[Excerpt from A Troll’s Phantasmagoria by Ronald J Willis.
Used with permission.]
Chapter One
The Eighth Wonder of the World
Used with permission.]
Chapter One
The Eighth Wonder of the World
There was the ache in
the soul, in the groin, in the liver, in the canyons of the brain―Rolando,
Sylvius―that ache so deep and abiding that nothing, it seemed, would ever
expunge it. It was sex, but it was so many other things. It was the trace of
everything that had happened in a life planned carefully but lived foolishly.
But none of that mad planning had managed to change one iota the on-going surge
of the loins and the spleen and the strong little homunculus sitting up there
in that bloody, pulsing blob of the brain, watching the grotesque world whirl
by through the eye-screens of his host-body, hunched up, trying desperately to
pull that lever and push that button―trying to alter things and events―but
every time, doing only exactly what he had been programmed to do from the very
beginning of time. Like taking the sandwich down to the waterfront to eat lunch
on a bench in the little park behind the hospital, watching the sewer system
belch out between the wharfs the tons of shit and toilet paper directly from
the towers of Manhattan.
Where was this seed of nibbling baloney and watching shit planted in your life back there in that Midwestern city? When you were seven, could you imagine that you’d be sitting on your ass shuffling papers all those years, shuffling your soul from the IN box into the OUT box, and knowing the Universe would not, could not, ever give a good fucking damn if those papers ever made that 3-foot trip across your desk. And all the while the sitting constricting your veins and arteries until someday your goddamned legs would probably rot off, leaving you to thump around on rotting stumps after you ”retired” on your $125 a month. Baby, you’re one of the vast millions that retire when they’re about three―it just takes you a long fucking time to realize it. And there ain’t much time left after you do.
Realizing this, he began to write a novel. It was about a troll. You know, the kind that supposedly come from Scandinavia. And it was about the might of numbers. And the red comet of destruction pulling the Universe into its vortex of chaos. And the crucifixion of the naked, sweating bodies that screamed and writhed. Metaphorically or literally, as his art instructor had always put it: It was reality as it really was.
One two, buckle my shoe, three four shut the door, five six big fat pricks. The troll walked down the street, his mind racing like an engine without a governor. Minds do that sometimes. Who won the Russian-Turkish War of 1877? Probably the Russians or the Turks. He couldn’t remember. So what if he did remember? Would it help him make a buck or do anything else worth shit? No. He doffed his beret to the celery man sauntering past, who left a decaying odor in his wake. Clearly the celery man was turning rotten. Clear to all, no doubt, but the celery man. We are always the last to know our own shortcomings. And even knowing them, we resist that last plunge into the garbage can, even when we know it’s the proper place for us. The celery man would dispense his odor, leave a trail of wilting leaves, and frighten sensitive children and adults long past his appointed time. But don’t we all!. . . .
Where was this seed of nibbling baloney and watching shit planted in your life back there in that Midwestern city? When you were seven, could you imagine that you’d be sitting on your ass shuffling papers all those years, shuffling your soul from the IN box into the OUT box, and knowing the Universe would not, could not, ever give a good fucking damn if those papers ever made that 3-foot trip across your desk. And all the while the sitting constricting your veins and arteries until someday your goddamned legs would probably rot off, leaving you to thump around on rotting stumps after you ”retired” on your $125 a month. Baby, you’re one of the vast millions that retire when they’re about three―it just takes you a long fucking time to realize it. And there ain’t much time left after you do.
Realizing this, he began to write a novel. It was about a troll. You know, the kind that supposedly come from Scandinavia. And it was about the might of numbers. And the red comet of destruction pulling the Universe into its vortex of chaos. And the crucifixion of the naked, sweating bodies that screamed and writhed. Metaphorically or literally, as his art instructor had always put it: It was reality as it really was.
One two, buckle my shoe, three four shut the door, five six big fat pricks. The troll walked down the street, his mind racing like an engine without a governor. Minds do that sometimes. Who won the Russian-Turkish War of 1877? Probably the Russians or the Turks. He couldn’t remember. So what if he did remember? Would it help him make a buck or do anything else worth shit? No. He doffed his beret to the celery man sauntering past, who left a decaying odor in his wake. Clearly the celery man was turning rotten. Clear to all, no doubt, but the celery man. We are always the last to know our own shortcomings. And even knowing them, we resist that last plunge into the garbage can, even when we know it’s the proper place for us. The celery man would dispense his odor, leave a trail of wilting leaves, and frighten sensitive children and adults long past his appointed time. But don’t we all!. . . .
Copyright 2015 Estate of Ronald J. Willis. All Rights Reserved.