Self-Improvement Plan

Zeke sat in a cigarette smoke-filled room in the retrofitted attic of a four story house. He stood and again forgot that the room was not built with habitation in mind. Habitation of tall humans, anyway. The stucco scraped his head. He tried to sooth it as he walked into his afterthought of a bathroom. Toilet, sink and tub all crammed into what had obviously been a closet. He could literally sit on the sink as he urinated. In fact, if he didn’t, he had to tilt his head. He forgot this as well and disturbed his most recent abrasion.

Zeke moved his laptop to the jutting sore of a counter island. Maybe the thoughts would flow better if he let his blood circulate. With a wet washcloth sitting atop his head, water dripping down the back of his shirt, he looked at the words on the screen with a blank stare. Horrified that his old mindset was returning, he remembered one of the first pieces of advice he received from the group, Self-Liberation, before he had been required to make payments (what they called ‘installments’). It was their version of a free trial, Zeke guesses. ‘Don’t stop.’ Instead of deleting the words mocking him on the screen, he pushed on. Better to write gibberish than nothing at all. Better to write past the feeling that he couldn’t write, ignoring that nagging feeling that he should be--needed to be--somewhere else.

The feeling would get worse when he went to bed, of course. He would lie down, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Frustrated, he would get up and take care of fruitless tasks. He would unlock and relock the apartment door. He would check his alarm, switching it on and off. He would check to see if he had enough socks in his drawer to last through the end of the week. Convinced that if he tried to go back to bed, he would only be allowing his brain to add things to the list of to-dos until he finally resigned himself to staying up.

Last night, he hadn’t even bothered going to bed.

Zeke slapped his brain awake again, trying to kick the thought of the time out of his head.

2 am… 2am...2am

flashed in bright green letters, even when he closed his eyes. A soft, high pitched tone began in his head.

Ever since meeting Self-Liberation, he has been able to construct beautiful grammatical structures while in what most would consider non-functional states at any time, eight, ten or three o’clock, am or pm, the words would flow through his brain to his fingers and to the keys or his pen as he observed the world around him. It was even better than before when he wrote for the local paper. Basic structure, grammar and logical flow were never problem to him. Through their guidance, however, he took his basic ability to put together structured pieces and turned it into a free flowing set of ideas with meaning and vigor, concise and poignant.

Now, the words stopped flowing as soon as he sat down to write. Frustration morphed into desperation, as if he were stuck under the ice of a frozen lake, able to see the sunrise and sunset, but unable to break through.

The dull, high pitched whine increased in volume, filled his ears

Zeke didn’t so much as sit down on the counter stool, as much as he fell on it.

Zeke’s leg pistoned up and down on the rung of the stool with nervous energy, like he was awaiting a diagnosis of a tumor or the birth of his child. Then, his leg stopped.

The whine rung in his ears again, loud enough to necessitate closing his bloodshot eyes. Without forethought or warning, his fingers were barely able to keep up with his thoughts as they poured out. He started rocking back and forth in his chair, accenting the rhythm of the rattling of his keyboard.

Then it stopped.

A glow lit up the haze, and a rapid whisper, as if someone was surreptitiously passing along secrets on a street corner on a foggy night. He lifted off the stool and grabbed the remote off his armchair. He looked for the off button so he could get back to his writing, but looked up as bright shocking letters flashed across the television screen over a man who was sitting at a desk trying to write, but only getting frustrated. He was a thrspian, Zeke noted because of the gentleman’s eagerness to appear upset.

The man tugged at his hair, causing it to stand up in ragged tufts. Zeke forlornly rubbed his bald head. The lettering cleared to show the utter surprise in the man’s face. As it had when he first saw it, the infomercial seemed like a hokey schtick, covering up the true message, so you don’t realize you’re being screwed at the other end.

It was about a year ago when Zeke had been at the end of his rope professionally. Desperate, he would have taken anything that came his way. Any job, any task, if it meant he was working. He was ready to give up on the one thing with which he had identified himself for most of his life. He often thinks that even if he had known Self Liberation’s price beforehand, what they truly charged their students, he still would have signed up.

The first meeting was at the house down road. He thought They were just selling some feel good fluff, recycled crap to get people to buy super juice or host seminars on how to recognize your full potential through the power of pyramid schemes. At the awkward-hors d’oeuvres meet-and-greet of middle-aged men who, at one point in their lives had either given up on life or it on them, were ‘big-boned’ or ‘going through a rough patch’ or ‘living in mom’s basement.’ One thing or another had kept them down their whole lives. It seemed that they were all too sweaty for their own bodies, much less the warm room. Never considered to be attractive by any means, Zeke seemed to be the only average looking person there. In this comedy, he was the straight man to a full room of fat/pathetic comedy relief guys. The Abbott to their Costello. David Spade to Chris Farley. The stale-sweat smelling elbow- poking and jostling crowd made him feel too much like a cow at the shoot waiting to get the bolt for slaughter. They sat and stood against the walls of the living room for an hour before anything happened.

Zeke had no idea where they had come from. One second, he was on his way to the front door, cutting short a one-sided conversation with another of the cattle, the next second, two men were in the middle of the room, beaming their ultra-white smiles, lighting up the room. Despite that they were male, taller and blonder, their intense stare reminded Zeke of the Grady twins from Kubrick’s The Shining. They stood in the middle of the cattle, side by side, wearing matching pastel clothing. Standing at the door, his hand on the doorknob, Grady number 1 stared at Zeke, as if compelling him to sit down.

Zeke sat down in the nearest chair. .

After Zeke went to the following seminars, and actually followed the steps, including the first messy installment, writing took less and less effort. The sheer volume of his writing so early on astonished him. He actually had more difficulty not writing. Producing for his own blogs, plus contributing to three others, he had never written more in his life. The ideas that were trapped beneath the ice had been freed, the ice broken up by the axe of Self-Liberation.

Bright, flashing lights drew his attention to the television. He turned up the volume. A skinny middle aged man in a green three-piece suit strolled onto the set. The man at the desk continued with his futile efforts as if Green Suit was not there. Green Suit’s black hair was slicked back. It was same unnatural, deep greasy black as his goatee. He was a five year old’s version of what an adult looks like.

The set of the infomercial was meant to look like a library-study, even though the continuous shot revealed that the library books on the shelves behind the desk were nothing more than a photographer’s backdrop. After looking pityingly at the frustrated writer, Green Suit set one narrow green-corduroyed butt cheek on the big oak desk, somehow pulling off a relaxed, casual feel, despite the tight suit. His green suit pants rode up revealing no socks, which drew attention to dark, dirt green penny loafers.

“Do you suffer from writer’s block,” the man’s facial muscles reorganized into a depiction of concern, “or do you just like to make excuses?”

The man’s voice was deep, smooth and soothing, like a father who is telling his child something important, something of a serious or private nature. Calming. It was instantly relaxing.

Green Suit continued to talk, but was drowned out by the whining in Zeke’s head. This time it was louder. If he had not previously heard it, he would have begun to search for the baby.

““But, I work as a writer. I work on my stories,’” the man mocked his potential customers in a whiny, sing-song voice, in stark contrast to his previous monotone. He jumped off of the desk and pounded one foot on the ground. “Bullshit!” The man was sweating, a mild sheen on his exposed forehead. Even though he had seen this same commercial many times, this still stung. Especially tonight.

Zeke had proofread and edited term papers and cover letters and even wrote for a small town paper. He turned the stories in and they were later sculpted into what the editor wanted. ‘They wanted me to write too much but didn’t want to pay me more.’

Excuses.

As a result of the seminars and meetings, he admitted he had to transcend who he was to be able to succeed. He had to be courageous enough to overlook what most considered abnormal, immoral, and taboo, especially when those characteristics came from within himself. Do what needed to be done to get what he wanted.

“You have to put in the work,” Green Suit continued, now calmed down. “Not the busy work. Not the work you know is bullshit. But, if you have fooled yourself into thinking you are a hard worker, it is exponentially more difficult to succeed.”

Zeke closed his eyes, breathed in and out and said aloud along with Green Suit “The writer is not a writer when he tells himself he is a writer. The writer is a writer when he writes. A writer doesn’t make excuses. A writer writes.”

Green Suit continued, now wiping the sweat from his brow.

“Make yourself pay back your loans. Charge yourself interest. Acknowledge setbacks and levy fines for missing a payment. You are never going to succeed if you continue to coddle yourself. Set up a payment plan. Stick to the plan. Own your mistakes.”

Zeke opened his eyes and forced himself to stare at the laptop’s screen. The words were no more than symbols on a cave wall. Archaic representations of thought long lost to him. Visions of him running down stories and writing for scant audiences, he reached for his cigarettes. Empty.

Zeke stood up, closed his eyes and drove the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, kneading the orbs. He had become fully entrenched in his own lie. Again. He knew he could not avoid it. Their help has become a dependence.

Green Suit continued to talk. He might as well have been mumbling, because the crying keened the high pitch of a hearing test in Zeke’s head. He could swear the crying was coming from outside. He soon could not hear anything besides the crying.

With his eyes closed, he got up from the stool and toppled it. He bumped into the counter, then the hallway wall and fumbled his way out into the house’s hallway, down the stairs and into the night.

The darkness weighed on him. He traversed through the soupy air along the country highway that ran through town toward the house. The faster he walked, the slower he progressed. The crying in his head had deepened and sounded husky.

With the unspent kinetic energy from his writing, Zeke proceeded forward down the gravel of the shoulder, one foot in front of the other.

Zeke stopped walking after he realized he had nearly went past the house. He walked back up the slight incline and observed the large brick house. Uncharacteristic to the town’s hodgepodge of siding-and-ranch clones that had infested the town over the past few years. The century-plus old three floored behemoth thumbed its nose at the town, refusing to succumb to the progression of people’s tastes. The red brick made its blue trim even darker in the sparse light of night. Suddenly felt the weight of what he has done over the past year--his “installments.” He shuffled through the gravel toward the house even slower. Shame washed over him.

The pets. The arson.The torture.

“Oh, God…”

The light from the front porch did nothing to light his way. It barely lit the top of the thick, deeply ensconced front door. It served no other purpose than to fool people into thinking it was a normal house. Like the bait of an angler fish, it meant to lure prey. The shadows it cast shrouded whoever was courageous enough to venture onto the porch.

Zeke stopped midway down the driveway. The crying was louder. His head ached. If he could have dampened the sound by covering his ears, he would have. When he had done so, it just become louder.

Does the dark bring doubt? Normally associated with uncertainty, dishonesty…ill intent. But would the dark be good if not for the light? So which was evil? The light that made the dark, or was it the dark?

Zeke forced himself to stop. Of course now is the time his mind chooses to create. He closed his eyes, breathed in...and out, and lifted his head skyward. His misgivings about the previous year washed away into the night adding to the darkness.

Shortly after he was introduced to Self-Liberation and after realizing what they could do for him, he had dived into his new life. He was so hungry for any level of success, He violated, cut and mauled and deprived how many of…at first, all here, in this house? He was transformed from the innocent and magnanimous plebeian doormat to the depraved, insatiable juggernaut of a ‘human’ being he was now—utterly in tune with his thoughts and feelings, a demented contributor to the new Renaissance. His thoughts, a fluid transfer from his brain to the screen of life. His brain to action.

He turned around as he heard a sound and peered directly into his own eyes. Except, the eyes were not a sleep-deprived puffiness. The face was not droopy with lack of emotion. It did not look lost or disheveled. What stood in front of him was a clean cut, well dressed version of himself. It looked at him with the same eager look he had seen on the faces of the Grady twins at the first meeting, Zeke did not see the fist until it was directly in front of his face.

Like the night, he went dark.

Pain stabbed through the back of Zeke’s eyes, his eyelids fighting through the darkness, trying to see through the extra barrier between himself and whatever was crying and mewling. It was louder and more shrill than before, somewhat gravelly. He was lying on his side on a cold and damp packed dirt floor. His head ached and he felt woozy. As he moved, he felt the tug and subsequent rattle of a chain clamped to his ankle.

Zeke opened his eyes, one wider than the other One was sealed shut with the blood from a gash in his head (The overzealous companion to his abrasion from earlier). He reached down to his ankle and tested the cuff fastened to it. Fastened tightly, it was held shut with a new padlock.

Zeke raised his stubborn head, which wanted to remain on the floor, throbbing at the source of blood that still seeped from it. He lifted himself to all fours and breathed in deep the copper and earth odors. He swayed backwards from the lack of blood in his head, not to mention his body. Another blood curdling wail-shriek from the other room in this dim and musty dungeon forced his head down, his face cooled on the packed mud.

Zeke knelt in the middle of the room, the damp earth seeping through the knees of his jeans. The only light in the room came from another, room visible through the ajar door of the makeshift cell. He didn’t need to see any more details to know where he was. He had seen other parts of this same basement in this very house and knew he had himself placed individuals in this very room. He forced the visions of his deeds from his mind.

Zeke’s was not the only blood that went down the drain in the middle of the floor over the years. The very acts that now repulsed him, had been the acts that freed him, opened his mind and loosened his fingers, inspired him to not only new levels of writing, but to a confidence that told him even more success would be available to him. He had released people from this world with the very fingers that brought words into it.

In this room, he had realized that his morals, ascribed in him from birth, were so tight and constricting that they held him back. He was never allowed to believe in himself, but that hard work would bring success to him. When he met Self-Liberation, he realized that even though he had worked hard at it, he could see how, over the years, those around him who called him a writer, never cared enough to want to read his stuff. They never encouraged him to do better, to reach higher. It was not until he met Self-Liberation that he realized his ‘friends,’ his ‘loved ones’ had held him back, made him comfortable in his complacency, his mediocrity. His failure.

The chain was not even tight. He half-heartedly tugged at it, half expecting the other end to skitter toward him. Then he calmed, remembering their intent was most likely not to trap him, but to initiate him into the rest of his life. This was merely the last step before greatness, his final installment that would set him on his direct path to notoriety, to fortune.

Zeke’s neck and face broke out in a cold sweat when the chain remained taught. He tugged at it twice more in disbelief. The keening wail began again. Thumping thundered into the basement as feet trundled down the steps.

“Jesus,” an all too familiar voice said as light erupted into the next room of the basement, “What the hell is that? You hear that?”

“They do that sometimes,” Green Suit said. “Remember, you need not worry about distractions.”

The first voice, as if on cue, recites, “The actor is not an actor when he tells himself he is an actor. The actor is an actor when he acts. An actor doesn’t make excuses. An actor acts.” Flabbergasted, he recognized the voice. He imagined that it is what his voice sounds like if he were to listen to a recording of it. It wasn’t a recording though.

The door slams into the wall as it is pushed open, and the silhouette of two men fill the doorway. A light flickers on, and shadows swing haphazardly as the bare bulb swung in wide arcs. The dark brown loafers shuffled into his line of vision as did a similar pair of shoes. The latter were a darker brown. One of the brown shoes moved backwards, its leg’s knee coming too the ground.

The look on his own clean shaven and rested face filled Zeke’s vision. Well-dressed Zeke looked at him as if he were observing a new species of animal, newly discovered and captured for his observation. With a toothy grin and a hearty slap on the back, Well Dressed rose.

Zeke laughed a quick laugh as he mocked Well Dressed. He had knelt on the wet mud, leaving a dark stain on his pressed and creased khakis.

“Consider this your first lesson,” Green Suit’s smooth, soothing voice said to Well Dressed, the other him. Zeke heard the scrape of metal on stone, then a dull, metallic thud as the heavy object was set upon the ground. Green Suit continued to preach.

“The liberation is never complete until you sacrifice yourself. You will be reinvented. Your life truly your own.”

The ax was lifted from the ground. The crying, which had been Zeke’s all along, finally stopped when the axe succumbed to gravity and force, liberating Zeke from this world.

TITLE: Self-Improvement Plan, GENRE: Horror/fiction AGE RANGE: 18+ Word Count: 3820 AUTHOR: Tom Mclaughlin WHY THIS IS A GOOD FIT: Because it is the best example of my writing to date HOOK: Like any writer, Zeke has writers block. He finds out the hard way that you should be careful from where you take your inspiration. SYNOPSIS: Zeke can write, but wants to produce more than the average blog or news article. Looking for inspiration, Zeke joins a self-help group in hopes that it will provide him with support and inspiration. He finds out that the group is not what it seems. TARGET AUDIENCE: Fans of psychological thrillers BIO: I am a 44 year-old, married father of three. I wrote when I was in college, but started again about five years ago. I have an English Literature degree from the University of Northern Iowa. I tend to overanalyze things, and am slightly paranoid and catch many of those thoughts in the form of stories or ideas. That is why I like to write pieces that make the reader cringe and/or cause their brain to flip in their head. The platform for my stories is eBooks. My only hobbies are writing and reading. My family is one of my larger source for inspiration. I am most comfortable in a library, hidden away in the corner with a book or in a movie theatre. I have lived all my life in Iowa, and grew up in West Des Moines, Iowa, and ended up here in Riverside, Iowa. Small town life and its attached issues (i.e., gossip, secrets and feuds) tend to show up in my stories quite a bit.