after entering it.  She was the life of the party and everyone's friend.  At least that was the perspective she projected to all in her community.

Then there was Vorticia. There were many animals that could have been compared to Vorticia, none of them endearingly, and even more so, none as a favor to the animals.  She carried jet black hair that half covered a perpetual scowl, hair that she intentionally chopped crooked and short, just to be contrary.  She rarely bathed and spoke mainly to herself in barely audible grunts and mutters. Most people avoided her, usually for fear of some sort of physical or verbal abuse.  All avoided eye contact.

One morning, the five personalities of bizarre phrenology family sat at breakfast, Guillerma chattering away about nothing in particular, and Vorticia, sitting sideways in her chair, ate her oatmeal with her fingers and muttered about "that damn Bargeld family."  A knock on the door silenced everyone at the table and Guillerma quickly stood and skittered to the door, hopeful for some more interesting company. 

The unusual figure that stood on the doorstep, now visible to the family, could not have been anymore unexpected.  A small, elderly man wearing a long white beard and a long black robe simply looked at Guillerma and smiled.  Without knowing why, Guillerma invited him in.  The man replied a simple thank you and came into the house, seating himself at the dinner table.  The matron of the house automatically served him a bowl of oatmeal.  The man ate in silence, after offering a short simple prayer of thanks.  The family sat in silence, watching the man eat.  Constance felt a warm attraction to the elderly man, though he offered no fine arguments.  Guillerma liked the man very much, though he he only spoken a few sentences the entire time.  Vorticia found the man very intriguing, though his smile seemed to see into her soul.
The man finished his oatmeal, then spoke.  "Thank you for your considerate generosity.  This old monk doesn't see much good in the world anymore."  George rose to his and bellowed, "monk?!  I'll have no religious lunacy in this house."  And with that, he grabbed the old man by the back of his robe, jerked him to his feet, and in one motion, opened the door and threw him to the street.  The girls could only gasp and watch in horror.  The old monk struggled to his feet, turned and crossed himself and walked away. 

It would be great to be able to say that there was a nice, storybook ending to this tale.  But it's almost like it cannot be ascertained.  After the unfortunate situation with the old monk, everything stated going south for the family.  Irritability became the song that was sung.  One could almost see the black cloud hanging over the house.  Phrenology clients came less and less until the door was closed for good.  By their own admission, their deep seated grumpiness was their own fault.

Eventually, the family name was forgotten.

Agatha and Tubbie

The two friends had been training for months.  As far as names go, their names fit their personalities.  Agatha was very traditional and old fashioned.  Tubbie was, by all accounts and by the opinion of all who knew her, tubby, corpulent, large, big-boned, full-figured, etc., ad nauseam.

So as it currently stood, the two friends had committed to exercising, sometimes together, sometimes apart, but always faithfully and according to schedule.  So when Agatha stopped by Tubbie's house, late that Tuesday afternoon, to find Tubbie eating ice cream directly from the one-gallon container, she was slightly concerned and irritated.

"Tubbie!" she exclaimed, probably too loudly. Tubbie looked upon her with an expression of genuine surprise.  "For what possible reason are you bellowing at me?"  Tubbie blurted out, a small dribble of ice cream escaping from the corner of her mouth.  Agatha paused and tried to comprehend Tubbie's response.  Her mouth opened two or three times but failed to produce any sound.  "You are eating a gallon of ice cream, still wearing your pajamas, while I have just returned from a three-mile-run. I thought we had an agreement?"  "Oh, but we do have an agreement," Tubbie responded, still slightly confused.  "I have not once deviated from that agreement, in the least."  With that she shoveled another large bite of Rocky Road into her mouth, her large eyes looking upon her dear friend, somewhat pleadingly.

"But...but...you, by all normal definitions of the word, are deviating as we speak.  Grossly so, in fact."  Agatha looked upon Tubbie and as she did, she could almost see the light bulb turn on over her head.

"Oh, I understand now."  Tubbie responded through nuts and chocolate.  "See, here is the thing.  I've been reading Derrida lately and I've come to understand that words are what we make them.  It seems that your definition of diet and exercise is radically different than mine.  Not truer or falser, just different.  I'm sorry for the confusion, but I hope you'll understand.  You are a dear friend after all."  Tubbie continued to look upon Agatha, a look of genuine love in her eyes.  Agatha, on the other hand, again tried to speak, but failed again.

She simply gave Tubbie a hug, her hands not quite reaching all the way around and turned, walking away slowly down the sidewalk.

Clowns

The water swirled around his ankles as he stood in the cool water of the river.  The sun, a glowing golden orb in a crisp, blue sky looked upon him, with an air of indifference, making no comment upon what this petty human was about to do.

Milford dropped the overbearing, dead weight from his shoulders, making a loud splash as it joined the water.  He unzipped the heavy canvas bag and rolled out its contents into the river.  With any luck, the body would not be discovered for many hours, if at all, most likely providing Milford plenty of time to hike back through the hills and return to town.

Milford was, by nature, in general, not a violent person.  He soothed his conscience by telling himself, repeatedly, that it was the clown’s fault.  He had it coming.  They seemed to always find him and annoy him, beyond what he could bear.  And this time he finally snapped.
Milford was walking down the sidewalk, bag of groceries in hand.  The street was nearly deserted and Milford was lost in his thoughts.  Suddenly, completely out of the blue, the clown appeared, his ridiculous face paint a mockery of all that is serious, jumped into Milford's own and laughing uproariously, honked Milford's nose, making his eyes water.  The clown hopped away, hooting and laughing as he went.  In one smooth motion, Milford dropped his bag of groceries, grabbed a can of spiced Spam and hurled it at the clown, now no more than twenty feet away.  It was one of those rare moments in Milford's life when he was exactly on target.  Unlike the many embarrassing little league baseball games into which he was unwillingly foisted, like a baseball into a mitt, the can of Spam connected with the back of the clowns head.  He dropped like a sack of flour.  Milford's vision swirled as he realized what he had done.  The clown lay motionless on the empty street and Milford felt like vomiting.  He quickly ran up to the man, grabbed him by the heels of his oversized horn shoes and dragged him into a nearby alley.  A trail of blood followed this strange pair, a constant stream from the clown's ear.  Milford checked for a pulse, but found none, sat on his knees, a bewildered, quivering mad of confusion.

This twisted event was a four-hour-old memory by the time Milford had gathered the body and dumped it in the river, a two hour drive and hike into the hills, south of town.  Milford stopped on his return hike and sat on a nearby boulder, his head drenched with sweat from this unusual excursion.  He stood and turning the final corner on the trail found his car as well as two police cars at the trailhead.  Milford collapsed.