a work in progress
One of my goals for the soul-vigil has been to write this short story that came to me a couple months ago and has been rattling around in my head. It's not terribly short, but certainly won't become a novel. It's going to be made up of several chapters, probably five. I'm quite excited about it. Anyway, here's the first one:
"Good Lord, Benjamin, will you look at this filth!" exclaimed Mrs. Dendrich as she gazed with chagrin across the entrenched landscape of her son's room. "Is it possible there's a lazier human being on this planet?" Benjamin Derek James Dendrich, a gangly young man who bore a name much too long for his shirking spirit, barely raised an eyebrow in response to his mother's complaint. He idly flicked a strand of his long straight hair out of his eyes and then pulled the brim of his Anarchy cap down to replace it.
"Benjamin, I give up. If you don't take the boxes of junk from the basement to the Thrift Store by three o'clock this afternoon, I'm going to take away the car. And that's final." As Mrs. Dendrich huffed away from the room, the echo of her colossal footsteps could be heard all the way down to the kitchen.
"Fat bitch," Benjamin muttered after her, but his words were barely audible and it was a fortunate thing indeed that she did not hear him this time. He rolled idly off the bed and felt his feet hit his somewhat squishy floor. It had been over a year since he'd cleaned his room. If Benjamin could be said to prefer anything at all, it was undoubtedly chaos -- although "preference" is a rather strong word for a person who simply doesn't care about anything. It was a marvel he'd managed to survive this far into his impending adulthood. With high school behind him by one month, Benjamin's soul ambition now was to avoid all work for the rest of his life, including but not limited to the massive summer projects his mother had lined up for him.
Benjamin didn't feel he cared much whether his mother took the car away from him or not. He had nowhere to be, no friends to see besides Robin, and she always showed up at his house anyway. He never went looking for her, but rather was content to slump along behind her vivacious energy as they traipsed around the mall or sat in boredom on the swings on the playground down the street. It had never entered Benjamin's thick skull to consider that Robin might have been hanging around him because she loved him. He was hardly equipped to love anyone himself, and therefore never supposed anyone would love him either.
Speaking of Robin, he now heard the familiar clacking of pebbles being flung at his bedroom window. He glanced over at it and sighed. Robin's presence would mean he would have to go out and experience some sort of day; whether it would turn out to be the sort of day a person would regard as pleasant mattered little to him. The point was, he'd have to do something, and that made him disdainful. An extra loud CRACK pummeled against the glass and he shuffled over in frustration, opening the window with a creak. "Yo!" he hollered into the street. Two stories below he could see Robin's upturned face, a smile spread almost as wide as her wide-set, ever-curious eyes. Most days she wore a bright skirt in some primary color accompanied by a dark, almost gothic blouse that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. This day was no exception, but today she was also wearing a headband with green glittery foam antennae attached by springs to the top of it. Now she bobbled her head enthusiastically at him and put on a strangely robotic voice. "Welcome tooooo the fuuuutuuuurre, Benjamin. Won't you come out and play today?"
"What's with the bug things?" Benjamin asked dryly.
"I am a robot from the future!" Robin shouted exultantly, "And I'm here to show you the dismal future which is rapidly encroaching upon you!"
"Yeah, maybe if I'd already seen the Robot of Christmas Past and the Robot of Christmas Present, I might believe you."
"Come down here!" Robin demanded. "I don't like shouting up at you."
"Okay." And down he went, dressed in the same pair of saggy jeans and the Atreyu t-shirt he'd fallen asleep in.
"So... what are you supposed to be doing today?" Robin asked coyly, knowingly, as he walked out onto the lawn and greeted her with a characteristic shrug.
"Taking a load of basement shit to a thrift store."
"Lezz do it!" and she waved her arm about as if wielding an invisible sword aloft.
"Whatever," he said flatly, but he went inside and picked up the box, which was sitting by the basement door, and carried it out onto the lawn. "It's heavy," he articulated.
"Damn, but you seem extra nihilistic today, Benjamin."
"That's because it's one day closer to the pointless end of my pointless life."
"You know, life is what you make of it, Benny," Robin reminded him softly. "And everything leads to something else. Maybe if you started to care just a little, about one thing, you could care a lot eventually."
"That's a load, Robin, and you know it. Don't call me Benny."
Benjamin had walked as far as the street curb by this point, but now he put the box down and sat on top of it heavily, defiantly. And then, "OW! WHAT THE FU-!" but his words were cut off as he lurched up, grimacing harder and bit his lip to stop the sting of tears in his eyes.
"What?!" exclaimed Robin in concern, and she raced over, lifted the flap of the box and pulled out a now-broken glass baking pan. "Oh, ouch, Benny, I'm sorry. This looks killer-sharp!"
He scowled at her. "DON'T call me Benny. What the hell is that doing in there? What is my mom thinking? IS my mom thinking?"
A peculiar expression was coming over Robin's face, a look of such confusion that even Benjamin felt a stirring of curiosity. "What?" he eyed her suspiciously.
"Ow!!!" Robin screamed, dropping the baking pan with sudden force.
"Did it cut you too?"
"No, it's... HOT! Hot like it just came out of the oven!"
"Bull," Benjamin snickered, and he bent to pick it up, but then screamed in pain once more as he discovered that she was correct.
Mist began to swirl around the now-shattered glass dish, and as it rose from the concrete it started to take a shape -- a shape like... a floating, angry, arms-crossed, cross-eyed, seriously disturbed, rather muscular man apparently aged to about forty years. "Who DARES to disturb the genie of the Pyrex dish?!" he bellowed, and then coughed deeply from within his chest as his own vapors rose to his nose and tickled the insides of his throat. Wheezing, he reeled back a bit and waved away the mist. Then he glanced down at the ground. "You BROKE my house?! Now I'm SEVERELY pissed! Good luck to YOU getting any decent wishes out of ME!" And he hovered just above ground-level, his little eyes slinty and bitter as he stared at Benjamin.
Robin's jaw had dropped and she now uttered dumbly, "Uh. Sorry?"
Benjamin, on the other hand, was, as usual, not impressed. "Yeah, well you broke my ass, you asshole. So whatever."
The Pyrex genie blinked, astonished. "Why you little twerp! I'll smash your stupid teenage face. I've never heard such impertinence!" His face was turning purple now to match his slanty eyes, but then he suddenly began to chuckle instead.
Benjamin gazed evenly at him until the genie's laughter had subsided. Robin, meanwhile, was still simply staring, motionless and completely disbelieving.
"Well, this should be the most fun I've had in a decade," roared the genie. "I can't imagine a little runt like you making any wish that could possibly turn out well. After all," he sniffed, raising his voice nearly an octave, "wishing properly is an art form and requires not only craftiness and foresight, but a deep-seated sense of order and beauty."
"Let her do it, I don't want anything," Benjamin grumbled, shoving a thumb in Robin's direction. She glanced sidewise at him but still remained virtually motionless. A passing breeze waved one of her glittery antennae and it caused the other one to shudder as well; the vibration and her wider-than-wide eyes gave her the appearance of a hovering insect.
"No can do," the Pyrex genie giggled excitedly, (and now he appeared quite school-girlish in his rapture, which made a mockery of his bulging man-muscles) "YOU'VE got to make the wishes because YOU'RE the one that broke my house!... Hah! HAH! Brilliant! I've actually found the one person on this cursed planet earth who DOESN'T want his wishes! This is rich, profound indeed; why this could scramble the entire universe. DEEE-lightful!"
"Now, wait a minute," squeaked Robin, finding her voice at last, "What happens if he doesn't make his wishes?"
"Oh-ho, the little buggy has a spirit after all!" grinned the genie, quite rudely indeed. "The two of you will basically not exist until he begins wishing. No one will be able to see you, hear you, interact with you. In fact, time will more or less stand still if he goes for more than three days without making his next wish. According to my calculations, that means you have nine days, tops, in which to make your three wishes! Excellent! HAHA!" The genie's mirth carried on and on as he now doubled over with laughter, clutching his sides.
"FINE. What sorts of things can we wish for?" Benjamin asked, glaring. "Aren't there rules governing these sorts of things?"
"NOoooo rules with this genie, and I hope you wish for infinite wishes, or for the world to explode, or for the second coming of Jesus Christ to happen right now. That'd be funny and a half, oh yes."
"Why?" intoned Benjamin skeptically.
"Because, HAHA, all wishes are OPEN for interpretation! MY interpretation! And what a delicious time I'll have when a nihilistic teen wishes for himself to become god of the universe. Oh, tee hee, glorious, glorious, glorious." The Pyrex genie began to do a rather ill-mannered and obnoxious jig, arms folded over his chest.
"Right..." said Robin. She clutched Benjamin's arm and dragged him about ten paces down the sidewalk. Dropping her voice to the merest of hushes, "Proceed with extreme caution, here, Benjamin! Think about this. You've got to open your heart, now if ever, and wish wisely. Please, please, please don't make some stupid selfish wish. Wish for something good, something like world peace. OR.... a nice Christmas for your mom. Or anything! Anything at all that isn't self-serving."
"Actually, I have a plan. I'm just going to entertain myself a little here," and Benjamin smiled widely, for what might have been the first time in ten years.
"I don't like that smile, Benjamin. Please, this is not something to fuck around with.... please?!"
"Oh, but it is!" sneered the Pyrex Genie. "And by the way, I can hear everything you're saying over there!" Now he was dancing with the large oak tree by the edge of the quiet suburban street, prancing around it in circles and caressing it fondly. "I shall dwell here, in this tree, until you call on me... since you WRECKED my home. HAHA. This means I'll be FREE after you make your stupid wishes. A little fun and then I'm FREE. Yep. Well, see ya." And with that, he sucked himself immediately and effortlessly into the tree and disappeared with a teeny swirl of mist.
Robin squatted down to the ground, clutching her head, her small form quite despairing. She trembled a little. "Oh good grief, heaven help us with the two of you ganging up on the world. Oh, Benny, what are you going to do?"
"Precisely this, Robin: I'm going to wish for nothing."
"But you heard that jerky genie! He said we won't exist if you don't make the wishes, and maybe that doesn't bother YOU, but I like life! I want to go on living, seeing my friends, I want to grow up and go to college and get married and have a family, and own cats and live till I'm ninety-nine and a half and --"
"Robin, SHUT UP! Chill out. I mean I'm going to wish for 'nothing.' I'll just wish for the stupidest, most meaningless things I could possibly dream up. That way nothing will come of it. It'll be brilliant. That stupid glassware genie won't know what hit him. He'll have nothing to work with, and I won't have to deal with these stupid wishes that probably don't even exist anyway. When I say stupid, meaningless things, I don't think you can even imagine just HOW stupid and meaningless I mean. You just watch! I'll start tomorrow. Thinking of something THIS stupid and meaningless requires effort." And again, Benjamin smiled, this time with some real enthusiasm. The thought of thwarting the order of the universe by doing something so small, and ultimately proving the worthlessness of existence itself, was a delightful prospect.
"Nothing mean, ok Benjamin?"
"Not mean. Utterly and completely worthless. The kind of thing that would never make any difference to anyone. Something so small you can't possibly see it."
Robin only frowned with grave concern.
"Good Lord, Benjamin, will you look at this filth!" exclaimed Mrs. Dendrich as she gazed with chagrin across the entrenched landscape of her son's room. "Is it possible there's a lazier human being on this planet?" Benjamin Derek James Dendrich, a gangly young man who bore a name much too long for his shirking spirit, barely raised an eyebrow in response to his mother's complaint. He idly flicked a strand of his long straight hair out of his eyes and then pulled the brim of his Anarchy cap down to replace it.
"Benjamin, I give up. If you don't take the boxes of junk from the basement to the Thrift Store by three o'clock this afternoon, I'm going to take away the car. And that's final." As Mrs. Dendrich huffed away from the room, the echo of her colossal footsteps could be heard all the way down to the kitchen.
"Fat bitch," Benjamin muttered after her, but his words were barely audible and it was a fortunate thing indeed that she did not hear him this time. He rolled idly off the bed and felt his feet hit his somewhat squishy floor. It had been over a year since he'd cleaned his room. If Benjamin could be said to prefer anything at all, it was undoubtedly chaos -- although "preference" is a rather strong word for a person who simply doesn't care about anything. It was a marvel he'd managed to survive this far into his impending adulthood. With high school behind him by one month, Benjamin's soul ambition now was to avoid all work for the rest of his life, including but not limited to the massive summer projects his mother had lined up for him.
Benjamin didn't feel he cared much whether his mother took the car away from him or not. He had nowhere to be, no friends to see besides Robin, and she always showed up at his house anyway. He never went looking for her, but rather was content to slump along behind her vivacious energy as they traipsed around the mall or sat in boredom on the swings on the playground down the street. It had never entered Benjamin's thick skull to consider that Robin might have been hanging around him because she loved him. He was hardly equipped to love anyone himself, and therefore never supposed anyone would love him either.
Speaking of Robin, he now heard the familiar clacking of pebbles being flung at his bedroom window. He glanced over at it and sighed. Robin's presence would mean he would have to go out and experience some sort of day; whether it would turn out to be the sort of day a person would regard as pleasant mattered little to him. The point was, he'd have to do something, and that made him disdainful. An extra loud CRACK pummeled against the glass and he shuffled over in frustration, opening the window with a creak. "Yo!" he hollered into the street. Two stories below he could see Robin's upturned face, a smile spread almost as wide as her wide-set, ever-curious eyes. Most days she wore a bright skirt in some primary color accompanied by a dark, almost gothic blouse that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. This day was no exception, but today she was also wearing a headband with green glittery foam antennae attached by springs to the top of it. Now she bobbled her head enthusiastically at him and put on a strangely robotic voice. "Welcome tooooo the fuuuutuuuurre, Benjamin. Won't you come out and play today?"
"What's with the bug things?" Benjamin asked dryly.
"I am a robot from the future!" Robin shouted exultantly, "And I'm here to show you the dismal future which is rapidly encroaching upon you!"
"Yeah, maybe if I'd already seen the Robot of Christmas Past and the Robot of Christmas Present, I might believe you."
"Come down here!" Robin demanded. "I don't like shouting up at you."
"Okay." And down he went, dressed in the same pair of saggy jeans and the Atreyu t-shirt he'd fallen asleep in.
"So... what are you supposed to be doing today?" Robin asked coyly, knowingly, as he walked out onto the lawn and greeted her with a characteristic shrug.
"Taking a load of basement shit to a thrift store."
"Lezz do it!" and she waved her arm about as if wielding an invisible sword aloft.
"Whatever," he said flatly, but he went inside and picked up the box, which was sitting by the basement door, and carried it out onto the lawn. "It's heavy," he articulated.
"Damn, but you seem extra nihilistic today, Benjamin."
"That's because it's one day closer to the pointless end of my pointless life."
"You know, life is what you make of it, Benny," Robin reminded him softly. "And everything leads to something else. Maybe if you started to care just a little, about one thing, you could care a lot eventually."
"That's a load, Robin, and you know it. Don't call me Benny."
Benjamin had walked as far as the street curb by this point, but now he put the box down and sat on top of it heavily, defiantly. And then, "OW! WHAT THE FU-!" but his words were cut off as he lurched up, grimacing harder and bit his lip to stop the sting of tears in his eyes.
"What?!" exclaimed Robin in concern, and she raced over, lifted the flap of the box and pulled out a now-broken glass baking pan. "Oh, ouch, Benny, I'm sorry. This looks killer-sharp!"
He scowled at her. "DON'T call me Benny. What the hell is that doing in there? What is my mom thinking? IS my mom thinking?"
A peculiar expression was coming over Robin's face, a look of such confusion that even Benjamin felt a stirring of curiosity. "What?" he eyed her suspiciously.
"Ow!!!" Robin screamed, dropping the baking pan with sudden force.
"Did it cut you too?"
"No, it's... HOT! Hot like it just came out of the oven!"
"Bull," Benjamin snickered, and he bent to pick it up, but then screamed in pain once more as he discovered that she was correct.
Mist began to swirl around the now-shattered glass dish, and as it rose from the concrete it started to take a shape -- a shape like... a floating, angry, arms-crossed, cross-eyed, seriously disturbed, rather muscular man apparently aged to about forty years. "Who DARES to disturb the genie of the Pyrex dish?!" he bellowed, and then coughed deeply from within his chest as his own vapors rose to his nose and tickled the insides of his throat. Wheezing, he reeled back a bit and waved away the mist. Then he glanced down at the ground. "You BROKE my house?! Now I'm SEVERELY pissed! Good luck to YOU getting any decent wishes out of ME!" And he hovered just above ground-level, his little eyes slinty and bitter as he stared at Benjamin.
Robin's jaw had dropped and she now uttered dumbly, "Uh. Sorry?"
Benjamin, on the other hand, was, as usual, not impressed. "Yeah, well you broke my ass, you asshole. So whatever."
The Pyrex genie blinked, astonished. "Why you little twerp! I'll smash your stupid teenage face. I've never heard such impertinence!" His face was turning purple now to match his slanty eyes, but then he suddenly began to chuckle instead.
Benjamin gazed evenly at him until the genie's laughter had subsided. Robin, meanwhile, was still simply staring, motionless and completely disbelieving.
"Well, this should be the most fun I've had in a decade," roared the genie. "I can't imagine a little runt like you making any wish that could possibly turn out well. After all," he sniffed, raising his voice nearly an octave, "wishing properly is an art form and requires not only craftiness and foresight, but a deep-seated sense of order and beauty."
"Let her do it, I don't want anything," Benjamin grumbled, shoving a thumb in Robin's direction. She glanced sidewise at him but still remained virtually motionless. A passing breeze waved one of her glittery antennae and it caused the other one to shudder as well; the vibration and her wider-than-wide eyes gave her the appearance of a hovering insect.
"No can do," the Pyrex genie giggled excitedly, (and now he appeared quite school-girlish in his rapture, which made a mockery of his bulging man-muscles) "YOU'VE got to make the wishes because YOU'RE the one that broke my house!... Hah! HAH! Brilliant! I've actually found the one person on this cursed planet earth who DOESN'T want his wishes! This is rich, profound indeed; why this could scramble the entire universe. DEEE-lightful!"
"Now, wait a minute," squeaked Robin, finding her voice at last, "What happens if he doesn't make his wishes?"
"Oh-ho, the little buggy has a spirit after all!" grinned the genie, quite rudely indeed. "The two of you will basically not exist until he begins wishing. No one will be able to see you, hear you, interact with you. In fact, time will more or less stand still if he goes for more than three days without making his next wish. According to my calculations, that means you have nine days, tops, in which to make your three wishes! Excellent! HAHA!" The genie's mirth carried on and on as he now doubled over with laughter, clutching his sides.
"FINE. What sorts of things can we wish for?" Benjamin asked, glaring. "Aren't there rules governing these sorts of things?"
"NOoooo rules with this genie, and I hope you wish for infinite wishes, or for the world to explode, or for the second coming of Jesus Christ to happen right now. That'd be funny and a half, oh yes."
"Why?" intoned Benjamin skeptically.
"Because, HAHA, all wishes are OPEN for interpretation! MY interpretation! And what a delicious time I'll have when a nihilistic teen wishes for himself to become god of the universe. Oh, tee hee, glorious, glorious, glorious." The Pyrex genie began to do a rather ill-mannered and obnoxious jig, arms folded over his chest.
"Right..." said Robin. She clutched Benjamin's arm and dragged him about ten paces down the sidewalk. Dropping her voice to the merest of hushes, "Proceed with extreme caution, here, Benjamin! Think about this. You've got to open your heart, now if ever, and wish wisely. Please, please, please don't make some stupid selfish wish. Wish for something good, something like world peace. OR.... a nice Christmas for your mom. Or anything! Anything at all that isn't self-serving."
"Actually, I have a plan. I'm just going to entertain myself a little here," and Benjamin smiled widely, for what might have been the first time in ten years.
"I don't like that smile, Benjamin. Please, this is not something to fuck around with.... please?!"
"Oh, but it is!" sneered the Pyrex Genie. "And by the way, I can hear everything you're saying over there!" Now he was dancing with the large oak tree by the edge of the quiet suburban street, prancing around it in circles and caressing it fondly. "I shall dwell here, in this tree, until you call on me... since you WRECKED my home. HAHA. This means I'll be FREE after you make your stupid wishes. A little fun and then I'm FREE. Yep. Well, see ya." And with that, he sucked himself immediately and effortlessly into the tree and disappeared with a teeny swirl of mist.
Robin squatted down to the ground, clutching her head, her small form quite despairing. She trembled a little. "Oh good grief, heaven help us with the two of you ganging up on the world. Oh, Benny, what are you going to do?"
"Precisely this, Robin: I'm going to wish for nothing."
"But you heard that jerky genie! He said we won't exist if you don't make the wishes, and maybe that doesn't bother YOU, but I like life! I want to go on living, seeing my friends, I want to grow up and go to college and get married and have a family, and own cats and live till I'm ninety-nine and a half and --"
"Robin, SHUT UP! Chill out. I mean I'm going to wish for 'nothing.' I'll just wish for the stupidest, most meaningless things I could possibly dream up. That way nothing will come of it. It'll be brilliant. That stupid glassware genie won't know what hit him. He'll have nothing to work with, and I won't have to deal with these stupid wishes that probably don't even exist anyway. When I say stupid, meaningless things, I don't think you can even imagine just HOW stupid and meaningless I mean. You just watch! I'll start tomorrow. Thinking of something THIS stupid and meaningless requires effort." And again, Benjamin smiled, this time with some real enthusiasm. The thought of thwarting the order of the universe by doing something so small, and ultimately proving the worthlessness of existence itself, was a delightful prospect.
"Nothing mean, ok Benjamin?"
"Not mean. Utterly and completely worthless. The kind of thing that would never make any difference to anyone. Something so small you can't possibly see it."
Robin only frowned with grave concern.