zero plus nothing equals - 7. frank

by jeremy witherington

part seven of 31

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frank woke up. he got up. he made himself a ham and cheese sandwich. he noticed he was running low on ham and on cheese, although he still had almost a whole loaf of bread, because he had bought two for one on a special sale the last time he ordered. but he was out of mustard, and also of ketchup. after he finished the sandwich and washed it down with a cup of water, he decided to go down to pop’s store and buy some ham and cheese and mustard and maybe even some ketchup. he put his shoes and hat on. he turned the handle of the door to the hallway. but the door did not open. then it hit him like a thunderbolt. of course. it was the _________ century. if he needed anything, he had to request it on the intercom. he went over to the intercom, which was located beside his water tap, and pressed the button. how may i help you, the voice intoned silkily. frank often dreamed that the voice belonged to a real human female woman, like glenda back in the day. he almost said, hi, baby, it has been a long time. but instead he said, i want to go down to pop’s store and buy some ham and cheese and mustard. the correct terminology is go down to pop’s store to buy some ham and cheese and mustard, the voice intoned silkily. i am just a regular guy, frank responded testily, i used to ride the rails with ambrose bierce and geronimo and jack london. be that as it may, the voice replied without missing a beat, the door is closed until zero zero zero one, you may make requests for ham and cheese at that time. mustard is seasonal, and not requestable at this time. thank you. goodbye. frank hung his head in despair. he pressed the button on the waterspout and pushed himself a cup of water and drank it down in one gulp. it was all so sad. not like the old days,riding the rails free as a bird between omaha nebraska and yuma arizona with doc and the kid and jake. and meeting glenda down by the old mill stream. would those days ever return? and what about ____ next

zero plus nothing equals - 6. william wilson

br> by jeremy witherington

part six of 31

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an empty road, going nowhere. an empty horizon. a cloudless sky. a man walks along the empty toad, toward the empty horizon. he is a strange man. he has one gray eye and one blue eye. the gray eye is cold and menacing. the blue eye is sad and lonely. he wears a hat which is tilted on his head and comes down over the sad blue eye so that only the cold and menacing gray eye would be visible to anyone he chanced to meet on the road. the left side of the hat is green and has a red feather stuck in it. the right side of the hat is brown and is adorned with a button saying “you don’t know me”. the man wears a long black coat which comes down to his shoes. the coat was formerly black but has turned gray and is stained with wind and rain and with ketchup, mustard and turkey gravy. the man walks along. the empty horizon does not get any closer. what is the man’s name? it is william wilson. he once knew better days, he was the middleweight judo champion of the world. and the most successful screenwriter in the world. and the biggest drug dealer in the world. and the emperor of the universe. it all began to come apart one night when he was hanging outside the club paradise talking to some other beautiful people besides himself. this punk came along and thought he could mess with william wilson when the sun went down and darkness covered the earth. the punk’s name was billy. not billy the kid or billy the anything, just billy. billy had a girl back home in sioux city iowa named sally jane. next

zero plus nothing equals - 5. eddie and mabel

by jeremy witherington

part five of 31

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eddie woke up. he rolled over and went back to sleep he had a dream where he was walking across a desert approaching a city filled with gas stations. the whole city was gas stations and nothing but gas stations. eddie had never worked in a gas station before. he was more of a pizza delivery guy. he knew how to deliver pizza. you got outside and around and sometimes met some interesting people. not that often, but sometimes. and sometimes you got some big tips. again not that often but sometimes. and sometimes delivering pizza you met women, or so he heard from some of the other guys like frank, or so they said. the women eddie delivered to just paid him and sometimes gave him a reasonably good tip, but that was that. and usually there was a guy already there, a husband or boy friend or whatever. not that eddie was calling frank a liar or anything like that. be all that as it may, eddie was standing beside a gas pump at one of the gas stations in the city full of gas stations. and a fat lady with a name tag on her gas station uniform shirt that said her name was mabel came out of the gas station office and stared at eddie. eddie wondered what was going on, because he had never actually met anybody named mabel, or seen or heard the name anywhere except in a movie or a comic book. you looking for work, big guy? mabel asked eddie. no one had ever addressed eddie as “big guy” before, as far as he could remember. sure, why not? eddie answered promptly. maybe a little too promptly. what kind of answer is that? mabel retorted with a slight frown on her chubby face. i just mean i’m game, that’s all. i am more of a pizza delivery guy than a gas station guy, but i can take anything you throw my way. i am glad to hear that. i am glad you are glad to hear that. so what is it all about? what is anything all about? i think you might be just what the proverbial doctor ordered, mister pizza delivery guy. eddie just nodded a bit as he did not know quite to say in this curious situation. come on in to the office and we can talk turkey, mabel said drily. eddie followed her in to the office. looks like it might rain, eddie offered as mabel took a seat at a little desk in the office. it doesn’t rain much around here. next

zero plus nothing equals - 4. the desert

by jeremy witherington

part four of 31

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> ' billy jones woke up. he rolled over and went back to sleep he had a dream in which he was walking down a dark road. the road led to a desert and continued across the desert. a mountain loomed on the horizon and the road pointed to it. what is the point, billy wondered, of putting a road across the desert pointing to a mountain when you can see the mountain for yourself and just head for it. he soon got his answer. the road stopped and there was nothing but sand between him and the mountain. the sand got in his boots. the boots he had paid five silver dollars for back in tombstone. just so folks would think he was billy the kid, not just plain old billy jones. but it had not worked out. people just laughed at him. he tried to join the smith gang, but they just laughed at him and called him a punk and a tenderfoot. he didn’t know what a punk was, but he was no tenderfoot. he asked mister henry morgan, the proprietor of the general store, if he could get a job sweeping up, but mister morgan just laughed at him. he told ernestine fallover, the clerk at mister morgan’s store and the prettiest gal in town that she was the prettiest gal in town and she did not exactly laugh at him but just said - yes of course i am the prettiest girl in town, who else did you have in mind? and buck bangover and grandpa givens over at the stove and the cracker barrel laughed fit to bust. and now he had sand in his boots! billy woke up. it was stil dark. he did not know how long he had been awake. or how long he had been alive. trapped in this town. trapped on this planet. hunted down like a gorilla escaped from the circus. in the wind and rain. across the desert. with the moon behind a cloud and sand in his boots. next

zero plus nothing equals - 3 . treasure

by jeremy witherington

part three of 31

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> albert albertson woke up. he got up. they think everything is a joke, he mused. and yet i am still here. i wonder why. the quality of my life has been mediocre from the start. and yet i began with every advantage. i was invited by fate to conquer the world. my name is albert, but my friends call me buddy. there are many versions of my life available. here is one that i remember. my parents were deep sea divers who spent their lives seeking lost treasure. i grew up expecting a miraculous twist of fate to transform our lives at any moment. but i really understood nothing. i see i am boring you - i will try to get to the point and tell a good story. roger jones was my best friend. sam brown was my worst enemy. imagine my surprise and chagrin when they teamed up against me and deprived me of what was rightfully mine. just when i thought i had it made. my parents had died when their little boat was sunk off the coast of madagascar in a sudden storm when they were searching for the treasure of captain lloyd, one of the more obscure pirates of the golden age of piracy. at the time i was enrolled at a jesuit school in the south of france. when mr tompkins, the lawyer, visited the school to inform me of my parents’ passing, he brought me a box of old maps, which was my only inheritance. the maps were faded with age, and many were barely intelligible. roger was my best pal at the school, and he had all the money in the world. i showed him the maps. roger kindly offered to continuing paying for me to finish the school year. but when the year was over we would set out to find some treasure. he would pay all the expenses, and we would split the earnings fifty-fifty. next

zero plus nothing equals - 2. the lawn

by jeremy witherington

part two of 31

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richard the lion hearted woke up. he rolled over and went back to sleep. he was walking down a long corridor lined with paintings of ladies in pink and white dresses playing croquet on green lawns under blue skies. miss cecily was defeating miss emily roundly at the game.and miss emily did not like it one bit. now, cecily, lady desdemona admonished cecily loudly, let emily win a game. it is the civilized and ladylike thing to do. i declare i do not care why i should, cecily retorted brashly, as i am feeling neither ladylike nor civilized this morning. lord randolph, who had been smoking a cheroot and observing the proceedings from a spot on the sidelines, guffawed loudly. i say, that is a spirited filly, his lordship announced to his chum and toady, the honorable bartholomew billingsley, who waa standing ready in his shadow, i do not care to be referred to in such terms, miss cecily shouted. and with that, she flung her croquet mallet in to the ground, narrowly missing hittting miss emily on her dainty foot, and flounced off. oh dear, what is to be done? lady desdemona muttered. i do hope she pulls herself together in time to be presented to the duke of g———— at sunset. no fear of that, lord randolph chortled salf-satisfiedly, and the honorable bartholomew billingsley laughed appreciatively. go after her, will you, lady desdemona implored richard, who had been observing the scene silently from the shade of the old oak tree. see that she does not do anything foolish. no fear of that, lord randolph shouted again, and the honorable bartholomew billingsley laughed appreciatively. again. what a bother, richard thought, but he did as lady desdemona commanded. the rolling lawn stretched out eternally down to the meandering river. richard encountered his old schoolfellow sir lancelot sitting on a rock, reading a slender new volume of verses from the poet laureate. did you see miss cecily go by? richard asked lancelot. i saw a flash of something pink and white go by. might that have been she? no doubt. be a good fellow and accompany me, will you. if she has committed some folly like jumping into the river i might need all the assiatance i can get. why, of course, old man. anything for a pal. but when richrd and lancelot reached the river, they saw only miss cecily’s straw bonnet, with its white ribbon, heading placidly downstream. what a great bother, richard thought bitterly. i shall probably have to resign my commission in the guards. and the worst of it was, that that cad randolph had been witness to his humiliation. do you think it worth diving in, richard asked lancelot, putting the best face on it he could. i do not see why not, lancelot replied. nothing ventured,, nothing gained. a trio of clouds passed overhead. next

zero plus nothing equals - 1. the room

by jeremy witherington

part one of 31

> isaac newton woke up. he was lying on a bed. in a room. a small room. there was nothing in the room except the bed - just a cot - he was lying on. and himself. he had a shirt and pants on, and socks and shoes. it was dark. he tried to remember where he was. he sat up. he checked the pockets of the pants he was wearing and they were empty. he got up off the bed and looked for a light or a light switch but did not find either. there was a small window with a shade pulled down and he raised it. it was raining out. with the shade raised he could see a little better, but still saw nothing on the floor. he knelt down and looked and felt under the small bed but found nothing. there was a door in the room. it opened on to a short hallway. there was another door across from the room he was in, and a door at one end of the hall with some lettering on it that he could not make out. a bathroom? at the other end of the hall was a door clearly marked exit. he went back into the room and lay down on the bed. why did everything have to be so complicated? he wondered, not for the first time. he went back to sleep. maybe everything will be revealed when i wake up again, he thought. the rain beat on the window. and the window began to shake a little from the wind next