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 two with Bradley

The talk with Michelle had stayed on Mr. Ed’s mind: not the talk itself, but what had happened below the surface. There they were, both of the same cloth and conviction, separated by more than a few years, but basically of the same mind. Mr. Ed went at great lengths securing the position of Mr. Ed’s frozen pizza, this girl might go the same length righting a wrong by carrying out revenge, possibly with similar means and a similar outcome. It takes one to know one– how did she know, or did she guess?

What Mr. Ed didn’t get was why they were at each others throat: there was the possibility of ratting on each other. The problem was that that one seemed too obvious. Mr. Ed figured that it was something else. For one, they weren’t stepping on each others turf, they weren’t in the same line of business and in all likelihood there was no necessity for their paths to ever cross again. Or was it simply a natural response to meeting a person that’s so much alike us that it’s unsettling, to the point of it being almost intimidating. 

Mr. Ed wasn’t sure whether she would return any time soon. It would be a while though, Mr. Ed figured that much.

1

The wicked voice that had entered Bradley’s mind had come to stay. Luckily he had only heard it on a couple of occasions. The first was that therapy session with that strange guy Mr. Ed. The second was when he was with friends late one night around a camp-fire and they were telling each other scary stories. When he was almost finished with his story, the voice had entered his mind and it had told him:don’t taunt destiny, boy.

At first he thought that it was one of his friends that was playing silly, but when they saw the scare on his face and asked him “What’s up, man?”, he realized that they hadn’t heard what he had heard just now. 

There was a girl by the name of Cassie that was into him, and she was there sitting next to him at that time. 

“What happened there?” Cassie asked later on, when they were alone. 

“I can’t exactly tell you,” Bradley said, thinking on his feet, “I felt a flashback of what happened all those years ago, but as soon as it came, the memory of it was gone….”

“For real?”

“O yes,” he said, and he thought: I’m a goner if I talk.

*

The third time was in English class when they discussed the link between historic facts, folklore and fiction. “Why do we even bother with stories?” the teacher had asked and what Bradley’s class came up with didn’t move much beyond this notion that it helps us to understand the world around us, our condition and how to deal with life at large. 

“Anyone else has anything to say?” the teacher had asked, “An original thought maybe….”

“Something only exists as long as stories are being told,” Bradley said, and the voice had entered: you better believe it, fucker.

Cassie had given him an admiring glance and he managed to wink at her.

The teacher said something like “Huh,” and continued with the next point on the list. The class was big, which meant that discussions were usually a bit stunted.

2

Bradley didn’t discuss any of the voice or therapy with his friends. They knew about the therapy, but it was kind of a non-topic, since it was mostly something that was considered for weak-spirited rich kids. The general notion in Martossa was more like: don’t complain, just pull through. 

They noticed that something was off though, but the guys didn’t think that much of it. In a way they had that kind of unspoken understanding that Mr. Ed had shared with Bradley: they all had their troubles. 

The only person that he sometimes talked with in more details was Cassie.

“So what do you usually talk about with that shrink?” Cassie asked flat-out one time after class when they walked down the school premises.

“Stuff, I guess,” he had said, and it had been after that first session with Mr. Ed when the voice had first entered, and he was thinking: if you only knew.

“What exactly happened to you when you were nine?” Cassie had asked, “My mom will only tell me that it was one of the worst things that ever happened to anyone in Martossa.”

“If I could remember I would tell you,” Bradley had said.

“What do you mean?”

“I know every little detail about my whole life,” he had said, “Except for what happened that day and the months after.”

“So that’s what you talk about with your shrink?”

“Kind of,” he had said, “She told me that my brain must have shut it out.”

“To keep you from losing your mind,” Cassie had said, and she realized that she was still grasping at straws, “But apart from that….”

“Everything is dandy,” he had said, and he had this need to open up to her, and he also realized that he needed to do this to keep her close, “The reason I started going is that I started getting nightmares.”

“….”

“Not literally about what happened,” he had said, “It’s more allegorical, and it keeps me back.”

“What kind of nightmares?”

“You don’t want to know….” he had said, “It’s really scary stuff…. Maybe I should tell you some other time….”

3

In Martossa there usually wasn’t that much going on, so Bradley and his friends had to make their own fun. The town was small and they usually navigated it on their bikes. They had their hangouts where they would go: they had a spot for fishing (they did this once in a blue moon though), a spot to chill out in the shade in the afternoons (the old car junk yard), when the sun was about to come down they hung around the board walk, checking out girls.

On rare occasions or when competitions were running they would round up some guys to play ball. If they had enough guys they sometimes played baseball, if not they resorted to basketball and if it was four or less they played tennis. Being in the tropics, the weather was usually good and even if it was bad it was mostly a good deal of rain.

Then there was school, the third wheel. It was usually a bore and Bradley and the gang had always sailed through without too much effort. They would need the paper though to be able to move on and out of Martossa at some point in time.

*

These last few weeks Bradley spend more time than usual holed up in his room. It wasn’t so much the fear of the fear, but he wanted to find an angle to deal with his mental state. His therapist hadn’t said it in so many words, but what he had found out on his own was that a person that starts hallucinating without hallucinogens is usually diagnosed as having schizophrenia. 

Bradley had found a few videos of schizophrenics online and they were reallyout there: they were so far gone that they were either the stereotype of a crazy person, or they were so mellow that it seemed as if they were in a constant cold sweat because of smoking too much weed. 

The thing was just that this wicked voice that had entered his mind on those three occasions was so vicious and so wicked that he simply couldn’t imagine that it was produced by his own mind. Bradley was smart enough to realize that he might also be in denial, and that denial is very hard to self-diagnose. The other thing that kept him from loosing it was the fact that the onset of the voice wasn’t how it usually went for schizophrenics. 

The real schizos usually start off with some sort of meltdown that causes them to become completely dysfunctional in their daily life. They are then highly medicated, which usually leaves them a little off. With Bradley, it had come on slow, and even though the voice had been terrifying, he hadn’t had a complete meltdown and he could still function. 

Then there was one other thing that made him believe that it wasn’t just him. After the first voice a story had appeared on social media, describing a monster that’s so vicious that it can literally read a person’s fears and prey on those. For the fears to become readable, the monster enters the persons mind to juggle their emotions. In this story the voice was described as commenting on daily events, in an evil, conniving way and the sick joy that the monster felt because of that had filtered through. 

The story went viral and people wanted to know who wrote it: it sounded either like a brilliant fabrication or the work of a seriously disturbed mind. It was send from an empty account: made just to post this story anonymously on the group page. A tech savvy kid from the first form was able to identify the ip-address of the computer from which it was send: one of the 50 computers in the school library. 

With hundreds of kids circling the library daily, and the story being posted over two weeks ago, it was close to impossible to trace back to who send it out. 

There was one last resort and it would be fire proof: they had heard of special software that can create a writer’s thumbprint based on his or her writing. The thing was just that the piece was too short to establish the thumbprint with more than 70 percent accuracy. Unless another piece was published, one that was much longer, this one wasn’t much help either.

4

Bradley’s dad, Ian, knew that his son was going through some stuff, but he didn’t know much beyond the nightmares and therapy. In his opinion, holing up was one thing, since according to him a man needs his solitude from time to time, but a man may need it more than a young boy of 16. 

“When I have some stuff to work through, I usually go do some sport,” Ian had said, “When I went through a rough stretch in my late twenties I can’t remember how much time I spend on the racket ball court, but I do remember that it was at that time that I perfected my back hand. I could place the ball exactly where I wanted and even give it the perfect spin.”

*

Bradley took his dad’s advise and ended up spending four days a week on the tennis court. Usually it was just him and his friend Brandon, on some days the other guys also showed up and they played doubles.

One day Cassie had showed up as well. The game had been slow, but when they were done, Brandon bumped him on the shoulder and said, “Walk her home, dude.” 

Bradley looked over at Cassie and she glanced back at him, “Yeah, I should do that.”

They kind of took it from there, but it bugged her that Bradley didn’t want to tell more about what was really going on in his mind. She wanted more, but he wasn’t giving it. 

5

Bradley didn’t go to therapy for a few weeks after that time with Mr. Ed. He didn’t much like the prospect of Mr. Ed doing more digging, but he also wasn’t sure how to talk to his regular therapist. He feared that she would put him on heavy medication if she found out what had happened and he would become one of those drooling zombies. 

After five weeks the need to talk things through became stronger than the fear and he went ahead and booked another appointment. 

“You can go in,” the lady at the desk said five minutes early.

Bradley nodded and walked down the hall. The door was open, and inside wasn’t his therapist, but there he was again: Mr. Ed.

“I see,” Bradley says. 

“What do you see?” Mr. Ed asks. 

“I expected to see Ms. West.”

“Not here.”

For a moment Bradley thought about turning around, but then he didn’t for reasons that he didn’t understand himself.

“Take a seat,” Mr. Ed says.

Bradley did so, reluctantly.

“How were the last few weeks?” Mr. Ed asks. 

“I’m not sure.”

“I see,” Mr. Ed says, “And do you remember what we discussed the last time you were here?”

“We made a deal.”

“Always make a deal,” Mr. Ed says.

“Play ball if you can.”

“What else?”

“You told me something about your story, how you worked two jobs and that you build something for yourself.”

“Flesh and bones,” Mr. Ed says.

“….”

“Everyone has a story and it makes us, us. The story that you remember and that you decide to live with needs to be something that you can feel good about. I remember that you went through something really bad – which we didn’t discuss – but the point I must have made before is this: how you look back at it is the difference between that story building you up or breaking you down. Are you with me so far?”

Bradley nods, “What if it’s something that you can’t remember?”

“You mean you feel bad, but you don’t know why?”

“Kind of.”

“From a pure rational perspective it doesn’t make sense to fear what you don’t know,” Mr. Ed says, “But that doesn’t help you.”

For a moment Mr. Ed thinks this one over. 

“You mean that it’s like an eerie feeling?” Mr. Ed asks, “And it’s not anxiety?”

“My therapist told me that anxiety is aimed at the future,” Bradley says, “This feeling is about something that happened long ago, but it’s also something that’s going to happen again….”

“I see,” Mr. Ed says, thinking it over, “Then it’s something that’s always there, like the hum in a plane.”

Bradley remains quiet.

“Then you may need to do something to take your mind off of things,” Mr. Ed says, “In my twenties I read a book about how some prisoners kept their shit together while in concentration camps in ww 2. They focused their attention on music – playing music. By doing so they weren’t thinking about their execution, but they also pushed it away – some of them played for groups of nazis that enjoyed their music so much, that they were systematically kept from being executed. There’s a link here, I mean, you’re obviously not in one of those camps, but the most extreme that I can think of in your case is that you would loose your mind. By focusing your attention on something else you can kind of push it away until it’s no longer a threat. When the nazis were finally defeated, these prisoners were released for good, although they had been scarred for live.”

“I can imagine,” Bradley says, thinking it over, “My dad advised me to spend more time on sports.”

“Sport, music, literature, writing, wood work; all of those will keep you constantly challenged,” Mr. Ed says, “If I remember it correctly all those are a part of what’s called The life of the mind.”

“….”

“It’s part of a triad: dignity, care and life of the mind,” Mr. Ed says, “These are like the basic needs that are required in our surroundings that will let us prosper – according to the guy that drew up that theory. Dignity is being dignified, care is being cared for and being able to care for others and the life of the mind is what I just told you about.”

Mr. Ed leans back and gives it some more thought. 

“You seem like a smart kid,” Mr. Ed says, “So that’s why I told you this story: if you were as dumb as a turnip, you wouldn’t comprehend and it would only make you feel stupid. If you can utilize these kind of ideas, you can bent them a long way and become very successful in what you’re after.”

“Muscle and steel,” Bradley says, joking and this time the joke cracks. 

“That’s right, kiddo,” Mr. Ed says, while making a gun with his hand and winking with one eye.

That session the voice hadn’t returned.

6

Later that week Bradley took Cassie fishing. She was all girly when they caught a fish and she refused to handle it when it came out of the water. He relayed the story that Mr. Ed had told him. She thought:he’s letting me in.

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