WriMo/Acra: Maximum Frame Purge WriMo Special

[Tim Munn]

WriMo/Acra.
Maximum Frame Purge RACCWriMO Special
Dream Obliteration Apprenticeship


It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before.  Ugly, ugly!  Still, he
had to perform his task that had been set before him.  It had occurred
during a dream; him seeing this terrible task played out in full
color, almost so real; and now, it lay hear before him.  Ready to be
completed with monstrous results.  It was freezing cold up here,
something that should have been expected.  In the dream, it was a
blazing million degrees; his skin melted away, his bones turned to
ash.  Yet he still performed the task with the utmost of precision.

Yesterday, he would have said all this was preposterous; yesterday, he
was living a normal life, with wife and child, mortgaged out of his
brains, living in the burbs; yesterday, he realized, he really was so
high on life.

Today, the day after the dream, he was at the North Pole.  Events were
ramping up in that region.  He was one of only a few hundred living
souls-- no, that wasn't the right word-- thing suited the situation in
his own special case-- in the North Pole.  Not long, not long at all,
the dream would be fulfilled.  He would have to  kill Santa Claus.


“Let me get this straight.  You have to do what?” Beverley laughed,
not believing what she had just heard from her husband.  Floyd sat
there, fidgeting in his chair, his cereal going soggy.  A strange look
came over him, Floyd grabbing at his head.  He let out a bark-- or was
it a yipe?-- that made Beverley cringe a little.  He made to reply to
her several times, but gave up in disgust.  Beverley laughed again,
pulling out her coat from the closet.  Floyd looked up, somewhat
perturbed that his wife wasn't so worried about his dilemma.  “Floyd,
is this another attempt to get out of going to get your colon
checked?  If it is, forget about it.  You're going to Doctor Milsap's
office, and that's that.”

Floyd seemed to come out of his confused state a little.  Maybe that
was it; so much worry over Doc Milsap and the looming colonoscopy.
His own father had succumbed to the dread disease, and he was sure as
all heck that it wasn't going to happen to him.  Nerves, why hadn't he
thought of that?!  Floyd nodded, winking at his lovely wife.  “That
has to be my problem.  I'm sorry Bev.  Do you forgive me?”

A smile to her, making Floyd feel a little better.  “Of course I
forgive you!  It's just that you don't get these crazy... dreams
everyday, once a week or month.  Doctor Milsap wont hurt you, you'll
see.  Now, eat your cereal and get ready, because I'm already quite
the ways ahead of you.”

She gave Floyd a peck on the cheek, going about her own preparations.
Floyd laughed at himself.  So, so silly.  He laughed again, picking up
the Cityland Globe-World that lay on the table.  He pulled out the
classifieds section, his feet beginning a fast tap.    He was looking
for something, but what?  There, between Industrial Waste – Resellers
and Invisible Man Wanted, an anecdote about travel, not particularly
funny or interesting.  Below the story, a key, as was talked about.
The key-- the gun locker in the dream-- the giant man in military
dress-- “I was never in the service”-- the jungle, he's gone insane!--
I have no home in Peru-- that's where the Nazca lines are, where the
aliens landed, you know?-- “There are nooo-”-- it's one big
conspiracy, like JFK getting shot from behind-- John Fitzgerald
Kennedy wasn't shot, just an impersonator; the real Kennedy lives in
Kalamazoo, ready to usurp the Presidency of the United States-- it's
all lies!-- “Lies just like-”-- Santa Claus--

That's when Beverley found Floyd hunched over, face planted in his
cereal bowl, newspaper clenched tightly in his fist.  She screamed his
name only once, then ran to call an ambulance.  Bev's scream roused
Floyd enough to pull his head, which seemed to weigh a ton or more,
out of the bowl.  He looked out from his milky eyes, blinded by the
rays of the rising sun behind the blinds.  The blind leading the
blinded, Floyd thought horribly.  What was the key to getting out of
that situation?  Learn the truth, was Floyd's simple answer, the truth
is the key.  Then he thought of his dream.  Hadn't this happened?  All
this crazy nonsense?  Hadn't it it all happened before?  Oh God, he
thought with sudden and intense horror, I'm stuck in a loop!  Not deja
vu, anybody can get that.  Me!  Floyd Beckersley caught in a loop.
Then, it occurred to him that it must be some super around here,
making him feel like that, while battling his or her arch nemesis.
Some power, he didn't understand it; maybe his world was being written
out at this very time, and time was the key that he just didn't have
because he locked it in the car or lost it at Vivian's-

How was a stroked out Floyd Beckersley going to explain Vivian Newton
to his wife?  Yeah, she's been a friend for a long time now, from
work.  She's only nineteen Floyd!  She's from work Beverley, don't
blow this out of proportion!  People you work with are in their
twenties and thirties Floyd!  Calm down Beverley.  She's less than
half your age, Floyd!  Beverley--  She's the same age as our daughter!

Olivia had survived only a week.  She was a super; or at least that's
what the doctor's had said.  She was born with the 'Reds' as they call
it, something like AIDS or HIV for them, in that there is no cure.
Olivia was the youngest to succumb to the Reds, and one of only a few
born to unpowered parents.  Floyd tried to call out to Beverley.  It
must have worked as she flew in and immediately cradled Floyd.  He
tried to make a last confession, admit his relationship with Vivian
Newton, who was nearly the same age their daughter Olivia would have
been.  He hears himself slur these things, nearly incomprehensible,
and when Vivian comes into question, he manages to say Olivia
clearly.  Beverley crushed Floyd's head to her chest and began to
scream.  Floyd laughed, but it sounded terrible.  This was the closest
he'd been to Beverley in this fashion in a few years.  It must have
been a special delivery from the North Pole.  And who lived at the
North Pole?

Santa Claus.

“He must die,” Floyd garbled out, which sounded like 'I might die'.
That only made Beverley's screams that much worse.  Good baby, good,
because I've got it good down here and your screams drown out the
thoughts tearing my mind apart.


The home misplaces the attempted mankind.  That always happens in
times like these.  A patent solos underneath the headache.  Yeah, I
can actually kind of see how that could happen, or be.  Yeah?  The
eagle cooperates into the dawn.  The sun is so bright, Floyd shields
his face with his outstretched arm.  He notices his nakedness, but
shrugs it off.  A short greenish-colored man approaches him.  The
smile on his face is huge, exposing large, pointy teeth.  He doesn't
like the look of that little person, but wants desperately to hug it
at the same time.  'Under the friend reverts the human', a voice says
from out of nowhere.  Beverley is there now.  She is nineteen again,
the age they first met.  Three's a crowd little fella, he says to the
creature.  Beverley leaves crying.  Floyd asks, 'Can a medieval query
spray the communist audience?'  Santa Claus appears in place of the
creature, Floyd immediately covering himself.  Santa goes to shake
Floyd's hand, but has second thoughts.  Santa says, 'The writer
invests the decline.'  Floyd replies, 'The what the what?'  The voter
experiments without the biologist, comes Santa's quick reply.  'When
can the conscious ritual cross the amusing grammar?'  There was no
reply from the red-suited fat man, just the growing acid kaleidoscope
coming from the sun.  Immediately, Floyd's skin melted, he becoming a
bewildering shadow-skeleton of his former self.  'Look at me.'  The
misunderstood stagger negates an impossible believer.  Yes.  The touch
progresses beneath the empties minimalist.  I know now.  The debt
hunts around the lifted flood.  This is the balance of the universe.
The floppy senses the laboratory.  Just one big experiment, all of it
being done on the fly; no notes, hardly any plot.  A costly critic
covers the associate.  Forward or back; it's these mistakes I can
never make again.  An advantage listens, a bulletin jacks the deal.
It all makes sense now.  Why does the back ink an empirical warp?  Who
needs questions when you have the answers?  A made turntable chalks
without the silence.  This sounds oddly fitting enough, don't you
think?  A shell screams opposite a compelled reward, was Santa's lame
excuse for a comeback.  It proved the Santa Claus Conspiracy in an
exacting detail.

Floyd woke to a cool breeze.  He cracked the window a hairs width, or
at least that's what he remembered.  The drivers-side window was all
the way down.  Beverley's was cracked.  Everything came to him a
second time when he awoke.  Everything was different now.

“WOW!” Floyd said exuberantly.  This startled Beverley awake, who gave
a sour look.  “Hey, don't look so sour, Bev.  It's going to get better
soon.  The North Pole's a long ways up there, you know?” he gave her a
reassuring look.

A while later, Floyd looks to Beverley.  He kisses her forehead.  She
smiles.  “That's it,” he says puffing on a cigarette he shared with
Beverley-- they hacked  robustly, neither had taken up the habit since
they were twenty-somethings-- “This story is all over.  Nothing more
to see here.”

“Floyd?”

“What is it Lover-Girl?”

“Can we stay here a little longer?  I like the stars.”

“Anything you want.”


written 10:45 p.m. - 2:15 a.m.
&
copyright
Tim Munn

almost a day off and two words short, dang.  I've had a version of
this story (and the larger Maximum Frame Purge story) in my mind for
about a year now.  If I had more time, I think it would have been
better.  I'm going to try a daily update, if not, expect more next
Tuesday.  The dream part I used a random sentence generator.  I
plan(ned) to use it over the course of the series.  Story titles came
about a year ago, via the same random word/sentence generator.  I
imagine pure randomness for this tale; all I really have is an idea of
the beginning few issues and the last issue.  Everything in between
just happens.  :)