Chapter 1

Word Count: 1531

Character Count (without spaces): 7577

On several occasions during an ill defined periodic time frame Franz fell victim to calamitous and unbearable panic attacks. You see (to state the obvious), his fight or flight was a tad william-nilliam. For some reason his mind had a rather strange aversion to the Babelian skyscrapers, endless petroleum driveways cuckolded by concrete walkways, darkness of night that never comes, and the ability to meet 30,000 people in a quick, one squared mile jaunt. Despite orating articulate and well enunciated treatises, essays, and syllogisms towards the grey matter in question, all of which tended towards verbose permutations of “everyone else is going on just fine, so let’s just be lemmings about it and stop this bother,” Franz found himself unable to overcome these rather plaguy maladies.

Sucking it up, Franz went on with his life, pausing infrequently during the waxing moon to further cajole and entreaty his stubborn noodle into placidity, unsuccessfully. It was not long after one such pleading when Franz found himself taking a vacation.

Leaving the city on a rare excursion, Franz journeyed inward to Niagara Falls. He briefly considered leaving the country altogether and spending time in Canada, but his fondness for bacon with his brekkers and his complete contempt and disgust for ham quickly stifled this notion. Additionally, the thought of clean cities and friendly citizens riled him to the core and gave him quite severe cardialgia.

During his trip he was confronted with quite a weighty quandary. As noted, he was prone to confronting his synapses on the issue of their altogether abuse of him on several occasions during an ill defined periodic time frame only during the waxing moon. A strong creature of habit, he had absolutely no desire to complicate matters by dealing with this vexation at other times. However, during the waning of the moon a curious conception wiggled and waggled its way into his thoughts. The ideogenetic mechanism proved to be a trash television show hosted on a mangy vulpine. Between commercials contestants confronted their fears in an appallingly sensational manner in hopes of finally overcoming their lifelong handicaps which ranged from acrophobia to xenophobia. The usual result was a significant quantity of screaming and pant wetting coupled with tenuous and amorphous speculation that perhaps they had finally found a remedy for their lifelong aversion to this and/or that. Presumably the characters on the show returned home after their lovely stay in fantabulous LA promoting the glories of carcinogen bronzed skins and after meal purgations nonetheless still completely petrified of this and/or that, perhaps even more so now that they had come face to face, tête-à-tête with the sheer horror inducing mass of this and/or that. Despite this presumption, made with something approaching the upper limit of absolute certainty, Franz felt that this could likely be the way to finally conquer his undesirable state.

“Logic is fail, it has served me naught. Now is the time to unroll the red carpet and usher in the new dawn of mass media, mob rule, fallacious thinking, conmen, hacks, false advertisement, and generally asinine thinking!” Franz shouted belligerently at his hotel wall with its hotel lamp and hotel pictures and hotel patterns.

Now is an opportune time to mention that the walls and ceilings of his own home did not resemble in the slightest those of the hotel he was currently situated in. Franz’s ailment arose from a deep-seated claustrophobia. This affected his life thusly: he refused to take the subway or taxis, taxis being too confined and the subway being too enclosed by the underground which enveloped it. He opted instead for the bus with its fairly spacious, above ground routes. Though, never during the busy hours of the day, indeed, that would be quite unbearable. Secondly, he had his rooms painted with a great deal of perspective. His ceiling resembled the sky and his walls resembled great expanses of rooms and gardens. His hallways were wallpapered with mirrors to create infinite space. A strange world, but his guests quite enjoyed the novelty of it all and praised him for his curiously good taste.

Having resolved to absurdify his approach to the irksome problem of confined spaces, Franz placed his faith in the great plastic box of crystals which had already shown him the way in a vivid red green blue spectrum of insight. He pressed a predetermined numerical code into the remote control. Nearly instantly Eraserhead appeared on the screen. Ravenous to receive the answer to his problems, Franz held on to the edge of his seat and anticipated.

The conclusion of the film left Franz in a tizzy.

“Surely, that was a fine piece of experimental film work which pushed the boundaries of cinema in ways previously unachieved. However, I haven’t the slightest what solutions to my life have been provided! Not only that, I am further uncertain as to whether or not I even understood the movie. I have no Josef to interpret this for me and am beginning to lose faith in televised augurs.”

Despairing, he absentmindedly changed the channel. The television went unwatched for quite some time, blurred out of focus by barely withheld tears pushing the boundaries of surface tension upon bloodshot eyes. Gradually Franz became aware that something new was to be seen: a local documentary on the history of Niagara Falls in popular conception. He observed landscape painters create sublime portraits and tightrope walkers precariously cross above it. Finally, the moment all had been waiting for, barrels. Not just any barrels of course, barrels of people. That is, people in barrels who had the ingenious idea to launch themselves over the falls contained in barrels. Initially, just the sight of such close quarters tightened his chest and made rapid his breathing, but, soon, Franz came to the realization that his faith had not been misplaced, that he had been given the answer to his worries and that should he so choose them, there were blue skies and sunshine to be had.

The next morning Franz set about procuring a barrel, which turned out to be somewhat of a difficult task, as barrels had become rather obsolete and archaic by the epoch in which he existed. Finally, he managed to obtain one from a local junkyard.

Upon reaching the top of the falls, he became stingingly aware that he wasn’t quite sure how to keep the lid on the barrel as he went over the falls. It seemed quite transparent that he should have the lid on in order to maximize the confinement and fully face down his fears. Lamenting, he went back down into the town and puzzled. He settled on a contraption whereby a hole was drilled in the center of the lid and a rope was knotted at one end and the other end was passed through the hole and into the barrel. This way Franz would be able to grasp the rope, keeping it taught and securing the lid. He marched back to the top of the falls.

By now it was mid-morning and he began to fret that tourists would overwhelm the falls and prevent him the privacy he required to complete his quest. He quickly waded out into the water and climbed into the barrel.

Needless to say, it was fortunate that Niagara Falls has a plethora of water, as this properly washed out the barrel which Franz had filled with screams and excrement nearly immediately upon entering. Miraculously, he suffered only minor scrapes and bruises, along with a good dousing.

Franz doggy-paddled over to the shore, exhausted and damp, collapsing on the rocks. After lying there for upward of twenty-three minutes, Franz recovered his senses and began to take stock of the world around him.

He was incredibly relieved to be free of that dreadful barrel.

“Truly, nothing could possibly have been more constraining and terrifying! After that experience, taxi cabs will certainly feel like walking along the prairie!”

Then it hit him. There was space all around him. Six inches to the nearest rock. Ten feet to the water’s edge. Two miles to his hotel. Hundreds of miles to Washington, D.C. Thousands of miles to Prague. Millions of miles to the sun. Light years upon light years to other solar systems. Infinite distance to the edge of the universe. Too. Much. Space.

Franz panicked. He grabbed his chest. He sucked in air. He covered his face. Nothing helped. He ran. He ran and ran and ran. In town he found a bank and withdrew several hundred dollars. He found the nearest pawnshop, not near enough for his tastes. Under the table, he bought the biggest caliber gun available. The caliber was unwieldy in its magnitude. Whole forests stood petrified with mind numbing terror when faced with the barrel of the gun. Franz returned hastily to his hotel room, ripping everything off the wall. Laid bare, the canvas awaited.

Meticulously, Franz organized his synapses upon the wall in a manner recalling fractal geometry with a quick squeeze upon the firing mechanism and a loud booming which would have deafened him had the sound traveled fast enough to reach his ears while they were still properly working.

The fear ceased.

~ by Andrew on 30 June 2008.