Title of your fic
A Jagged Smile
Author name and email
Soulless Thinker
SoullessThinker@netscape.net
Genre
General/Angst
Rating
R
Main Characters in your fic
Nny
A Brief Description
A little tour through Johnny's mind; a mess of memories, misery, and awful, awful dreams.
Author's Notes
At each big space, Johnny is changing: dreaming, in the past, or in the present. Also, a great deal of this story has Johnny in various phases of personality. If I made line breaks, it would be too easy. I guess it's violent. Personally, I think it is rather normal. Oh and all the scenes are important. This is merely an introduction.
Chapter 1: Fever Dreams
There is something utterly glorious in the fear and pain of another. This sometimes opinion became true for him as he slowly pushed the knitting needle into the pliant flesh. The woman squealed, trying to escape, shaking and jerking against the implements that held her. It was curious, how much they resisted. After all, in movies and such the hero would always stand unflinching. Perhaps the damsel in the distress would cry or shake or proposition the foul captor depending on what type of film it was. But in real life? People don't hold up a good facade when half stabbed to a wall. Whimpering, red-faced and shaking, the woman was desperately trying to edge away from the needle, and as it went through, she howled, wept and tore at it. But it did go through. He smiled and picked up the hammer. The sniveling woman was transfixed by the hammer and began a high-pitched wail that became a scream as the hammer punched the needle farther through the bleeding broken bone and muscle and into the wooden wall. The man giggled, a rough tenor, and felt his face twist into a grin. He toyed with her recently impaled hand, moving the fake, long nails back and forth. She was continuing to cry rather pathetically. He added a bit of pressure and the nail snapped at the base. She screamed.
It was funny; she had been down in his basement for several hours, being nailed and metallically attached to the wall. Impaled by sewing needles, nails, scissors, screws, large toothpicks, pencils (that had failed, but there were still little bits of wood and graphite in her left arm and on the floor), screwdrivers and good ol' fashioned hooks, the very painful method of death was a personal favorite. Yet ironically, she had not truly screamed until now. She tended to howl in agony, but this? This was sharp and clear.
He liked it. He broke the finger quickly in his capable hands. She screamed again. Delicious. He broke nails, fingers, toes, everything.
And he awoke with that beautiful scream in his ears.
Stumbling off his floor where he'd unwillingly submitted to exhaustion, he shuffled to the bathroom in a daze and knelt next to toilet. Hot, stinking bile and vomit fell from his nose and mouth. He let it fall and, eventually, drip away, while sweat and tears wet his face. He was cold and felt like he had died. Again. The knowledge that he was shit overwhelmed him. In the dream, he had liked it. Of all things, he liked it. He sniffled and fell away from the bowl. Staring up at the metal sink, he pounded his head against the floor as he cried. He had liked it. He curled into a ball, face wet with all horrible fluids and shivered. He was so cold.
Johnny tugged at the suit, annoyed. He hated picture day. He sat in the back of the auditorium with his class; backpack in hand. In his science notebook, he started to draw the place around him. It had a little twist, just like he himself. The auditorium of the sketch was one many years after a war or disaster; messily drawn bodies lying on the rows of chairs and flowers and vines clinging to the pillars under the risers. He frowned. Ripping the paper in two almost equal halves, he compulsively ripped the paper into many little squares. He pushed the mass into a pocket of his backpack. It was filled with thousands of squares. The class obeyed some unheard signal and started to file out of the rows. Johnny plunged the notebook back into the bag and got up, last in line. Again. He would be in the front of the picture, too. Like always. Again and again: the smallest, the thinnest, the shortest, the weakest. He hated it. Hated the shoves, hated the fact that he read and wrote and draw made them call him gay and fag and queer. Hated the fact that they pushed him when no one looked; hated that they had started to do it even when someone did look. Hated the prods and kicks and whispers.
And he hated picture day.
"His black suit and tie made him look like a good boy, a little gentleman," said Mother. Right, mom. Right, you believe that. 'Cause ya won't believe how many times I got choked with that stupid tie today. Won't know how many backhanded comments the teachers said. Why did he bother to listen anymore?
The front of the line. He hated it.
A walk, he needed a walk. People. Talking. Disgust, sadness, something, anything. He'd see a movie- was anything there that didn't look like the normal action idiocy? Yes, something. Something must be playing; something was always playing. He walked out of 777, cold and small and scared, for no reason. No earthly cause. Several minutes later, the suburban nightmare gave way to an urban sprawl. Apartment buildings, hair 'salons', nails, clothes, bars, churches. Life.
And then, the movie theatre. It was a small, one-theatre deal, with popcorn and very few ushers. And midnight showings. It was some ghastly gothic flick, by the looks of the arriving audience. He squinted up. Nope, he didn't know it. But he'd see it, something to pass the time. God, this was lon- no. He would not talk. A resolve came over him. Maybe it was the lights down, or the cold breeze or the fake glittering earrings in the pale faces, or all of them. But he suddenly felt stronger, and in his mind, he was smiling.
The flick was short, rather gory and truly the worst thing he'd ever seen. And yet... It had some pathetic excuse for life in it. An actress attempting fear; an allegedly badass actor trying to play himself. He was a conceited snot. But for something about that was reassuring.
He stared at the paper. He could not believe it. Fuck. He had talent; enough to hole himself up and live without the rest of the world. Enough to occupy his mind, most of the time. He would sit in his little apartment and draw. Eyes, mostly. Some mouths, ears, wounds, vague bodies. But it was really just the eyes. He picked up the pencil and ripped it through the drawing paper. Anger and frustration taking command, he took the pencil and began to plunge it into his own flesh. It hurt, but he couldn't feel pain. A flow of blood trickled from the spot he had stabbed and tore at. He splashed it and flicked it at the destroyed picture. A laugh bubbled out of his mouth as a high giggling and he rolled down, laughing as leers ran down his face. He stayed like this until the laughter slowed and died. But the tears continued. No! He would stop this! He had control of himself; he got up fast and turned o stare at the picture.
It wasn't so bad, he saw. An eye, split diagonal by a jagged scar, splattered with blood. A toothy grin glowed into the night.
AN: Fever Dreams is essentially the whole story, parts of the whole story, and none of the whole story. Yes, Johnny is insane. No, he's not this kind of insane. No, this does not mean this whole thing is a fever dream. *smiles* Only some parts of it. Email the loon: SoullessThinker@netscape.net