The Alex Show - Episode 21

Anatomy of a Nightmare pt. I

Chiefly structured in the infrastructure of Duplicity, I am led up a path of man-sized mousetraps by a strapping, young you. You seem like you, and talk like you, but your smile is beguiled and misused with purpose. Oddly enough, I walk without one (a purpose, that is), and so I keep a peripheral eye on the outskirts of this shaken world. I see my youth spread across the surface of a schoolyard I once knew. I have been here before, but all is anew; restructured times two. Peculiar, no? Usually when people grow up - both literally and figuratively - they imagine places of their past to be much larger than they truly are. Here at Redland Middle School it is just the opposite. All the land and man-made features appear to be doubled in size in relation to my memory. Then again, I have always had trouble remembering. I now realize that my once peripheral outlook has become focused. You have vanished. I swear a second ago you were only a few paces before me, yet I cannot seem to trace your direction. My location and destination are unknown. I have fallen for the bait, but where is the switch?

AERIAL SHOT: With a flash and a spin I exit my body and see the world from above. There is no standstill as this "shot" overlaps the following instant as if the moment happens twice within the same timeframe.

I return to my body suddenly apprehensive, as well as I should be, for the youth I noticed earlier is closing in around me. I am in danger, but with equal relevance know that I cannot lose. These are not your friends, Alex. They will tell you otherwise, but they are not real. They inhabit their bodies, but there is nothing left but a hollowed chest and a wielded skull. I reach into my left jean pocket to find a well-sharpened No. 2 pencil. Do not hesitate. You must preva... I interrupt my encouraging yet distracting monologue.

"I yield not to saints, so why yield here?"

The question accompanies my statement as well as my action. I pullback my trusty pencil in a warrior-like stance and thrust it into the heart of my nearest youth. He looks up to the sky and lets out a shriek that raises every hair on my once steady arm. As fast as his body collapses upon my wooden blade, his head rises once again. With the same beguiled smile as my once present friend, he turns the pencil and pulls it further in.

Friendly Reminder: "... but there is nothing left but a hollowed chest and a wielded skull."

I swiftly retract my weapon and make another thrust, this time directly in his eye. Deep and narrow, the wood pierces through tissue and bone and into his brain. His smiling ceases. Now I know how to break the bind, and so the slaughtering begins.

to be continued...

- Alexander McCurdy