:: Smite boredom! Lance him with prose! ::

Friday, December 13, 2002

Note: this entry is written under an assumed nom de plume, Rupert Sprinkleshire.

Chapter LXVI

        It turns out that the waterfall was merely a red herring. The myriad of stunning shimmering water droplets making their graceful yet forceful descent from the towering heights of the sheer rock face to the abyss of the collecting pool below fell not at the behest of Dr. Rothsmythe, but due to a complex and chaotic series of interactions known to the modern world as an “extant causality chain”. I had underestimated nature’s coy penchant for the grandiose, and my paranoia had naturally led me to falsely accuse Rothsmyth. How times have changed. I clearly recall a day when Rothsmith and I waded with gleeful delight in such pools, skimming the filmy residue from the surface and using it as a potent cleaning solvent (this was before the days of capitulation to the autoclave, and many uses could be found for the pungent mixture, not the least of which was a quick and dirty “field sterilization”). But now the once-glimmering recollections of the past accrued an obfuscating scum reminiscent of what was once our chief source of profit and, by slight extension, sustenance.

        On the day I first suspected malfeasance, Roethsmith had pilfered a small case of dried figs from the corner store, and we ate them meticulously under the eves of his abode. He pulled a poorly-machined shiv from his trousers and violently and repeatedly jabbed it into my abdomen, tearing the hand-hewn fabric of my overalls. Assorted fluids hemorrhaged from my gut and spilt onto the street below, coating passing strangers in a viscous mélange of platelets, plasma, bile, and digestive acids as I fashioned a makeshift tourniquet to forestall albescence and unconsciousness. At the time, I thought it a venial act of raillery, and dismissed any thoughts of ill intentions; Roensmith regaled me with tall tales of his escapades in the Legion all throughout my convalescence, and this only exacerbated the ease with which I forgave him. But I digress... I shall return to this longwinded tale of burgeoning antipathy later on.

        Now, in this present day, I cannot imagine a street corner, meadow, or printing press untainted by Roensmith’s bellicosity and perfidy. He has usurped the place of Satan himself in my mental schema, surpassing both the devil’s ubiquity and wretched persistence. This awful constant harassment has led me down a spiraling path of explosive paranoia - a simple trip to Victoria Falls had metamorphazised into a microcosm of my larger burden: the Sisyphean scourge that was the unrelenting belligerence and cruelty of my tormentor had transformed erstwhile innocuous (and, in this case, sublime) natural occurrences into objects of abject fear. How could I have allowed Rensmith the leeway of a nobleman, when he proved time and again that he possessed the constitution of a lowly knave? I must accept some modicum of the blame, but it is a testament to Rensmill’s subtle infectious nature that I now spied his striking visage even in natural panoramas heretofore placid and serene.

        Thankfully, this most recent incident at the falls has aided me in gleening a sense of the overarching direction and motivation behind the recent confluence of paranoia, spite and verisimilitudinous fantasy in my mind, albeit a cloudy one. It seems I’ve entered a mental chrysalis - I’m not blessed with the prescience or sagacity to divine the exact sequence of events to follow, but I need not be clairvoyant to recognize that this next stage of evolution will bode ill for Rensfill. This stasis does not prevent me from relishing the upcoming calescence of fury - a surge of reciprocity that will no doubt render him unable to continue the libidinousness with which he seeks my demise. It is a harbinger that I will shortly tread a very fine line between karmic equilibration and a lascivious fixation with disproportionate revenge. I hope, for Renfield’s sake, that I am able to exercise restraint in the bloodlust that will both preclude and give birth to my ultimate catharsis - after all, the drive derived from retaliatory urges is predicated upon an unnerving consistency of focus. With my animus extinguished, how shall I... [cont. on page 117]

Posted by morland @ 01:06 PM

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