Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

A PERFECT STORY

by Mort Castle

Here you have it, m’ lords and m’ladies… For this month’s Storytellers Unhinged, I’ve decided to give you nothing less than …

ROLL OF TRUMPETS

THUNDER OF DRUMS

A PERFECT STORY!

It follows, in all its perfection.

A FRIGHTENING EXPERIENCE

The snow fell, drifting lazily and slowly, quietly, softly and gently, whirling and twisting, blowing this way and that, a mist settling in its whiteness on the city’s streets, blanketing the concrete surroundings. Mike Higgens sat in an armchair by his apartment’s window, watching the accumulating whiteness, and thinking in a very, very perturbed and nervous fashion.

Mike Higgens was 28 years old. He was handsome, with good looking features, and though he usually had a calm and easy-going manner, he was considerably agitated and distraught at this point in time. You see, Mike’s younger brother, Arnold, had telephoned only a half hour ago with a terribly important message that had done a great deal to upset Mike’s normal tranquility.

Mike and Arnold had never gotten along too well. In many ways, Mike had always been superior to Arnold in both childhood and adulthood and Arnold resented this.

Arnold had a nasty disposition and sometimes did things that were unpleasant and not at all nice to Mike and to others. For example. Reader, one time, when Arnold was 12 and Mike, 14, Arnold had stolen several dollars from Mike and when Mike had confronted him, Arnold had said, “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE CALLING ME A THIEF??’!???!!! You DIRTY! rotten NO-GOOD, lousy, ()(&&TR&TYRFDIO*^%**&#-h-!!!” Then he stepped on Mike’s foot. “If you tell our parents,” he said, with a nervous look revealing his anxious anxiety, “I will kill you to death a lot!” Then he angrily added, “I mean it, too!”

Mr. Higgens, Mike and Arnold’s padre, worked in a bank as a security guard. He was a round-faced man who had ulcers and ever since his wife, Mrs. Higgens, the boy’s mother, had died of malignant pneumonia, he had been extremely lonely and sometimes felt the need for companionship, particularly that of a member of the female persuasion. He was currently dating a woman whose name was Irwinia Maria Poppinhausen, and, while she was nice, he felt that if things didn’t improve with their relationship, they would have no lasting future together with each other as a couple.

Remembering all this now, Mike thought to himself, It’s certainly too bad how things work out sometimes. Then he started to cry, tears rolling down his face and cheeks. It was because

when Arnold had called before, Arnold had stated emphatically that he hated Mike a lot and was coming over to kill him forthwith. Not only had that made Mike somewhat frightened, he was also upset and unhappy and insouciantly perambulated. After all, Mike really loved his brother and he thought Arnold really loved him, too, but Arnold could act crazy on occasion and when he was behaving in an insane fashion, then Arnold was likely to do violence.

“What can I do?” Mike said aloud, with a nervous expression. “This is a very serious situation and if Arnold does come here acting crazy, then things could be very bad.” Then with a quietly somber tone, as though he were recalling something of importance from the past, Mike rapidly blinked and said, “I’ll just have to try to talk to him.”

But how could he talk to Arnold the way Arnold was acting? Little did Mike know that right at that very moment, Arnold was in the back seat of a taxi cab automobile that was being driven through the slick streets by a driver named Fred. Fred was a bit worried about his passenger because Arnold kept muttering to himself. “I’ve got to kill him. I hate him. I hate him so I’ve got to kill him. Har-de-har. Nvuck-nyuck-nyuck!” Arnold’s eyes were very angry and very big and very round and white and strange looking like a crazy person gets, you know.

(Inside the madman’s mind): I have always hated Mike. He used to eat the Jello I wanted when we were little kids. It was raspberry. Sometimes he stole away my girl friends, too. I’ve got this gun in my pocket and so I’ll shoot him. He will die for all the crummy, nasty, and no good things he’s done.

“Step on it, cabby I” Arnold ordered with a wistfully petulant tone that clearly indicated his frame of mind. “The sooner I get there, the better,” Arnold demanded hastily and bluntly.

When Mike heard the knock on the door, he worriedly called out loudly, “Come in.” Arnold stepped in. “How are you doing, Mike?” he asked, as though with thoughtfully genuine concern. “I’ve been doing all right,” Mike responded promptly, thinking Arnold had probably changed his mind and was not going to kill

him after all.

“That is nice,” Arnold said pleasantly.

“How about you?” Mike inquired with eager and interested curiosity in his voice.

“Well, I guess I have been doing okay,” Arnold hurriedly responded with a quiet and calm tone.

“I’m glad to hear it. It certainly is a snowy day.”

“I guess it is true that everyone talks about the weather and no one does anything about it,” Arnold said. “That is my opinion, anyway.”

“I agree,” Mike said.

Then Arnold snarled, “BUT IT IS STILL A PERFECT DAY FOR YOU TO DIE, YOU LOUSY, STINKING, ROTTEN, SLIMEBALL BROTHER OF MINE!” With that declaration, Arnold pulled the gun out of his pants pocket where it had been and pointed it right smack dab at Mike’s heart area. “Say your prayers, crud-head!” he terrifyingly and tauntingly taunted.

Tears filling his eyes, Mike stared at his brother in shocked horror and terrible tearfulness. He was scared. “Why do you want to kill me?” he said pleadingly with much concern.

Arnold snarlingly thundered, “Because I HATE you the way you’ve always hated me.”

Slowly, Mike shook his head from side to side. “No, Arnold,” he said in a desperate attempt to make his brother understand the truthfulness of his emotions and feelings. “I do not hate you. I love you.”

“Oh,” Arnold said. He stared at Mike for a long minute or two. Then he lowered the arm the hand of which was holding the gun. He had decided that he would not kill his brother because he had been wrong about how his brother truly felt about him.

“I am so sorry, Mike,” he said apologetically as tears streamed down his face and his body shook convulsively with violent sobbing. “I love you, too.”

“You’ll see,” Mike said, rising from the chair in which he had been sitting. “This will be a new start…”

Mike was just walking toward his brother to shake his hand when Mike’s eyes opened.

He sat in the chair. His brother was not here yet. He had dozed off at the window watching for Arnold and had only dreamed the whole thing!!!!!

Mike peered out the window. Across the street, he saw a taxi cab stop at the curb and then he saw Arnold get out.

Arnold’s fury had been building and building and building and was at a point of his being utterly enraged and really angered. Burning with the very hot fire of cold, hard hate, he started to cross the street. He was not thinking like a sane person so he didn’t bother to look both ways before he started to go to the apartment building in which lived his despised brother.

Suddenly, a truck rounded the corner and the driver could not stop in time. He hit Arnold and Arnold flew through the air, landing in the white and silent snow; he was extremely dead.

Mike had been watching it all. He put a hand to his forehead and wept. If only it could have been different, he thought to himself.

Moral: Look both ways before you cross the street, particularly if you are a psychopath.

The End / fin / -30- / “That’s all, Folks”

Whatcha think, huh?

Perfect?

Oh…

Well, yeah, there’s…

But this is the thing, you see. In this story I set out to include, albeit in a somewhat exaggerated manner, every mistake, blunder, mess-up, goofus majorus I’ve seen in manuscripts over the past… Well, let’s say, “over the years.”

And if I didn’t get all of ‘em, left out a trans-fat transition or a malevolent metaphor, then I guess I will have to grant that “Perfection is for God alone…”

But I’ll still maintain that I’ve come pretty darned close.

So, with “A Frightening Experience,” what you’ve got is a negative example: What not to do.

If anything in your story triggers the “Frightening Experience” associate response… You’re wrong.

And remember, psychopaths don’t look both ways before they cross the street. It’s information like that that just might save your life.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.