Benefits of Madness

All he knew was that he felt one-hundred times better than a week ago. He really did. The words in his mind were perfectly quiet. It was not as if he had ever needed them. The dandelion fuzz that had replaced his mind, suffocated his equations, had been blown apart as if a child had begged for a wish.

Inside a creaking old septic-tank, little sunshine capsules bobbed amongst refuse: toilet paper, diarrhea, dehydrated golden urine. Time had left the tablets, trapped on the concrete base of the tank, blinking up towards the sun with a worn commentary of ‘quel’. Despised by the man who once took them, swallowed the damnable things with gasping gulps of expired grapefruit juice, their disposal was a welcome endeavor. A bottle sat beside his laptop with a name covered by his shadow. Name stood out in plain Calibri: Davis Harrison.

For the hundredth time that day, fingers trembling with both terror and want, he maneuvered his scratch-scratched mouse and its leashed cursor to the play button. Subtitles rolled across the screen; memory spit out the words before they were even spoken. A deep male voice, from a university professor, began to prattle in a soft baritone: “Code-name Demeter is estimated, with an 80 percent likelihood, to hit Earth this Sunday. Please take cover. We are the ants in this war; not that anyone could call it a war. Kiss your asses goodbye.” Words ended. Green-screen faded. Again. Again. Again. The former astronomer licked dry lips and turned his head towards a window boarded up with newspapers from ten years ago. Yellowed headlines taunted him. “Not like anyone will listen to me—all those damn pills got ’em thinking I’m a regular loon. Serves them right if they get splattered for it, huh?” Low keening whine grasped fingers about his throat as he let out a wounded groan. “No—no—no! That’s the wrong thing to say!” Blinking the remnants of the video from his eyes, shaking free of its grip like a toddler from sleep, he moved towards the front door. Shoulders shrunk. Eyes dropped bashfully. Without his books, or his smarts, he knew who he was: Crazy Old Davis Harrison.

The next five days were filled with him packing on the weight, the berries, and trying his best to imitate a hungry bear. Guilty eyes watched as the unsaved continued about their daily lives without a care in the world. Smiling. Laughing. Joking. Dead.

He was no savior. Never was and never could be.

On that Sunday, he watched as the sky turned dark. A bright light glowed miles above. Wind began to kick up and howl at him: Escape Davis! Go! Into his fortress, old fuzz-ball of a cat tucked against him like pigskin, the astronomer dove. Door was locked. Thick bar of termite-ridden wood tossed into place. Curled up in a ball between a creaking wooden shelf and a dirt wall, the grey-haired man stared blearily at all that remained of his life. Shadowed faces smiling out past a dull white candle. Wonder how Marjorie and little Rick are doing now. They never returned my phone calls—probably that nasty husband of hers. Something above gave a sickening thump. Dirt ceiling shook. Dust fell. “Here it goes, Polaris. Just going to be me and you now—all alone.” Tears rolled down a thrice-broken nose as he clung to an old scientific journal.

The light went out. Old laptop died with a final spark and sputter. Davis Harris finally got his wish: solitude.

Seven days passed with that hole as he stared up at the trap door above. Silence reigned outside. By the time he peeled the door open, streaking wood with blood, he looked like the shadow of a skeleton. Cloudy blue eyes stared at horror at what awaited him. Trees lay scattered like a child’s toys across the landscape. The old house he called home lay a destroyed pile of matchsticks.

People would call his life miraculous. Not a single building survived that F5 tornado in Evansburg. It was left a figurative crater on the Pennsylvania landscape.

Voices within swelled in confirming crescendo. You were right. You were right. You were right. The problem was, though the result saved his life, was that Davis was wrong. The video that haunted his every-waking breath was a joke slapped together by a university’s 

film department.

 A short posted on April 4th.