Incelbordination, Chapter 14

Falling asleep in the middle of danger seemed to be a common occurrence for Oswald Crow. He wondered how many blows to the head he’d taken since fighting against Incelbordination. Apparently, not enough to forget the pain of loneliness. Or the pain of being labeled a terrorist. Or the pain of possibly being thrown in jail for a roll of weed. It wouldn’t have surprised him one bit if he woke up a jail cell right then and there. But low and behold, he woke up (if one could call it that) back at the warehouse, a dark and empty warehouse at that. No bloodstains. No dead bodies. No crying. No pleas for help. Absolutely nothing at all.

And then what few lights there were began to flicker brightly at a rapid pace. Oswald held his aching head as he stood up and allowed his swollen eyeballs to adjust to the light. Needle pains pierced through his system and caused him to whine gently to himself. Not knowing where he was going, he bumped into a wooden crate that seemed to be filled to the top with bullets. Entranced, he sifted his fingers through the metal like beach sand. Somehow this was relaxing to his anxiety. A phantom woman appearing out of nowhere, however, was far from it.

An attractive black woman with long hair and a longer gray dress hovered over Oswald with a smile on her face. “Hello, Mr. Crow. Remember me?”

If the dwarf’s eyes weren’t wide before, they were now that this ghost appeared before him. “Mrs. Mills?”

“That’s right, Oswald. It’s me: Mrs. Mills. It’s been a while since the two of us talked. It’s almost like you’re avoiding me or something. Why would that be?” She leaned her face closer to Oswald and said, “That’s right, I remember. You never wanted to show your face again after you wrote me that love letter. I can’t say I blame you, teenage hormones aside.”

The dwarf’s face glowed nuclear red as he tried to come up with some dialogue. “Mrs. Mills…I’m …I’m sorry…I really am…”

Waving it off, Mrs. Mills said, “Don’t worry, Oswald, it’s not a problem at all. It’s not like I went through my own version of humiliation, being divorced and fired and whatnot. I must admit, you know how to tell a good love story…for high school standards, at least.”

“Please…Mrs. Mills, just go away.” Oswald sifted his fingers through the bullets yet again, but the anxiety relief wouldn’t come for him this time.

“Why should I, little buddy? Am I saying things you don’t like to hear?” said Mrs. Mills in an increasingly erratic tone. “You think you’re starving for love? What about me? Where was I supposed to get mine? From you? Don’t make me laugh, I’m in enough trouble as it is. Oh wait…I can’t be in trouble….because I’m dead! My bad!”

Oswald made a fist with the bullets he grabbed, as though he was ready to go to war right there. “You know how you could have saved your job and your life? By telling the other kids our phony relationship wasn’t true. You could have sent them to the principal’s office. You could have whacked their hands with pencils for all I cared. Do something to set things right, that’s all anybody could ask for. But no…you did absolutely nothing to stop those rumors from spreading to the kids. I’ve never heard so many kids laughing at me in my life. You? You might as well have laughed with them. You were complicit by your silence.”

Caught in her own debunked logic, Mrs. Mills shook her head and confessed, “Oswald, there was nothing I could do. I was just as unbelievable as you were. If they didn’t listen to you, what makes you think they could have listened to me?”

“Because you’re a fucking teacher and you know better than to let shit happen!” bellowed Oswald before throwing bullets at the phantom. “Get out! Get the hell out of here and stop haunting my dreams!” The dwarf threw even more bullets until the ghost fizzled out of sight.

And then by some strange magic, the crate refilled with more bullets, just in time for yet another ghost to appear: a baldheaded teenaged cancer patient trapped in a wheelchair with a psychotic frown on her face. “What about me, Oswald? You’re always talking with Antero about how you want cards and flowers on your grave, right? Where were my flowers when I needed them? Where was my love? Were you too embarrassed to admit that I was your girlfriend or were you too cowardly to take care of me when I needed someone the most?”

Breathing heavily through gritted teeth, Oswald scooped up more bullets in his hand and shouted, “Man, fuck you, Trish! You were just as complicit as my deadbeat English teacher! You didn’t stop the laughs! You didn’t stop the rumors! Even a sick chick like you could use a smart phone and make things right! You did nothing about it! Fuck you, Trish! Fuck off!” The dwarf threw even more bullets than before and caused Trish’s ghost to fade away in the darkness. And once again, the crate magically refilled with tossing props.

Yet another ghost haunted Oswald’s tortured soul: a blond haired teenage boy with a rainbow-colored shirt and his chin tucked in shame. “Are you going to throw bullets at me, you little shit?” The dwarf’s expression softened as he dropped the bullets back in the box. “All I did was place my hand on your shoulder and help you carry your books. I admit, I started to like you for a while. I told you how cute you were. And you just…you just snapped like a madman.” The boy tried in vain to wipe tears from his eyes, but they just kept flowing.

“You got me all wrong, Hunter,” said Oswald, his voice muffled in defeat. “I’m not one of those homophobic assholes. You just caught me on a bad day, that’s all. All the laughing, the name calling, the beatings I took…it just wasn’t my day. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Hunter’s ghost dissolved in the darkness and gave way to an army of angry young men with red hot neon in their eyes. Oswald dropped to his ass and breathed heavily in fear as these ghosts called him every name in the book while pointing accusatory fingers at him. The dwarf clutched his chest in an attempt to prevent a possible heart attack when Antero Magnus’ ghost appeared in front of those kids. Antero’s eyes had glowed a little brighter that night, giving off that same creepy shiver down Oswald’s spine.

“What do you people want from me?! Leave me alone!” the dwarf shouted in between winded breaths.

“You see all these kids, Oswald?” asked Antero as he waved his hands in both directions to show them off. “You let them all down, my former friend. You let me down too. You could have been one of the greatest revolutionaries of all time. You could have put Che Guevara to shame. You could have changed the world. Instead you turned your back on us .Of all the people you’ve seen tonight, we were the only ones who gave a damn about you. You threw it all away, Oswald. You’re not a supreme gentleman. You’re not even a manlet. You’re a fucking loser!”

Oswald kept screaming, “Shut up!” as he desperately reached into the bullet box and threw in every direction he could. Bullets to the left, bullets to the right, bullets to the center, bullets in a three hundred sixty degree angle. No matter how many he threw, the ghosts kept growing in numbers. Sure, the box refilled as it always did, but what good were those weapons if they only counted for a few victims?

The one victim Oswald wanted to hit the most, Antero, had put a stop to his rebellion with a one-handed chokehold to the little guy. Between the throat squeezing and his own heart-exploding anxiety, Oswald struggled to stay alive as he flopped on the ground like a fish, the ghosts of Incelbordination creeping over him and laughing like high school children. Mrs. Mills was among that crowd as well. As was Trish. As was Hunter. As was an entire underworld of tormentors waiting to gobble up Oswald for a late night snack. Just because he was paranoid, didn’t mean the world wasn’t out to get him.

When it looked like he would be permanently dragged to hell for his romantic sins, Oswald awakened in a dark cell by sitting upright and gasping in a raspy voice. He could finally breathe again even though he was drowning in sweat. Hopefully the stain on his pants was sweat too. The little guy plopped backwards and continued to catch his lost breath whilst clutching his chest.

“What the fuck was all that? Where am I? Hello?!” No answers, only darkness. Imprisoned, blighted, depressive darkness. But even the black nothing was better than being anywhere near Antero’s warehouse. “Wait a minute…if I’m in this cell…where’s Antero?! Where is everybody else?! Where the fuck am I?! Somebody help me!”