CLANK: A Book of Madness (Psychological Satire Novel) Unsettled Office Worker Loses the Last Screw by Draven Madpen Read Free Book Online Page B

else.
     
    “Jaques,” Wilmer says to me
between bites of chewy chicken, “Are you a fan of strongman?”
    I stare blankly for a moment,
unsure if this is a reference to the muscle fetish culture or some other
perverse notion of Cromwell’s.
    “Haha,” he chuckles to himself
with a dip of the head, as if realizing his own mistake. “Of course you’re not!
Look at that toothpick body! Scrawny as a—as a toothpick! Anyway, Jorgen, my
favorite is a sturdy man named Dariusz Poodginowskee The most celebrated
strongman competitor in history…”
    I cast my gaze out the window
allowing Wilmer to drone on and on about this marvelously muscled man. A young
girl in a blue dress skips across the street. The mind wanders. It sure beats
being reduced to a near death state listening to the clangorous clanks of his
infernal glass bowl…
    “And I’ll tell you, Judah! I
read in a magazine that he drinks at least three muscle shakes a day! So you
know what?” Cromwell pauses. The silence goes on long enough to pull me from my
stupor. He’s staring right at me with an expectant grin. Oh… I give him
a grunt of curiosity.
    Wilmer continues on, evidently
satisfied with the response. “So I like to drink at least five a day, minimum.
Every day. Right for breakfast, first thing. I down a shake. And then whenever
else I can during the day.”
    On and on it went…
     
    The night air felt refreshing
on my warm skin. I stood outside, the green grass of my lawn sticking up
between my toes, staring high above at the full moon. For some reason the
darkness is comforting to me. Most people fear the blackness and its fleeting
shadows; the whistling of the wind or the creaking of an old oak tree. I love
everything about it. The peaceful breeze sweeping through as it wraps around
your body. The millions of stars overhead, though they’re somewhat obscured by
these terrible city lights. I held my arms overhead and sucked in a large
breath of air before expelling it forcefully.
    The witching hour. A time of
immense supernatural activity. All the demons of the night are at their most
powerful. The etheric energies surge. You can feel their ubiquitous presence
encircling the world.
    I took one last look at the
moon previous to heading inside. Earlier in the night I had finished another
drawing of Natasha, one I felt quite excited to see again. This particular
piece being styled after the pin-up fashion. Underneath her seductively posed
body I wrote the following:
    Lust, carnal desires of the
flesh, unrequited love, violence, intrigue and murder. Unfulfilled ambitions,
dashed hopes, lost souls, cynical cretins, and lackadaisical sensationalists.
     
    I’m not sure if the words have
any meaning to them. All I know is that I had the pen in hand and the words
flowed -- like automatic writing. Perhaps some entity of the night possessed my
body for a brief moment. The witching hour muse.
    My word of the day -- Lucubrate :
To study, work, or write at night.
    A term I discovered at random
but which seemed most fitting to my habits. All is calm, all is peaceful. I lie
in bed, fearing a break-in, as always. Worrying, wondering, despairing. Who
will come to kill me tonight? Will I live to see another morning? Natasha….
These are the things that keep me up at night.
     
    I walk down the hall and hear
the whispered mocking comments of my fellow employees besmirching Mr. Cromwell.
Talk of his boring, bland meeting and general demeanor. This pleases me
greatly. As a result I appear happier today. Although, this new demeanor is
surprising to me. It’s an ingratiating conduct. A great many people returned a
smile or a friendly wave of the hand. Normally I’d never receive or give such a
gesture. But I’m finding that the more unpleasant the people around me are, the
happier I’m becoming. Every time I see despair, I grin. Every failure of my
fellow man is a triumph to me.
    I enjoy seeing the suffering
of others. They have a word for that in German: