a tale from england

My name is Dinkle Funass and the story I am about to tell you is not one told out of bitterness, although the events herein did radically change my life for the worse. At the beginning of all this I was a pre-med student, studying to become an urologist. I was attending West Minister University in northern England at the time and had just become engaged to a beautiful, young boy named Bobby Bradles. While at the time I considered myself a man, I soon discovered that I was nothing more than a young girl about to attend kindergarten for her first day of elementary school.

It was a bright Saturday morning, looked as if it was going to be one of those gorgeous days for the month of May. I was heading down to the local bakery to pick up some breakfast bread for my fiancée and me. While I was walking down the street, minding my own business mind you, this rat stops me to ask if I knew where the garbage dump was. He was about regular size for a rat, with a rather large belly, but it wasn’t the sight of him that caught me off guard, it was the fact that he was talking to me. I didn’t answer his questions pertaining to directions immediately and I instead threw my own inquiries back at him.

“Why the fuck are you talking you silly duck?” I questioned. He couldn’t explain to me how he had learned to art of language and told me to piss off. He said he’d figure out where the dump was for himself.

“This has the makings of an odd day” I thought to myself as I continued to make my way down the street. I had seen days like this before, and they never turned out well. A little further down the street I was stopped again.

This time a red mini-cooper pulls up next to me and to my surprise the car was packed full of clowns. There were six of them; one of the clowns was sitting on another’s lap in the back seat. The clown at the wheel rolled down his window and stuck his head out, but didn’t make his business immediately clear. What followed was a few seconds of awkward silence as this clown, as well as the rest of the ones in the car, continued to stare at me. The clown in the driver’s seat had a particularly peculiar air to him, with his pink afro-hair, white face-paint and unblinking eyes; he seemed to fit the description of a deranged lunatic. When I deemed this staring charade had gone on long enough, I decided to keep on walking. It proved to be a bad move.

Looking back at the situation, I should not have tried to walk away from the car, but should have ran. Running probably would not have even helped though; those clowns knew what they wanted. In a second the air was filled with the roar of a car engine harmonizing quite horribly with screeching tires as the mini-cooper jumped up on the sidewalk to cut me off. All four of the car’s doors opened simultaneously and the clowns began to get out. “Shit!” I whimpered under my breath as I turned to run. It was too late though; those clowns were on top of my white body faster than a cocaine addict can bump his own white fun. I started to scream for help, but the few people around were smart enough to not get involved in clown business. I was face down on the sidewalk, literally eating the cement with my bare teeth, when I was hit over the head with something hard. At least I imagine it was something hard because all of a sudden everything went black.

When I came to I was tied to a chair in the middle of a cold, dark room. The only light available to me came from a lamp hanging from the ceiling. The result was that I could only see about five feet in any direction that I tried to look. The air felt damp and heavy, I had the feeling that I was in a cellar of some sort. I tried to move the chair by jolting my body a few times, but it seemed as if the chair was bolted in place.

“Having fun, squirmer?” asked a creepily high-pitched voice from outside my radius of vision. “Why don’t you squeal a little for me?”

What the hell was going on? I searched the darkness frantically for the owner of the voice and increased my efforts to loosen myself from the chair’s seemingly glued position. I decided to quit the struggle and put my game face on.

“That’s more like it” the voice said from the dark. The clown that had been driving the mini-cooper walked into the light. He had a funny walk to him, with every other step he seemed to hop a little. “You might be wondering what you are doing here,” he said in that queer voice of his. “It has come to our attention that you have come into contact with a certain rat by the name of Radio Squad. Is this correct?”

“A rat asked me where the garbage dump was earlier, if that’s what you’re talking about,” I answered him.

“We killed your little boyfriend,” the clown informed me. He was smiling as he let this released information sink into my throbbing skull.

“What?” I asked in pure horror.

The clown retreated into the darkness and returned carrying Bobby’s limp carcass. He threw the deflated mass of what used to be my fiancée onto the floor in front of me. I stared into Bobby’s dead face and the reality of the situation washed over me like cold water from a river in hell. “Wha . . . wha . . . what the fuck! You sick bastard! What the fuck!” I was screaming wildly. I felt tears streaming down my face and a tempestuous rage began to boil inside of my chest. What kind of sick people would do this? And for what? “What the fuck is going on?” I screamed.

“We wanted you to understand the full magnitude of the current circumstances,” the clown told me. “We need to know everything that Radio Squad told you, starting from your first encounter,” said the clown.

“I just met him today,” I was basically sobbing now. “He just asked where the garbage dump was and then told me he could find it himself. That was the last I ever saw him.” I felt like an animal in a petting zoo. “You didn’t have to kill Bobby you sick fucks!” I spit out the last line.

The clown took a few steps towards me and leaned in close to my face, his breath reeked like garlic and rotten cabbage. I pushed my head back as far as I could and turned away, his rancid breath made me more nauseous than the corpse at my feet. His tongue crept out of his mouth like a red snake from a hole, and quite suddenly I felt his warm saliva on my cheek, the snake’s venomous bite. I began to puke uncontrollably. The clown continued to lick my face until I had completely cleared my stomach of all its bile, reducing my vomiting spasms to reflexive gags. He backed away from me and allowed a curious smile to play across his lips. “That’ll do pig” he said. With that he retreated into the darkness, leaving me covered in my own, disgusting vomit. He returned a few moments later holding a large, wooden bat. He walked back over to me, again prancing with that queer little hop/strut walk he did, and stopped about a bat’s length away from me. My eyes were level with his crotch. Suddenly he swung hard at the side of my head and once again I returned to a sea of pitch-black nothing.

I woke up on the same sidewalk I was kidnapped from. My head felt like a broken egg and I could barely see straight. It was night outside and I weakly brought myself to my feet. After wobbling on my flimsy legs for a few seconds, I collapsed, once again returning to the pavement. I spent the rest of the night lying there, crying with my head in my hands. “Why am I alive?” I kept asking myself over, and over, and over again.

i'm not the ghost . . . you're not the ghost?

“Marginal.”

“Marginal? What the hell is that supposed to mean.” Kenji dejectedly snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray, jerkily pounding the orange cherry into ashes like a piston.

“Marginal,” repeated Jacqueline, a saturnine expression on her face, “As in almost, though not entirely, insufficient.” There was a silence and she looked pleadingly across the table at Kenji, who still had his eyes trained on the ashtray. “But that’s beside the point, Kenji. I’m not breaking up with you because you’re bad in bed, I’m just at a point in my life where I’m realizing that everything’s wrong. I feel like a ghost.”

“A ghost?” mumbled Kenji.

“Yeah, a ghost.”

The waitress moseyed over to their table.

“Can I get y’all some more coffee or something?” Nobody said anything. Kenji didn’t even look up, though he could hear the mucilaginous sound of the waitress’ teeth mashing bubble gum. The rest of the diner was empty.

“No thank you, we’re fine,” Jacqueline finally responded, glancing at the waitress with an awkward smile.

“Alright, just let me know if you kids need anything.” The waitress moseyed off again. From the kitchen came the noise of a plate hitting the ground and shattering. A loud curse followed.

“I’m going to leave.” Kenji reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet, avoiding eye contact with Jacqueline. He dropped a few bills on the table and stood up. “I’ll see you around.”

“Good-bye,” said Jacqueline quietly, looking across the table at the empty space that he had just evacuated. She heard the bells on the door angrily rattle as Kenji shoved it open to exit into the night.

“Good night!” called the waitress from the counter. Kenji strode off without turning around. Jacqueline continued to stare at the deflated space across from her.

The waitress looked at Jacqueline for a few minutes and ruminated on her lone figure. She walked around the counter and over to the table. “Mind if I sit?” she asked, indicating Kenji’s former place. Jacqueline gave a disinterested hand motion. The waitress slid into the booth with her red, lipsticked lips pursed in concern. She reached across the table and took Jacqueline’s hand. “What’s wrong honey?”

Jacqueline sighed and looked out the adjacent window, which gave a view of the deserted parking lot. Her eyes felt sallow and sunken in her face. “I’m a ghost,” she sniffed mournfully.

Kenji slammed his open palms against the top of the steering wheel. Marginal? What the hell was she talking about? She’s the ghost! He rolled down the car window with violent arm movements and then lit another cigarette. The streets were empty and dissonantly lit by the tarnished yellow aura of the street lights.

He came to a red light and braked. All around him the city was completely motionless. The only sound was the hum of the car engine. Kenji turned his head from one side of to the other, glancing down both directions of the intersecting street. He took a drag on the cigarette and then pushed on through the red light.

He pulled out his cell phone and called Caitlin. “Caitlin, I’m not bad in bed, am I?” he asked immediately when she answered, adopting a slightly more desperate voice than he had intended.

“Oh boy . . .” she groused sardonically.

“I’m serious.”

“Why don’t you come over? You sound like you’re in rough shakes.”

“OK,” said Kenji gratefully. He hung up and took one last drag before he flicked his cigarette out the window. Orange embers flew as the wind caught the stub.

“This life ain’t no cake walk,” agreed the waitress, nodding in consolation, “That’s for sure. I remember when I was your age . . .” she trailed off dreamily.

“I mean, when I think about life, it always seems so endless in its possibilities, but . . .” Jacqueline paused, furrowing her brow in concentration. She lipped a couple silent words and then looked pleadingly across at the waitress, donning the same helpless expression she had shown Kenji an hour ago. The waitress took Jacqueline’s hand again.

Kenji rolled off of Caitlin and onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling panting, his face gleaning with sweat. He laughed out loud. “Caitlin, you’re the best friend a guy could ever have.”

Caitlin laughed back. “You’re the best guy a friend could ever have.”

“Is that your dad?” asked Kenji, pointing at a picture of a man that was propped up on Caitlin’s dresser.

“Yeah,” she giggled, “He’s been watching us this entire time.”

“That’s a creepy thought,” said Kenji. He rolled over and tickled Caitlin on the stomach.

“Stop it!” she squealed. He started kissing her neck. Caitlin’s cell phone began ringing on the nightstand. “Oh shit,” she said, gently pushing Kenji off of her, “It’s probably Derek. One sec.” She flipped the phone open and answered, tinging her words with a feigned sleepiness. “Yeah . . . That’s OK honey . . . no, no, come over, it’s fine . . . no, I’m awake now. Come over.” She shut the phone.

“I thought you broke up with that jerk,” accused Kenji.

“Yeah, but I still like sleeping with him.”

“For Allah’s sake,” it felt like a giant drain in his stomach had suddenly been opened, “You just slept with me! What the hell do you need him for?”

“Jesus, don’t be so melodramatic.”

“But I’m the Krishna for all you gopis.” Kenji felt like he was leaning over the brink of his sanity.

“Trust me, Kenji, you’re no Krishna. And stop being so melodramatic. I did you a favor tonight. Now hurry up and get dressed. Derek sounded drunk, and he’s gets mean when he’s drunk. Jehovah knows what he’d do to you if he caught you up here.”

“You’re running a friggin’ brothel,” mumbled Kenji angrily as he disentangled himself from the sheets. He looked away from Caitlin as he pulled his jeans on and slipped his t-shirt over his head.

“Well, tell the ghost I said hi, will ya?” Caitlin retorted.

“The ghost broke up with me tonight.”

“Oh,” her tone suddenly dropped its harsh edge, “That explains why you’ve been acting so strange.” She sat up. “You’ve been seeing that girl forever. Oh, you poor baby.” She got out of the bed and hugged him from behind. Her flesh felt warm against his clothes. She kissed him on the back of the neck. “It’s probably for the best, though. It can’t be healthy to date a girl who’s always talking about how ghostly her life is. She’s like a zombie that knows one song, but won’t ever stop singing.”

“I better get going.”

“Derek will probably be here any second.” She kissed him on the cheek one more time.

“I’ll see you around.” Kenji headed for the bedroom door, giving a parting gesture over his shoulder without turning around. Caitlin cocked her head as she watched him disintegrate into the darkened hallway.

“I’ve probably wasted enough of your time, anyway, carrying on about my problems and all. I’ll be fine, honest.” Jacqueline gathered her purse and coat into a bundle between her arms. “Thanks for sitting with me though. You’ve been amazing.”

The waitress smiled. “Hell, I appreciate you sticking around with me. Normally I’d’ve spent the whole damn night sitting behind that counter in a deserted diner. It’s been nice to have someone to talk to for once.”

“Have a good day,” said Jacqueline sweetly as she stood up. Her legs felt a little cramped from sitting so long. “The coffee was wonderful, by the way.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Jacqueline gave one more good-bye before she walked out of the diner. Her car was the only one in the parking lot. She shuffled through her purse, searching for her keys.

As she sat down behind the steering wheel, she realized that she had never even asked the waitress for her name. She paused to think for a second. “Whatever,” she mumbled to herself, starting the engine. She shifted into first gear and pushed on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward. “She’s kind of a depressing woman anyway,” addressing the city through her windshield.