2nd promo of The Island

I took my wife on a trip back to Europe. We went up to the snow in the Pyrenees; up there I shot the second promo of The Island:

The Island official release

It's finally out -- my second novel, titled The Island.

Check the separate page right here on my blog.
Check my amazon.
And watch my promo...

The Island

Just a few more days.... I was aiming to get it published today, but I need a few more days for the final edit...

I can already tell that this is a thriller about a serial killer named The Blood Reaper. He tormented a small island, and the story follows a group of friends that grew up on the same island, and return 25 years later for reunion...
 

Pattern, equal parts & millennial solutions

Stepen King's IT, House of Leaves & The Entity

Here's another promotional in which I hold up my work to Stephen King's IT and House of Leaves by Danielewski....

The Entity - promo 2

In this 2nd promotional video I discuss The Entity in terms of genre, theme and how it relates to contemporary fiction.

The Entity - a novel -

I took a recess since June. I have been busy though... in this video I will talk about the release of my debut novel: The Entity...

Available, including excerpt, on Amazon (both ebook and paperback)

Manhattan & Wild Strawberries in terms of narrative identity

Next week: fiction --- a short story in four parts, title: The Caves....

non-fiction: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Todorov -- or why philosophy isn't enough

Non-fiction: Mega Brain, or our mind as one of the last frontiers

 

Non-fiction: post 90s groove - Lebowski, Shrink and Lions for lambs

video here

Non-fiction: world outlook in the 90s: The X-Files, Blade Runner and The Matrix

World-outlook in the 90s: the grim view of X-Files, The Matrix and Blade Runner

This week I uploaded another video. The transcript is the one that I originally recorded, but during editing I deleted a good deal of it. According to Stephen King that's what draft 2 is all about: draft 2 is 'draft 1 - 10%'. 

Non-fiction: Essential 90s (Stephen King's IT, C&C and Nirvana)

This video has been on youtube for a month -- I scripted five more videos that I will release from next week onwards. In this video I discuss the most essential cultural phenomena that define what it was like to grow up in the 90s. It gives insight in me as a writer and how I see the world.

 

MR. ED CHRONICLES - talk three with Michelle

Mr. Ed had watched the ice melt and he saw the debris that had come undone when it came floating up. It was all in the past and for that reason it was more like watching a late news report come in, rather than a drama that unfolds before a person’s eyes. There was a certain fascination though, because it was almost as if there was something there at the bottom of the sea that had a part in all of it. 

Mr. Ed had come of the opinion that Martossa wasn’t just a peculiar town, but that it was one of those towns that dragged a certain history with it. It was the kind of history that’s more subtle than the words of recorded facts and the stories that people told each other to try to make sense of what was happening all around them. But at the same time, it was more like those ancient stories, it was more of an oral history —the story changed over time and a lot of it had been washed away.

The town had gotten a hold on Mr. Ed and with each passing day this idea of the day that he would return to his old life became less pressing. It was almost as if some part of Mr. Ed’s mind had made up this history of Mr. Ed’s Frozen Pizza and it was slowly catching up on itself. It was almost as if it had come floating up when the ice melted and at some point it would either decay or go back down again.

It were the two women though that Mr. Ed found most interesting, much in the same way that it’s usually women that can both drive men to the brink of madness and to definite greatness. On some level both Phyllis and Michelle could have been Mr. Ed’s daughters: Phyllis was the kind of daddy’s girl with boyish interests, while Michelle harbored the kind of spunk of the kind of person that harbors something dark deep inside, which may violently lash out at some point —this made her very interesting, and also very relatable for Mr. Ed. 

1

The VR had become comfortable like an old leather jacket. At some point Mr. Ed asked himself whether it hadn’t augmented his sense of reality. He had started questioning things that had happened —bigger things than he might have otherwise.

Mr. Ed had never been much for conspiracies, but there was a part of him that was willing to believe that experiences in VR were more than an escape or an enrichment of reality. VR could very well be used for mental programming, since the total immersion would – in theory – make it easier to add subliminal messages, because there’s literally no escape, no chance to look away and for that very simple reason it might be very effective for indoctrination of any kind. 

There were these stories dating from the 90s, that this was done through tv, and that certain mind altering chemicals were added to food and drinking water. These conspiracies usually ended with the government wanting full control, turning people numb in that they no longer had any will, turning them into empty vessels that could be subjected to any will and whose minds could be filled with just about anything. 

Mr. Ed had always doubted that these stories were true to that extent, but in a way there was a similarity: both altered our sense of perception and our sense of reality. But it’s only VR that’s so immersive that it makes us want to forget about our condition and our predicament. 

2

Michelle’ssense of reality was definitely augmented by VR: she is in fullimmersion since she learned about a dark horror web in VR. It has scary AI-creatures running wild and it has the kind of interactive movies that were classified as too violent for regular media. There’s one in particular that’s called The Butcherof which it’s rumored that whole flocks of people have gone crazy after watching that channel. Murders, suicides, lapses into schizophrenia; all those short circuits were caused by it.

The Butcher is violent and vivid to such an extent that it becomes painful to watch and you start asking yourself what sick mind had come up with the fiction —and possibly worse, what kind of mind had turned it into a visual horror-fest. For the avid viewer it was hard to imagine that most of it was scripted and staged in such a way that itwould result in the maximum shock, which obviously meant crossing boundaries that were spiraling inwards until things became too shocking and causing an overload. 

For some this threshold was low, even though these were also the kind of videos that were blocked in the conventional media. The first video that Michelle watched was one of those, but instead of turning her away it kept her coming back for more. This video was under two minutes and it started with a group of guys fooling around with martial arts. There was a bit of kick-boxing, Thai-boxing, k3. It started with the guys kicking each other, but then they moved on to objects, until in the final scene they moved on to a wall. 

This wall was made of 6 horizontal concrete slabs that were held in place by two vertical concrete rails. In this scene, one of the boys kicked the second slab in half. He succeeded, but what he probably didn’t expect was that the four remaining slabs came down and amputated the guys foot. You could hear the guy scream. The camera went to the guy and zoomed in on the stump, and then it ran to the other side of the wall to zoom in with all the connecting parts sticking out: bones, tendons, blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, skin, fat, skin. The whole lot. 

When Michelle had first seen that video she had dreamed about it. She wasn’t a hundred percent whether it was real, but the scene started to haunt her: guy kicking, slab coming down, stump, foot. It was just that she didn’t feel what any ordinary person would feel: she didn’t feel pain in her own limbs and pain in her belly. What she felt was a definite fascination that had more to do with precisely executing a task than by acting or responding in any emotional way. 

Michelle came back for more and thatwas how she ended up on the channel of The Butcher. In the first video a guy was tied in ropes on a table and The Butcher appeared and he saidI have been ordered to remove the hand of a thief. The guy was clamped in what looked like a medieval instrument which made it impossible for him to move. 

The camera zoomed in on the hand that was clamped in. The Butcher started with a swift incision around the wrist. Blood started sprouting, but what was more unsettling was the way in which the guy started screaming. It wasn’t just a scream of pain, but was agony mixed with a loss of hope and a loss of faith. The Butcher put the knife to the side and continued with a bone saw that did the rest of the job. After this The Butcher started pointing out the same parts that Michelle had observed in that first video: bones, tendons, blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, skin, fat, skin. The whole lot. 

The Butcher took a hot iron plate and grilled the stump to stop the bleeding. It was the first and the mildest recording and after that it all started spiraling out of control and into insanity. The Butcher continued with more limbs, arms, legs, separating the meat. 

Michelle watched with increasing fascination: there was something about the act of butchering. It was the kind of fascination that some young kids have when they are finished playing with their toys and they then decide to dissect them to see how they work on the inside. It was just that she wasn’t sure where her fascination would end. 

3

This time the setting is a modern lobby in a dark hotel: black, grey and silver. The light has the feel of a cold winter moon. Mr. Ed picked the location, because he thought it would be appropriate —if he wanted a real shot at figuring out what goes on below the surface, it might help to emulate a place where bad things happen just around the corner, and where few questions are asked. 

Michelle walks up to the bar and orders two drinks. She casually hangs around and for a split second she’s unsure why she wanted to meet again.(the thrill).

“Why did you pick this location?” Michelle asks.

“It might be conducive,” Mr. Ed says, “A more public space.”

“Where is this place?” she asks, “I mean, if it was any place real?”

“This here is the dead of winter,” Mr. Ed says, cryptically, “A farawaytown in Alaska, Iceland, Green Land —you name it.”

“Such a town….” she says, “A good place to hide.”

“I know….” Mr. Ed says, and he can’t suppress a grin, “Who in his right mind will hunt a criminal to this far end of the earth?”

Michelle thinks: he’s still fishing for the extent of my badness.

“You’d be surprised,” she says.

“Where will it all end?” Mr. Ed says when Michelle has settled down, “How will it end for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When should you fold?”

Michelle thinks: he thought about me.

“Only when it’s the best play,” she says, leaning forward and softeningher voice, “Roll dem bones.”

Mr. Ed thinks: she’s calculating and plotting right now.

“Never come clean,” Mr. Ed says, “That’s what my old man used to say.”

“Your prime directive,” Michelle says, trying to cornerMr. Ed, “Are you talking about you or me now?”

“Let me tell you a little story,” Mr. Ed says, “Let’s say there’s this guy and he has this really bad day —it simply couldn’t be any worse. He gets fired, he finds out that his wife is cheating, one of his best friends has suddenly died. If it was just one of these things, then it would mess us up pretty good, but this guy experiences all at once.”

“It’s shit to the max.”

“Right,” Mr. Ed says, “Now generally speaking different people respond differently to stress: some crumble up, while others fight to get from under it…. Now this guy, he was the latter: he literally lost everything and in his mind things couldn’t get any worse, ever.”

“So this guy flipped.”

“To say the least,” Mr. Ed says, “He went to a few crummy bars in a bad neighborhood, looking for a fight. In the first two bars they just laughed at him and told him to go home and sleep it off. In the second and third bar it was the same story: he was thrown out. The fourth bar was what he was after: He got into a fight with a guy who was playing pool. He was about to beat the guy and then another guysteppedin, then one of his friends, then another. In all his fury this guy who had lost everything won this fight. His fury burned so bright that he simply couldn’t be stopped.”

Mr. Ed takes a sip from his drink.

“In stories like these it might end up with the person getting over all his fears and achieving what they had only dreamed of until that point in time. It happened, but just a little different. This guy got stuck in this violence mode and slowly but surely this violence became the only way that he could function,” Mr. Ed says, “Scratch deep enough and you’ll find the true measure of a man.”

“So what did he do exactly?”

“He became a war tourist,” Mr. Ed says, “He would get the closest flight to war-zones that he could get, hang around, get guns and gear and set off. And this is where it became a beginning and the end: this guy didn’t go there to secure peace, or even for the thrills. This guy purely went there for the thrill.”

“To summarize: he found a way to tweak the system —he found a way to murder and butcher and not be caught or held responsible,” Michelle says, “So what are you saying? This guy was a dormant murderer all along?”

“Maybe,” Mr. Ed says, “And it links up with my premise: we’re violent by nature. Scratch deep enough and that’s all that we resort to.”

“That’s a grimview.”

“It’s the truth.”

“There’s one distinction though,” Michelle says, “A guy like that is a lone wolf. In a society violence serves the purpose of securing position and hierarchy.”

Mr. Ed leans back and there’s one thought on his mind: but that’s not what you think….

“You’re assuming that it’s always a means to an end….” Mr. Ed says. 

“When you get off on something….” Michelle says, leaning forward, “There’s an end….”

“What did you come here for exactly?” Mr. Ed asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Michelle says, “Maybe I came here to figure out what’s below the surface.” (the thrill of almostgetting caught!).

“….”

“It’s like a war by proxy: does funding a distant war make you guilty?”

“You’re in a position to prevent.”

“My point.”

“If I get my kicks out of watching other people do bad stuff, does that make me part of it.”

“Were you physically there?”

“….”

Mr. Ed thinks: did she see me? 

“What did you see?”

“It doesn’t matter….” Michelle says, “It’s a highly complex something and there’s no simple answer: there is a yesand a no, but it’s like telling a junkie that he shouldn’t drink.”

“….”

“It’s like anything else,” Michelle says, “There’s this outward appearance of sociability, society, human relations, art, and all that, but at the end of the day it’s all perception. It’s all individual. We can only grasp at straws when it comes to understanding what goes on in the mind of another person.”

“You want to know motive….” Mr. Ed states.

“It’s like this old story: there’s a man and a woman, they fall in love and live happily ever after,” Michelle says, “But that’s not how it works. There’s this vast undercurrent of human needs and emotions that’s like a hunger that doesn’t end.”

Mr. Ed thinks: she didn’t see me —she’s rambling about herself. This is all her, amigo! Brilliant and crazy and [BLEEP!]

MR. ED CHRONICLES - talk three with Phyllis

Even though Mr. Ed told himself to never come clean, it seemed that he was doing just that. After discussing how his predicament with those two bad elements was magically solved, the conversation had turned to women and wives. 

*

Mr. Ed and Lela stayed together because of appearance and convenience, but ultimately out of a fear of ending up alone.

“I’d rather keep paying her as my wife, than the prospect of ending up all alone,” Mr. Ed said, “I talked it through with an old buddy of mine once who tried to convince me to break it off. That night when I closed my eyes I had this dream in which I saw myself in a cheap hotel, obese, with shot veins, surrounded by empty trays of frozen dinners and empty bottles of beer and other booze. In that puddle I sat all liquored up with cheap whiskey (the one that’s better used to clean windows) and on my lap I had a loaded shotgun. Even my dog had left me.” 

“Good Bye Charlie,” Marty said, “You obviously never reached that point where things turn beyond sour. My ex was such a pain that even that would have seemed the better prospect.” 

“I bet you weren’t married for twenty-plus years,” Mr. Ed says, “Come to think of it…. neither was that guy who advised me to end it. The thing is this: it just isn’t black and white; it’s all so vastly grey that you can’t see shit.”

1

Shane had been asking Phyllis for weeks to hit the nightlife on the weekend. She kept throwing her off with stories of being too busy, while in fact she simply wasn’t in the mood. Finally she caved in. 

On Saturday at nine they met downtown for a late night dinner. It was busy all over town, mostly locals and some tourists here and there. They shared a bottle of wine and talked the talk. They went over their usual bucket list. Relationships; theirs, others, and when either of these will break under pressure. It’s mostly gossip obviously and most of it comes down to who likes who. 

It leaves Phyllis with this understanding of what was unique about her friendship with Jep, Tony, Frankie and Jim. Looking at the number of years the span of her friendship with Shane is almost the same as her friendship with the boys, but it just doesn’t have the intensity of a friendship that started in childhood.

Shane is a great friend, because they can be of the same mind, but it’s also Shane who is more impulsive —it always makes Phyllis feel that’s how she was herself when she was part of the gang. It makes her feel as if she somehow lost that part of herself. By the time the bottle is empty they both conclude that they’re free gals. 

After dinner they hit a touristy night club.

*

A little after midnight they leave for something better: the music was becoming much of the same thing and the crowd was thinning out.

“The Docks,” Shane says when they are outside.

“Just us two gals?” Phyllis asks, “Why The Docks?”

“I don’t know,” Shane says, “I got this itch.”

“One drink,” Phyllis says, “Then we leave.”

“One,” she says, and she holds up her finger in an I swear,“I promise.”

*

On some subconscious level Shane must have known what she was in for, because it wasn’t exactly a place where women tended to go on their own. The docks were a rough area, with crummy bars, bad characters and criminal activity ranging from being able to buy unregistered guns to coke and everything in between. 

It literally got more grim when they exited the last metro station. There weren’t many people around, except for the occasional dealer or pimp that hung around just outside the beam of street lights.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” Phyllis says.

“One drink.”

Phyllis rolls her eyes.

Shane walks them to the same bar that they visited after New Year’s. They take a seat in one of the booths and they order two sparkly’s.

“I had a hunch,” Shane says, “And I think I’m not mistaken: take a look over at the bar.”

“A cowboy….” Phyllis says, and it comes to her: “Thecowboy….”

“Aha.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” Shane says, “It was after midnight when we came from that club.”

“And you didn’t tell me, because you were sure that I wouldn’t have come.”

“I didn’t tell you, because I wasn’t sure.”

“Aha,” Phyllis says, “So now what?”

Shane is plotting their next move.

“We can’t confront him,” Shane says, “He’ll just deny everything.”

“If he remembers us at all….”

Shane is still thinking it over.

“Believe me: if he’s dirty he remembers every detail of that night.”

“So you want to talk to him….”

“I do.”

“And you’re sure we won’t get in trouble….”

“This is a public place,” Shane says, “Kind of, at least.”

“Just go get a drink and make yourchit-chat….”

Shane does, but she doesn’t know what to make of it. From the cowboy’s behavior she can’t figure out whether he remembers her from that night or that she reminds him of someone else, or that he remembers her at all. 

“You must be the only cowboy on Rokset Island,” Shane says, in an attempt to start a conversation.

“There are more,” the guy says, and in an unsettlingvoice, “But we only come out at night….”

“Okay then,” Shane says, and since the cowboy’s demeanor isn’t exactly welcoming, she decides that it’s better to back off.

Shane walks back to their booth and she gives Phyllis the update.

“Sohebasically just freaked you out….”

“Maybe, but I saw some of his cards….” Shane says, “If he didn’t do something bad on New Year’s, he definitely did it at a later time.”

“Huh,” Phyllis says, “So what are you saying?”

“We need to follow this guy….” Shane says, “And find out where he lives….”

This time Phyllis doesn’t roll her eyes, but she isn’t too eager to go on a roll like this. She always liked the impulsive strike of Shane, because it got her into a lot of fun – but this time it might turn into something else.

“You’re joking, right?” Phyllis says.

“Even if he does remember me —he must have figured that we were just two lowly tourists,” Shane says, “If he’s guilty, I don’t believe that he even bothered to change his routine….”

2

At three a.m. sharp the cowboy gets up and gets out. Shane gets up right after, and thirty seconds after that Phyllis follows.

“So how exactly is this gonna end good?” Phyllis whispers, when she joys Shane on the street, “Do you even know where this guy went?”

“Look,” she says and she points in the distance, towards the end of the street. They see the guy with the cowboy hat disappear from under a street light. His shadow is the last to go. 

“At least we know that he’s no vampire….”

“We gotta move,” Shane says, briskly.

*

The girls have no new leads by the time they reached the spot where they saw the cowboy disappear into the dead of the night. Before they have a chance to lament on what has happened, a hand closes over both of their mouths and they are pulled into the dark.

“Why are you following me?” the cowboy whispers coolly.

“What do you mean?” Shane whispers in a scared voice.

“The coy small-talk, but underneath I could smell the fear of both of you.”

“You’re confusing us with someone else,” Phyllis says.

“I’m not confused….” the cowboy says. He tries to jug his memories, but nothing comes up. 

Phyllis and Shane think: this is it.

“I’d better not see you two again,” the cowboy whispers. In a split second he lets go of them and he’s gone. 

“What just happened?” Phyllis whispers.

Sssshh.

“I didn’t even hear in which direction he went,” Shane says, “It’s like he just slithered away into the night.”

“A cowboy that slithers,” Phyllis says, “Doesn’t exactly fit the profile….”

MR. ED CHRONICLES: talk three with Marty

Mr. Ed needs to blow off steam and he heads straight for the establishment where he hung out on a few other occasions. Decent food and drinks that are endless and cheap abound, but best of all there are no nosy people around that are in this habit of asking too many questions. 

Mr. Ed had this nagging feeling that his stay in Martossa had made him docile. It didn’t make sense though, because he had unleashed his fury on that poor unsuspecting fellow that was finished by Victor Vaughn, who in turn was killed in a double murder by that other bad character named Malcolm Thompson. 

The nagging feeling that he had was more about Mr. Ed’s Frozen Pizza: he wanted to be back on the floor with all the hustle and bustle. He had lived in the big city his whole life, and even though a small town by the sea was nice and all, it didn’t really feel like it was his town and it simply wouldn’t be enough in the long run. 

1

It was almost as if those few nights that Mr. Ed had spend liquoring up had made him a regular. There were a few guys that nodded when he came in, the bartender asked him if he wanted a beer and the stool next to Marty was still empty.

Mr. Ed taps Marty on the shoulder.

“You again,” Marty says, “I wondered where you had been.”

“I needed to lay low for a while,” Mr. Ed says, deciding how much he was willing to tell, “Sometimes there are circumstances that dictate that kind of action.”

“Too much work, or too little money.”

“A nagging wife….”

“No….” they both say.

Mr. Ed sizes up the bar and he waits for his beer.

“You ever got this feeling as if you have got luck on your side.”

“Aaaah,” Marty says, “One in a thousand.”

Mr. Ed gives the number a thought. The bartender places the cold beer in front of him and Mr. Ed asks him to get another beer for Marty.

“I have had years like that,” Mr. Ed says, “But this last year it seems like I got at least ten in one year.”

“Getting a raise? Attention from a nice girl? Getting away with murder?”

“It really is that kind of lucky,” Mr Ed says cryptically. 

Marty thinks: he finally did it – he finally went apeshit and started slashing away….

“Explain,” Marty says, not sure how much he wanted to know exactly. 

“Maybe it’s more like winning the lottery.”

“….”

“Let’s just say that it has to do with business….”

“As long as you keep some cold ones floating towards me, I don’t care where the dough comes from….”

*

Mr. Ed needed to talk about what had happened, but he fully well realized that it would be more prudent to keep most of it to himself. 

“There’s something on my mind though,” Mr. Ed begins.

“Shoot,” Marty says.

“You know about this question that has been asked a million times by a million different people: can a man do the bad thing for the right reason?”

“It kind of sounds like a contradiction.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Ed says, “But let’s say that something like this happens: you’re working late one night and you’re the last one in the office. Then an intruder comes in. This character holds a gun to your head and he says he wants all the money. Then there’s some sound outside and he let’s his attention slide for a split second. You manage to get his gun and shoothim then and there. He then dies of the injuries. Later on it’s ruled to be self-defense and you get out blame free.”

“I’d say it’s self-defense.”

“A guy is dead.”

“In that moment you don’t know what else he had up his sleeve. Maybe a second gun? A knife?” Marty says, “We simply don’t need those kind of elements running around.”

“In other words: it’s possible to do the bad thing for the right reason.”

“It’s murky,” Marty says.

“Ok,” Mr. Ed says, “Let’s say this happened back than in the Gulf War. You’re on sentry duty and after a few hours your mind starts to shut down. Your eyes are getting tired, you’re feeling fatigue, you’re getting thirsty, hungry —all that. Now let’s say that there was this Iraqi that was watching you for let’s say the last two hours. This guy patiently waits for an opportunity to get close to knife you down.”

“My fellow soldiers can’t see me….” Marty says, “I’d say that the same kind of struggle ensues and it ends with the death of that Iraqi soldier.”

“Same basic situation.”

“Same outcome,” Marty says.

“And I must say I feel as bad for this Iraqi soldier as I do for this mugger,” Mr. Ed says, “Meaning: not at all.”

Mr. Ed takes a sip from his beer and he thinks it over. 

“One more,” Mr. Ed says, “This one is from an old movie. There’s this guy. A rich guy. He has this younger secretary and she comes with him on business trips and it’s not long until they have an affair. From the beginning this guy kept telling himself that he shouldn’t let things get out of hand —but then they do. Now this secretary is getting fidgety and she has come to believe that there’s more going on than there actually is: she believes that this guy will leave his wife over her.”

“This is about you?”

“It ain’t,” Mr. Ed says, and he reads the expression on Marty’s face, “What can I say: it’s complicated.”

“…..”

“So this secretary wants to go public and she gives this guy an ultimatum: tell the wife before the end of the month, or she will,” Mr. Ed says, “So on the ride home this guy’s mind is on his predicament, because this woman has become a serious jeopardy.He can only think of one way out of it.”

“So this is where it becomes the same story as the one with the mugger and the Iraqi,” Marty says, “But still this one is different.”

“Because there’s a young lady that’s good in the sack?” Mr. Ed asks, “It will destroy his life: his wife will divorce him and go with half of the money and he’s convinced that she might even drag down the company with her.”

Mr. Ed gives it a thought.

“Never come clean,” Mr. Ed says, “That’s about the only advise that my old man gave that was any use to me. And that’s the only thing that I can make of this strange story.”

“It’s interesting,” Marty says, “I mean I would never be in a position to have a secretary, so this situation would never come up —for me. But still it’s tempting to imagine that it does.”

“My point exactly.”

“I would like to say that I would do the right thing, because that’s what we’re programmed to do,” Marty says, “But I doubt that I will...”

*

“Back to my initial predicament,” Mr. Ed says, “It isn’t like the mugger, the Iraqi and the broad, but it’ssomething like it. There was a situation that I had to deal with and then it resolved itself right before my eyes.”

“No loose ends?”

“Not one string.”

2

Marty hadn’t given Mr. Ed’s predicament much thought until the next day. After all, how much did he really tell? Then his mind started going over the way he said right before my eyes.

The glimpse that was in Mr. Ed’s eyes revealed that he still saw it before him and that’s when Marty realized that it wasn’t just a figure of speech. All of a sudden it gave him this eery feeling. A few months ago, this guy Mr. Ed comes to town. His gut tells him that this guy is bad news, but then nothing really happens. 

What if he was a witness or he had something to do with those two bad elements that murdered each other at the edge of town. That in itself was the kind of bad thing that became good. What was it that this Mr. Ed guy had to do with those two?