CAd

CAd                                                                                                    3590 words

Chapter 1: The Fish Cheer and I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die

         Suddenly I was awake. Where am I? Currents flowed around my uniform covered body. Well, maybe there were no currents; I could’ve just been sinking. My head was throbbing as the little air I had was expelled from my lips as bubbles, they danced and spun and whirled to the water’s surface. There was pressure on me from all sides, which made it incredibly difficult not to allow the water to flood my lungs. I processed my situation for a moment, my thinker thought welI. I realized that I couldn’t swim, well, not necessarily that I couldn’t swim but that I didn’t know how. The painful helpless fear of breathlessness forced my limbs to lash out from their hubs in panic. I squirmed a bit, my body moving in slow motion, as bodies curiously do underwater, when I realized that bodies naturally float and, seeing that mine was a body it should also float but, the water that had eaten me disagreed; my bag of bones and meat continued to sink. I began to squirm more rapidly than before, my arms reaching up pulling water down, my legs flapping about beneath them. This held no result; it only cancelled the sinking and held me where I was. Fish were gliding by, watching my struggle, their silly fish smiles on their scaly fish faces. I knew what they were thinkin’: No more worms for us, we’ve got the real deal. This bloke’s dinner tonight. I was their sack o’ meat but, just as I was losing hope, surely and slowly I began to ascend—a curious happening, but I refused to complain.

         As I struggled to the surface I could feel the nip of the saddened spiteful fish as they attempted to quash my miraculous escape. They tried to nip me to death so that later they could call their fish friends and fish family to feast on my frail frigid set of ribs and appendages. A splash and a pitter-patter rippled the naturally formed gathering of water as my head burst through its surface like a newborn. I struggled, paddling the best I could until I understood that my bootstrapped peds could take ground beneath them in order to stabilize me. My walkers, in the curious slow-motion that water creates, fell into step after step as my uniform rose by inches into the arid air. I stepped onto the newly moisturized material, which was wet by sop that was dripping, driplet by droplet, from my tan uniform. I plopped my plopper into the dampened sand to figure things out. Who am I?



Chapter 2: Who Am I?



         My skull still pulsed. Red water had burst from a gashing rip in my dear ol’ head, the red mixed with the sop from the strings that grow from my scalp and the combination of the two presented a thinner liquid which streamed and flowed and ran quickly down my skin mask. It found its way into my gasping chomper then onto my pink plump taster. It tasted like I was gliding my tongue across the barrel of gun that happened to be in my mouth, or maybe it didn’t just happen to just be there, maybe it was supposed to be there, maybe my mouth was its inevitable destination from the moment it was created, conceived. Pondering the curiosity of fate my eyes mindlessly scrolled across the seven or so sets of imprints left by humans, now long gone, but was that all they had left? I continued my thoughts on the subject and realized that that was negatively all they had left, most certainly they had abandoned your humble hero and narrator, well, maybe they had. There was no certainty in this theory; really there was no certainty or sureness in anything, but Regardless of the certainty or sureness of this theory, there were no other theories, no other paths to be taken.

              So my story continued as my spry figure resisted my thinker’s commands. But when its thoughts were fulfilled I was upright standing, dripping, in the darkened sand, my eyes skipping and tripping over my uniform in search of an identity—where upon finding my name, my identity, my thinker still was stumped about the question of the moment, that question which may have even been the question of a few hours, who am I? My flats fell into place as they stepped, following the tracks while leaving some of their own. As my limbs migrated along the path all the drippings of sop fell from the interwoven pieces of fabric that was my uniform and also the sop had dripped from between the magnetic bonds that held the atoms that composed my skin which held my entrails inside. In between your hero’s duration of wetness and my current state of dryness, the tracks had changed—they had multiplied and become hooves. Once that change occurred my walkers had become less convinced they could carry my starving stomach, my limber limbs, my pondering thought processor and all of their weight the entire way to my destination but they did and I arrived in my entirety at a quiet quaint town of buzzing bodies and working workers. My taster had fattened and dried; it had become sticky against its moist surroundings. My churner moaned and groaned to be filled with tasties and morsels of filling materials for it to process into energy and waste. Over yonder my opticals spied the contents of a wooden barrel, which sat dripping sop, adjacent to a bar. My weak walkers squirmed in joy and pleasure as they leapt into a sprint towards the barrel. My face plunged into the mix of hydrogen and oxygen, gulping and swallowing, indulging in the pleasure of relinquishing my thirst. In that moment my mind began to spin.

                My thinker thought in video form—a speedy view of pictures and sound clouded my consciousness. I saw from my perspective that I was on the ground surrounded by men who seemed to be goonies or baddies. I took note of one; his nose stuck out like beak as he cocked his fist back and slammed it into my view. A tap-tap was felt on my shoulder through the fabric of my uniform. The nerves in my shoulder jumped in excitement and ran, sprinting, to my thinker, which then sent mail men to deliver a message to the rest of my body. The message was that I had a visitor. That process was complicated and took some time, so as I waited for it to finish I gulped the water happily from the barrel. When it was finished I lifted my face, dripping with sop, from the bucket whose water grew restless and as my head rose it splashed rebelliously against its container in revolt. I observed an old man. His face seemed happy enough, his lips were curled into an inviting smile until they opened and his vocals struck their chords to produce noises, which in conjunction with one another created words that traveled by sound through the air until they landed near the drums in my ears.

         “Dear boy, there is no need to drink that diluted filth, leave it for the cattle. Come into my bar I’ll get you a proper meal with drink.”

         The old man was insistent and urging me strongly, and since I had no qualms or reasons to be suspicious of the man I followed him in.

         “No alcohol please, just a cup of some sparkling sop please.”

         “Sop? Do you mean the water, my good boy?” The old man’s voice cracked with age. I nodded then my eyes scanned his wrinkled face, its folding features—he had acquired a cut on his lip and a hefty black eye to boot. So I inquired:

         “Good sir, friendly giving fellow, how did you acquire those injuries of yours?” The man frowned and turned to get some meat from the grill behind him.

         “This here is a lawless town. Thugs come and go. They stay and kill and loot when they please. It was a travesty earlier today when about four of them showed up. I knew it wasn’t going to be good because as soon as they stepped into my saloon my gut wrenched. They took all the money I had saved to finally get out of this dinky place.” I wasn’t entirely interested so I changed the subject.

         “My dear man, what day is it today?”

         “Why, my son,” he gleamed “it’s Thursday.” Then I clicked.

Chapter 3: Thursday

                  My scattered thoughts collected like a puzzle. A video like before began to play, but this one wasn’t complete. The first image my thinker brought forth was just an image, a calendar with a Thursday circled; the words in the circled box were too small for me to read, so I gave up. A woman’s face appeared then vanished; from the quick-snap view all I could recollect was that the woman had dark hair and bright unusual eyes. For some reason she looked familiar. After the woman was gone, I was suddenly on the ground again, the same bird-nosed man in front of me. I was looking from my perspective. The thought-dream seemed sensory—I could feel the sharp rocks and dirty dirt beneath my hands as I looked up at a man in a sombrero. Strings dangled and dattled as he laughed at me, pointing his revolver at me. Still chuckling, his mustache jumped and settled, jumped and settled, as his stomach fluxed and emptied with each gasping jolt of jubilated laughter. The broom-handle-stach looked ridiculous bouncing on his lip, so I laughed. His smile faded, and his mustache quit bouncing, it moved up and down—it bent and relaxed, distorted sounds fell from his lips. The man with the beak-nose nodded. His nose flared, his fist flew up—I was having déjà vu. I could see the knuckles in his fist as they fell onto my face. And then it was black again, and I opened my eyes to find the old man rambling about how he wanted to leave this town.

                  As I had drifted away, the man had been talking and chatting away. He also managed to wander into the back of his bar to find a plate of food that he had his daughter prepare. The plate clanged against the table, and the food it held shook as it settled. My eyes darted across the food and back. This plate contained the sort of materials my churner had moaned for, the sort it could process and develop into waste and energy. My hands flew to the plate and my chomper consumed and consumed, chomping the morsels into a sop-dripping muck so that my tube could deliver it quicker and without hesitation to my churner. I recalled a few words from when he was talking. He had said words like “thugs” and “money” and “stole” and “my” so, I rearranged the words and came up with “My money, thugs stole.” This arrangement proved satisfactory because when I told him I would get his money back, he smiled and thanked me then explained how to find the thugs. It wasn’t too hard. They were just down the road at a small inn.

                  When I reached the inn I noticed there was a familiar man leaning up against its wall. I walked up to him calmly. As I approached, his opticals spied me, and their lids opened, and their dots shrank in surprise. His chomper flaps motioned the word “you” as his hand flew to his side to grab his revolver. Once his hand’s fingers slid across the wooden handle of the gun, my legs began to move on their own, instinctively my body moved. My thinker turned off, allowing my body to handle the situation. His hand raised the gun in a quick fashion, he took aim and his thumb pulled back the hammer, cocking it. I was within arms-length by then and my hand burst from my side, slipping one of its fingers between the hammer and the rest of the gun. The beak-nosed man pulled the trigger, the hammer fell, but the gun didn’t fire. My finger stung a bit since the hammer had fallen on it. The rest of my fingers, my bird, my ring, and pinkie, worked with my thumb to grip the gun. My wrist twisted and pulled. As my hand flew back to my side, it continued to work automatically. My index finger cocked the gun’s hammer back, and my pinkie, because of the awkward grip I had on the gun, pulled the trigger. The sound of gun powder that ignited to send a shard of metal flying was enthralling. The shard was hardly out of the gun before it had found its way into the beak-man’s neck and out again. The hole it left dripped and spattered and spurted—the red water tasted like iron. The beak-man crumbled to his knees as his back fell backward into the dirt. I stepped over the man and continued into the inn. The door creaked and, my feet were loud in their stepping. Two men appeared, brandishing their guns, smiling and walking forward, telling me to put the gun I had taken from the man outside down. I shot them both in the head and continued upstairs where I could hear the whimper of a tortured soul.

                    My feet were loud again. I opened the wooden door with my foot so that I could freely use my hands to point the gun. The door creaked and swung, whizzing until it collided with the wall it was hinged to in a clap of wood. The man in the sombrero stood there pointing his gun at me and holding a knife to the woman with dark hair from my thought dream. She let out a scream of pain, and I drifted away again.





Chapter 4: Pat’s Song

         As I rolled over in bed, the covers fell from me. I slowly got out of bed and put my feet on the wooden floor. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I hate the feeling of waking up, the grogginess, the yawning. I put on my uniform, polished the medals I had won in the war with the Mexicans, and was on my way to the saloon. It was my first day in town, so I ordered something plain, so that I would know if they screwed it up. There were only a few people in the bar. Some drunks that more than likely had spent the night in the saloon were still piss-drunk. They went on chattering about some whore named Patrice. I decided to listen in as I ate my meal. One of the men had a prickled chin that was ripe with dark patches of beard. The other had a fake eye and wasn’t wearing a shirt. The chin man started talking about how he spends his nights outside of a small inn and how sometimes the owner of the inn feels bad and lets him spend a free night. He continued, describing one of his free nights.

         “I was stayin’—in the room next to ‘em—I could hear her through the wall—hahah, she’s a screamer all right—that’s the reason I slep so gud.”

         “Wha’s da reason?” the eye man half screamed.

         “Da reason I ca— I can—slep—so gud—is da—Patrice is a screamer—I fall ta sleep—listen ta her—song, her sex song.”

         I was finished with my meal, but I stayed to have a few drinks. I had planned to stay in town a few days, and I hadn’t had a woman since the war ended a few months ago. Patrice—Pat’s song, I decided I’d hear it for myself. I got up from my dusty table and walked outside the saloon pushing both of the double doors as I left.

              I started walking down the street when I saw father and son in the distance. I started walking towards them, slowly pacing. He was teaching his son to shoot a revolver, a touching sight. I walked up and watched the pair from a distance. I noticed that the boy had a horrible grip on the gun, yet his father complimented him as he fired the gun. I waited for the man to reload the gun. Then, I walked up slowly and quietly behind him—took the hand that held his gun by the wrist and twisted it behind his back until he dropped the revolver. I picked up the gun with my free hand. The man was making pathetic grunts of pain, and the boy was backing away watching his father struggle to get free. I examined the gun—it wasn’t a very good model, not very accurate but accurate enough. My thumb kicked the hammer of the gun back as my index finger pulled the trigger. The gun sent a bullet into the boy’s chest, and his father let out a howl. The man didn’t cry—he cursed me, and told me that his friends would come for me. He said I didn’t have a prayer. I broke his neck and left him dead in the field next to his boy.

            I took out my schedule from the back pocket of my uniform—it was Wednesday. I trekked back into town and sought out the brothel so that I could inquire about Patrice. The woman I spoke to sat at an old wooden desk. She looked too fat and lazy to move. She assured me that Patrice would be in soon, so I waited. Whore after whore walked by, flaunting themselves in hope of sale, but I ignored them. The fat woman grunted and pointed as Patrice walked in. She had dark hair that went down to the middle of her back. Patrice walked straight to the fat woman at the desk and handed her a few bills of cash. The fat woman pointed to me and whispered a few words. Patrice turned slowly as if she didn’t want me to notice. But I did. Her eyes were different colors, one blue and the other green—this bothered me but I didn’t say so. It was dinner time—I hadn’t eaten so I paid for Patrice and took her to the saloon so that I could eat something.

          I ate quickly and brought Patrice to the inn the drunk had spoken of. I rented a room and before I knew it, I was listening to the startling shrill of Pat’s song. In the morning I turned to the side expecting to see Patrice. A man with a handle-broom mustache and a sombrero was there. His eyes were blood shot. He held his revolver in my face then, stuck its barrel in my mouth. It tasted like blood. He led me out of the room. Three other men followed us. One was holding a knife to Patrice’s neck. The man with the sombrero brought me downstairs then outside. He kicked the back of my knee and I fell to the ground. He kicked me in the ribs a few times then pressed my face to the dirt with his boot. He leaned down real close and whispered.

“Hombre, I know who you are. I know that you’re the one they call el Diablo Blanco del Arma. But, more importantly, I know what you—” I interrupted him.

         “That’s not my name.”

         “What?”

         “That’s not my name.” He started laughing holding his stomach; he looked around for the rest of his friends to laugh. They returned his stare with chuckles then he leaned in real close again spitting on me as he spoke.

         “What’s your name then?” he whispered then spit his tobacco in the dust in front of my nose.

         “My name is Billy Fisher.” The Mexican laughed again and stared around. His friends laughed along with him again.

         “Well now, Billy Fisher? No Qualms Billy. The Billy Fisher, el Diablo Blanco del Arma, I know what you did.” He spit again.

         “What did I do?”

         “You killed our friend.” He turned around and ushered his friend over. This one had a huge flaring nose. He’s the last thing I remembered until she screamed.

Chapter 5: Thought Dream

         In her scream my eyes opened again. I held my gun steady at the man in the sombrero. I smiled; then aiming, I pulled the trigger. The back of her skull fractured and burst red all over the wall behind them. Parts of her skull slid down the wall leaving a red trail like slime from a slug as it glides across the ground. The man dropped her body in shock then looked up at me just in time to see a bullet land between his eyes. His forehead caved inward and the back of his head looked similar to hers. I walked out of the inn with a smirk. I know who I am.   I walked down the street to the saloon, an old man hurried outside smiling and cheering. Confused, I pulled my gun. Its last bullet turned from the cylinder into the barrel as I cocked the hammer back. His smirk faded. He opened his mouth as the gun fired. The old man fell over, dead in the dirt. I know who I am. I am a killer. I am a villain. I am Billy Fisher the Cad.