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Authors: Jason Erik Lundberg
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wave, a ripple that dislodged dust and depression and disease and desire from my body. He looked so small sitting there, a candy bar wrapper without its chocolate, and big slimy tears oozed from my eyes.
Edie licked the side of my head, her scratchy tongue a comfort. “Shhh, now. It was what he wanted. He was ready.”
“What about me? Will I be ready when the time comes?”
She sniffed the air. “It’s hard to say. If you prepare yourself, maybe. Maybe not. I’m not an authority on these things, you know.”
“So,” I said, clearing my throat, stretching my vocal cords, testing the deepness of my voice. “What now?”
“Up to you,” P.S. said, placing on a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It was always up to you.”
All the wonderfully weird animals around me, waiting patiently, sitting with stoic silence, my new family, of sorts. Where would we go? What would we do? What adventures could a mythical beast and his motley assortment of mammalian companions get up to? The answers, I realized, were limitless.
The wombat smiled and gave an encouraging slap to my back; I hadn’t known wombats could smile, and certainly not this one. “Lay on, monkey man,” he said. “We’re right behind you.”
Through the windows, the evening sky was a patchy purple, dotted with a range of small cumulonimbus clouds, like stepping stones across a velvet lake. How would the world look from up there, I wondered. What did humanity have to offer from such a lofty vantage point? I had been afraid of heights, before. But now— I was eager to find out. Easy as one two three.
I took a step.
I took another.
Screwhead
I would often, when watching the cartoon series The Tick , wonder about a certain henchman, the one with a giant thumbscrew for a head. Not fortunate enough to warrant his own super-villain moniker, he is simply named Dean. Gifted with incredible strength used for the bidding of City crime boss Chairface Chippendale, Dean can go toe-to-toe with The Tick, bending a steel ladder around the hero’s frame, or holding him in a bear hug while other villains pummel the Great Blue Hope in the stomach. But Dean is always defeated, usually outwitted or outfoxed, because having a giant thumbscrew for a head is not really conducive to a life of intellectual rigor.
Poor Dean, I would think to myself, trapped in his muscle-bound life, unable to break out of his station by the unfortunate circumstances of his birth. But wait, what about his boss, the criminal mastermind with a chair for a head (and who loves to plot, plan, and devise whilst sitting in the most ornate and expensive chairs imaginable)? No normal head for him either, but his efforts to take over The City or carve his name into the moon are never weakened by this fact. Two men, disabled by unfortunate physical deformities, neither with a proper head, but one possesses the vast intellect of a super-villain whilst the other is relegated to his henchman? How unfair are life’s circumstances then?
What if Dean the Screwhead goes home at night to his wife, exhausted after a long day of henching, muscles aching, longing for a hot meal and a screw ha ha, and she asks him how his day was. He performs a series of hand gestures, a complicated amalgam of American Sign Language and his own communicatory system, and she has learned through many patient years how to interpret these signs, which almost always include something akin to: The Tick beat me up again today.
“Again?” she says, eyes rolling, and though Dean possesses no head, nor eyes to see, he still detects the eye-roll, the disappointed tone of her voice, the empathetic frustration. “Why don’t you just quit?”
He knows that she wants more for him and from him; she’s long given up talking about potential and dreams and something better in life, though he knows it weighs heavily on her mind. He would love to get out of the henchman business, maybe start up his own shop, a hardware store maybe, but that seems
Edie licked the side of my head, her scratchy tongue a comfort. “Shhh, now. It was what he wanted. He was ready.”
“What about me? Will I be ready when the time comes?”
She sniffed the air. “It’s hard to say. If you prepare yourself, maybe. Maybe not. I’m not an authority on these things, you know.”
“So,” I said, clearing my throat, stretching my vocal cords, testing the deepness of my voice. “What now?”
“Up to you,” P.S. said, placing on a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It was always up to you.”
All the wonderfully weird animals around me, waiting patiently, sitting with stoic silence, my new family, of sorts. Where would we go? What would we do? What adventures could a mythical beast and his motley assortment of mammalian companions get up to? The answers, I realized, were limitless.
The wombat smiled and gave an encouraging slap to my back; I hadn’t known wombats could smile, and certainly not this one. “Lay on, monkey man,” he said. “We’re right behind you.”
Through the windows, the evening sky was a patchy purple, dotted with a range of small cumulonimbus clouds, like stepping stones across a velvet lake. How would the world look from up there, I wondered. What did humanity have to offer from such a lofty vantage point? I had been afraid of heights, before. But now— I was eager to find out. Easy as one two three.
I took a step.
I took another.
Screwhead
I would often, when watching the cartoon series The Tick , wonder about a certain henchman, the one with a giant thumbscrew for a head. Not fortunate enough to warrant his own super-villain moniker, he is simply named Dean. Gifted with incredible strength used for the bidding of City crime boss Chairface Chippendale, Dean can go toe-to-toe with The Tick, bending a steel ladder around the hero’s frame, or holding him in a bear hug while other villains pummel the Great Blue Hope in the stomach. But Dean is always defeated, usually outwitted or outfoxed, because having a giant thumbscrew for a head is not really conducive to a life of intellectual rigor.
Poor Dean, I would think to myself, trapped in his muscle-bound life, unable to break out of his station by the unfortunate circumstances of his birth. But wait, what about his boss, the criminal mastermind with a chair for a head (and who loves to plot, plan, and devise whilst sitting in the most ornate and expensive chairs imaginable)? No normal head for him either, but his efforts to take over The City or carve his name into the moon are never weakened by this fact. Two men, disabled by unfortunate physical deformities, neither with a proper head, but one possesses the vast intellect of a super-villain whilst the other is relegated to his henchman? How unfair are life’s circumstances then?
What if Dean the Screwhead goes home at night to his wife, exhausted after a long day of henching, muscles aching, longing for a hot meal and a screw ha ha, and she asks him how his day was. He performs a series of hand gestures, a complicated amalgam of American Sign Language and his own communicatory system, and she has learned through many patient years how to interpret these signs, which almost always include something akin to: The Tick beat me up again today.
“Again?” she says, eyes rolling, and though Dean possesses no head, nor eyes to see, he still detects the eye-roll, the disappointed tone of her voice, the empathetic frustration. “Why don’t you just quit?”
He knows that she wants more for him and from him; she’s long given up talking about potential and dreams and something better in life, though he knows it weighs heavily on her mind. He would love to get out of the henchman business, maybe start up his own shop, a hardware store maybe, but that seems
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