Purple Mike
Prologue...In the beginning
Not too long ago, every human in Anyplace lived perfectly and peacefully. They liked their quarters a-plenty. Never did they lock their doors, nor were they afraid of things that went bump-thump in the night. It was precisely the place where the sun shone its brightest rays and in the hours those rays took sleep, when the day wore covers, it revealed bright bursts of stars, a billion billion birthday candles all sprinkled with electric sugar. The people: they were friendly, polite, and nice . . . sweet, kind and wonderful. Had to be something in the air that made it this way. Just had to be. Or maybe it was the water. . . .
Unknown to the human race was Vicodin. He lived on the fringes of reality, and he hated all the Anyplace boys and girls, even those teetering on the edge of major notgoodness. No one quite knows the reason, but it has something to do with the fact that he was a drug and had, quite frankly, no traits nor business relating anything whatsoever to human.
Regardless of his distinct lack of character, he sat comfortably on the other side of reality, seated primly in his chair, across and separated by a thin spasm and veneer of his den, little more than a separation of slick air and disparity of perception.
Watching through his looking glass, hating them humans—especially, the teens, ‘‘tweens and the young, joyful children, he looks on through his quantum dimension conjuring petty-size schemes of demise while biding his time, waiting, in anticipation. Today he could feel it—strange sensations tempering the air, kicking about individual air molecules that were previously undisturbed. With every passing hour he detested more, the warm lighted windows that shone from brownstones neatly lined in rows throughout diagonals of roads, and intersections that created the whole town of Anyplace to bubble with gladness.
Thoughts of their joy simply rippled misery under his skin and it crawled up and down his arms and legs like a thousand angry spiders, each taking little nibblings of his putrid flesh. He detested their happiness, their optimism. More than anything, he wanted to destroy their entire way of being. Anyplace was the newest target on his hit list.
“Look at them singing and dancing, playing sports and doing their chores and homework! Blasted their smiles! Tear away those grins.” His pupils cop pennies.
Slamming down his looking glass, he could see all the Anyplace boys and girls awake bright and early. They suffer from no delusions. They’d rush their scrambled eggs-n-cheese for breakfast and head off to school eager to learn and fill their heads with letters and phrases and chirp music lessons.
There was JohnnyBoy!, Sally Sue, Pete and Reggie—all model children. Like all Anyplace citizens, they shined and gleamed with potential. There goes JohnnyBoy! Number one on his dossier. Skip-along-hip-hop-strut.
SallySue was a high-spirited beauty with A-plus grades to boot. She could act, sing, dance—you name it. Pete wasn’t sure who he wanted to be yet except he knew his six-pack abs rippled under his chest and the chicks flocked to him like feathers to a warm comfy nest.
Reggie was a demon with b-ball and hoops. On the court he was possessed like Linda Blair. It was a talent he had, but didn’t know he owned like a boss cuz he never attempted anything outside his daily dose a’ insta-messagin.’
Vicodin wanted none of them never to find out what they could become, what their potential was, how they could change the world. All of ‘em he wanted to stop in their tracks before they got to get up and run, long before they could ever stop to think about all that potential energy and e = mc2.
Watching with an unblinking eye, he makes the sign of the helix and looks over the school ground, twirling one gnarly finger between two crooked thumbs. Today he would puncture it. Ahhh . . . but what a-do about MackDaddy? That used-up halluSINogen stood in his way. For awhile he pondered until he got it–a deliciously devilish brainwave that started as an infant ripple somewhere in the Antarctic, morphed into a tsunami and washed ashore somewhere in Nova Scotia. It started taking shape the more he thought of chubby crossing guards leading children to safety, sidewalk to sidewalk. The more he deliberated, the more he was certain. It was clearly forbidden to tip-toe in reality and create the ruckus he so badly desired. He tried before, but that drat MacKDaddy always welded his Converse All Stars to the floor.
Halfway across the room—ZAAAP!. It came to him. He would start with these fab four, stand them up like bowling pins or dominoes—he didn’t care—and then knock them down like bowling pins or dominoes—he didn’t care. He’d set the time and accelerate the rate of events . . . but how? The only way in was to steal the key and slip inside the mortal portal. He’d sneak it away from where it was neatly pressed in a pocket pendant tucked between MackDaddy’s yellow dotted shirt and purple velvet vest.
Leaving the labyrinth, following an exit left, he follows a gold-painted path laden with pretty flowers, plants, and furry woodland animal things—where gladiolas smile and magnolias wink impish worms and creepy crawly frogs croak and sing. These gardens he knew to be the place where MackDaddy liked to nappytime in the shade. You see, this has-been all-masterful halluSINogen got stuck in a flashback one time and, like a one-hit wonder on the ‘70s disco charts, he never made it back. Now, seated to the right of the rocker and in the back of the fourth chair, he nurses his chin in deep-seated wonder. Expertly, he combs gray-haired whiskers, muttering about an old chap named Dr. Hofmann, and if he’d ever see his only begotten son, just once before his candle burnt out.
Vicodin ignored him as much times as possible. He cared not hear the mis-believings of the deliriously mad. He dismissed all his notions without hearing them for their meaning. He was a drug. Who was he kiddin’?
Pushing back his heavy cloak of paranoia, Vicodin circles him on the tippiest of toes, inching his way closer and closer in. Quick like a bunny, he snatches the key and runs straight into the maze. To the Mortal Portal, by heart, he knew the way.
He stops at the door and inhales deeply before it opens. Ominous and creaky suggestions full of points of exclamations spritz the room—when there he saw it gleaming like a prized jewel—handsomely seated at the center, and encased in creation was a grand tome embossed in gold with galvanic heads of flame. Clearly, on the cover it is written:
Purple Mike Project
--- Classified Dossier ---
He wasn’t supposed to do this, meddle with history, futures, and fate this way, but messin’ with the very fabric of the Universe didn’t stop him. Shall he open the book now and reveal what’s within? All power and knowledge lay before him. After all, if the mutterings of MackDaddy contained even a germ of truth, the time for the grand chemical spill was going to happen regardless.
Licking his finger, he flips to the centerfold: 1 human heart + 1 spiked brain cross in ‘n’ mix breed at a hair past 9:00, purple thumb time.
Vicodin frowned. Perplexed, he says the words out loud, not comprehending. A thick purple energy begins forming. Vicodin feels a burst of adrenaline under his skin as ripples of the book’s knowledge course through him. The lights flicker, dust bunnies skitter for the four protective corners of Mother Earth, and Vicodin lets out a whopperuva SNEEEEZE!
Cogs, clocks and machinery within—various time-telling-tocking machines quiver and chime ominously, all at the same time. Each splendid in design, two stand out and are set at different times. Pausing in anticipation, Vicodin grins revealing decayed and pointed incisors. As one strikes nine, another chimes three—it is confirmed. No more will the humans own their solace, no more will they be the bosses of peace and freedom. Liberty will simply be some obscure word at the end of every dictionary. End, as in the last and final page, which no one will ever read, let alone understand.
Picking up a wooden hourglass on his way out the door, he flips the present on its head to let the dust settle the other way. Smirking, he’s through biding his time, waiting on the Universe.
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