Wednesday, March 17, 2010

A Story for Roger




Rough hands shoved me into the room. As I looked around my surroundings, the door slammed behind me. Spinning around quickly, I lost my balance, as my hands were still shackled behind my back.
Struggling over, I managed to roll over onto my back. Looking around the room, I saw a chair and a table in the middle of the room. In the corner was a fabric panel that I could make out the bottom of a toilet on the other side of.
As I adjusted my hands to try and keep from crushing them, the door opened again. Two men came over and hauled me to my feet. Looking at them, I tried to memorize their faces, but they had bandannas over their faces, their eyes glaring malevolently over the cloth. Snapping to attention as if silently commanded, the two thugs turned into boards.
Another man strutted into the room, his face covered with a bandanna. Quickly, he walked up to me, and glared. I tried to return his gaze, but the Ni Hao Kai Lan bandanna kept distracting me. Finally, I was able to tear my gaze away from his dashing face wear.
"You're probably wondering why we've brought you here" His voice was muffled slightly by the bandanna.
"well, the thought had crossed my mind." I replied, returning his gaze steadily. He gestured to the two goons, and the restraints were removed. I rubbed my wrists, trying to massage the abuse away.
"I apologize for the rough treatment, but under normal circumstances, I fear you would have declined my invitation." My captor continued. I continued to study his face, trying to figure out who had abducted me.
"Well, it all depends - how would you have invited me?" I asked. "My first impulse was to demand that you come and do some work for me." He replied. I nodded slightly. "Yeah, I don't think that the outcome would have been posi-" "Then" he cut me off "I thought I would call you and invite you over to hang out." I shifted my weight slightly "under what pretext? A sleepover?" This response elicited a glare from him. "I am well aware of you feelings on sleepovers!" The vehemence startled me slightly.
Regaining his composure, the masked man continued "Finally, I just figured that I would kidnap you. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best." He shrugged. "O.k." I replied "now that you have me, what exactly is it that you want from me?" He reached out and straightened the lapels on my flannel. "I want you to write me a story... a story that involves a few different ideas..." my mouth hung open.
"You put all this time and effort into kidnapping me, just so I can write you a story?" I threw my hands in the air. Unperturbed, he waited for for me to calm down. "Yes, I want you to write me a story." I shook my head, incredulously. "The story I want you to write concerns three things" he held his splayed fingers up to emphasize his point. "One, hot dogs. Two, t-shirts. Three, Meissner Corpuscles."
"Are you mad?" I shrieked.
He shook his head, slowly. "No, I am not. I know you can do this. I have read your writing, and I know you are the one who can do this the proper respect it deserves."
Sighing heavily, I resigned myself to writing something that would work. "Alright, I'm going to need supplies."
"Everything you may need is on the table." He gestured to the table behind me. I turned to face the table. The two goons walked past me. As I turned back around, I was alone in the room, the door clanging shut behind Goon #2. I walked to the door. Ni Hao's face appeared in the grill of the door. "and another thing... We won't be paying you for this."
My howls of rage rang through the compound for days afterwards.

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