CRACK3D PICTURE
BENJAMIN SULLIVAN
Copyright © 2012 Benjamin Sullivan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
“God keeps me alive to watch me suffer,” says Henry in a dry, groggy voice.
He is sitting in a rusting steel chair, with his head down, scratching at his eyes with clinched fists. His eyes blink and move rapidly, but he is lost and has no earthly idea of where he is. He slowly lifts his head which is perched upon slouched shoulders and takes a look around. He has found himself in a small, unknown office, containing only a desk, and an old wooden book shelf with numerous medical and psychological texts, some hard cover others paperback. There are no pictures on the walls or desk, no framed inspirational quotes from half wit intellectual psychiatrists, only white walls, which radiate even whiter due to bright, fluorescent lights in the ceiling. The lights are so bright that he feels as if he should be lying on a hospital bed awaiting surgery. He looks extremely exhausted; his eyes are dark with heavy, purple bags underneath, as if he has not slept in weeks and just crawled from bed. His hair is a shaggy, disheveled rat’s nest. His workman-like clothes are wrinkled and his jeans have worn out holes at the knees. He is thin faced, thin nosed, but with a strong and defined jaw line. His complexion is fair, and the slightest light could burn him. Even the light in this office. He is starting to feel the heat from above. He keeps scanning the room until his eyes meet a man sitting directly across from him, in a comfortable, leather desk chair. Henry’s counselor, Mr. Hoffer, is a middle aged man with a mullet hair do. He is wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts and Jesus sandals. He is holding Henry’s case file. He is constantly licking his thumb and flipping through the numerous pages.
“Henry?” asks Mr. Hoffer. “Where are we?” Mr. Hoffer’s eyes squint as he probes Henry and his response. “I asked how you are feeling physically and emotionally since the crash.”
“Crash? What crash?”
“That’s just what I thought.” He scribbles notes in his file. “Continue please with what you were saying.”
Henry clears his throat and mutters, “God is a playwright.” He clears his throat again. “No, he is a medieval King. I’m his jester. He created Radcliffe as preternatural court for me to perform on. He throws me into arduous circumstances, and then looks down at me to give him a laugh when I struggle. I bet he sits up there with other angels with a belly full of wine or nectar or whatever it is they drink; a celestial or heavenly circle-jerk of the gods. They are all getting in a good laugh. He surrounds me with a whole bunch of Puritanical born again country bumpkins who look at me like I’m a walking disease. I am just stuck in some sort of white trash limbo.”
Mr. Hoffer keeps his head buried in the case file. “Man created God, why not be your own God? All you have to do is merely act as such. However by being your own God that would mean that it is you who put yourself in these situations. Who would you blame then? God is man’s invisible manifestation of blame and pain.”
Henry is momentarily vexed and dejected. He can feel sweat on his palms and a bead slowly roll down his forehead. “I guess it was easier that way,” he says fumbling. “There has always been something that pulls me into undisclosed or camouflaged scenarios. I don’t know what it is. I wonder sometimes if there is a part of my being that is undiscovered or if there is something that I have subconsciously sheltered that slowly snakes through the cracks of my deliberation.”
“I see. So another part of you is compelling foreign urges upon you and making you act in ways which are dissociated from your own course of thought? That has nothing to do with any God or whatever. That is you acting upon your basic animalistic impulses. There is nothing celestial, transcendental, or divine about it. It is basic, elementary. It is your right which gives you the tools to make your own meanings and shape your own life. I thought that was something you of all people should know before you started looking for a crutch. That will be enough of that. Now on to more important stuff; how is work?”
“I don’t hate it. I don’t love it. It just is. I do the same thing everyday, in succession; it is all part of a routine.”
“I meant the people,” he says frustratingly. “How are your relationships with co-workers? I know you have some degree of difficulty connecting.”
“I stopped trying. Well I guess I never tried. Why should I? I don’t pay attention to their laughs when I turn around. I just do my job and avoid. It is all I can do really to keep me going.” Henry adjusts himself in his seat which grinds from the later of rust on the hinges. “As a matter of fact, I think I hate the people. They disgust me. I don’t know what compels me to get up and go everyday. Every single one of them thinks they are better and smarter than me. They are no more intelligent than the trash they throw down on their own streets.”
Two flies buzz by Henry’s head. He just moves his head around to avoid them, not even raising one hand.
“I understand there is an anniversary coming soon? Would you like to discuss that? Remorse? Regret?” asks Mr. Hoffer.
“I have none of those. I didn’t do anything in which either of those feelings has crossed my mind. She made her decision and died with it. It makes me sad that she felt giving up was her only way to get through.” Henry’s eyes begin to drift off, engulfed inside his head. “I still dream about it. Waking up, walking up the stairs from my room to the door leading to our kitchen. Sometimes I open the door to a wall, other times I open it and see her on the floor, lifeless. But when I really look, I don’t know if it is her. It is like looking at an outagraph photo, you know where you take a picture of something then cut the subject out of the picture. But then again, I am not in the kitchen, but a room lit in red. When I turn to go back to my room, it is still my room, but all my furniture is rearranged. It is alarming to think about it, but when I am there I am comfortable. I think I have found freedom in the fact that she may be in a better place, after all it sure is not here. You have to leave this place to truly be free.”
“I know what and outagraph is.” Mr. Hoffer closes the case file and lays it on top of his empty desk. The two flies make their way to the case files and start copulating mechanically, spreading germs and clones”
He stares at Henry, who is still not there, through a lowered brow. “Freedom can be found in a lot of ways, Henry,” he voice as low as his brow. “People who look for freedom seldom find it. Freedom finds you, Henry. However without Hope, there is no freedom. So Hope is all but gone from you?”
Henry finally leaves his visions and responds,” Hope is never gone. Hope never existed.”
I