21st Century Schizoid Man

"Now where was that damn bat?" Marv thought. He knew it was around here somewhere, but he had turned over almost the entire apartment with no luck. He had to hide things from his weaker counterpart, Jack. Jack was a pathetic fool who believed in doing "the right thing". If he found Marv's precious murder weapon he would most likely throw it out, or maybe even turn it over to the cops for blood testing. Of course none of this really bothered Marv, as it would be Jack who would take the fall, but this was his favorite bat and buying a new one simply would not do.

"Aha! There you are." He had opened the door to Jack's plain white refrigerator, expecting to find a snack; what he found instead were completely empty shelves, some kind of green mold, and his favorite bat. "How'd the poor bastard miss that one?" Marv wondered. Now all that was left was the mask, but he knew right where that was. He walked over to the mangy single mattress lying on the floor that Jack called his bed. He picked up Jack's pillow, pulled off the pillowcase, and started to undo the stitching that ran along it. He pulled out the mask and shook it to get rid of the cheap polyester stuffing. This was his true face. He had to separate himself from the vile masses. Those disgusting animals that needed someone to save them, someone to put them out of their misery, like a possum left in the road to die. And of course, he was happy to oblige.

He opened the door of Jack's apartment out into the narrow corridor. As walked to the elevator he couldn't help but look over his shoulder for her. While it was true that almost everyone in this city was ignorant fool, there was one who Marv thought was on to him. What was worse was that they shared a building. She was supposed to be the repair woman, but Marv knew better. He could see through people's little disguises, he just had to hope that she couldn't see through his. He made it to the elevator safely, got inside and pushed the button for the ground floor. When the light above the door flashed "2", the elevator came to a sudden stop. This bothered Marv. Not because he was afraid of people's suspicions, on the contrary, no one (except that damn repair woman) seemed to be suspicious of him at all. Sure, they thought it was strange to see a man with an animal mask on roaming the streets, but what could they really say? Mostly they would just rationalize it ("Oh he must be coming from a costume party." or "Perhaps he's a stage actor.") rather than face the fear of something so strange. When the elevator opened up Marv gave a twitch of displeasure. It was her. It was the repair woman. She just stood there in her baggy trousers starring at him. After a while Marv broke the silence,

"Going down?" His voice sounded muffled and distant through the mask. She simply continued to stare. After a few minutes of inactivity the elevatory shut its doors and lurched back to life. Marv had never felt fear but he imagined it feeling very similar to how that woman made him feel, and he didn't like it.

He stepped out on to the city street and surveyed his surroundings. There was still a bit of sunlight left over from the day. For obvious reasons, Marv preferred to operate at night. "This will have to do for now..." he thought. He quickly noticed that all the people he saw seemed to be heading in one direction. As if their meaningless lives had been given some small purpose.

After following one group for a few minutes he saw what it was that was making the animals flock. A carnival. His eyes lit up and a sinister smile stretched across his face from underneath the mask. This was perfect. He could easily blend in with the festive activities and hide amongst the crowd while he searched for his next victim. He had found his new hunting grounds. But before he could think about any of those things, he had to ride the roller coaster. All work and no play... And he knew Jack wasn't saving time to have any fun, he had to have enough for the both of them. Several rides and one cotton candy later, Marv was ready to go to work. He had had his eyes on one young lady in particular. He watched her until she ready to leave; then he followed. To Marv's delight the girl had chosen to take the alleyway between the Big Dolla and the local bowling alley. As he turned the corner after her he pulled out the bat that he had kept tucked away in his jacket. Just as he began to quicken his pace he heard someone yell,

"Hey you! What're you doing back there!?" He didn't have time to see who it was. He quickly ducked behind a dumpster and pressed himself against the brick wall of the bowling alley.

Night had completely fallen now. He thought he might go for a drink. Perhaps he should find a less conspicuous weapon than a bat.

A Visit From...

Jack woke up--or at least, he thought he woke up. He could never tell whether he was waking up or just regaining consciousness after one of Marv's episodes. He was in his bed. That was a good sign. No blood on his hands. That's a relief. Soon though, he realized, much to his discomfort, that he was laying in a pool of his own sweat. However, this was nothing for him to panic about; it was simply a side effect of his medication. Other side effects included, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, body aches, seizures, and suicidal tendencies. But no schizophrenia. At least there's that. The thought of taking another one of those Pills made his stomach turn--or maybe that was just the Pills he had taken previously kicking in. He took the cylindrical orange bottle out of his pocket and set it down on the Table. Then he starred at it for a bit, turned away, and finally let out a loud sigh.

"Perhaps I should try to get out..." He thought.

To his dismay, when the elevator arrived on Jack's floor, it was occupied by a child. Jack enjoyed his solitary elevator rides. Being confined to the 6x8 steel box as it lurched up and down the floors of Wilshire Tower made him feel somehow calm. This time when the doors slid open, there was a child starring up at him. His eyes were blank and Jack found them very unsettling. He hesitantly stepped into the elevator, trying to avoid the child's gaze at all costs. Jack wasn't sure why he was so disturbed by him, after all he was only a kid. Perhaps it was because he was jealous. The child was so innocent, so fresh and carefree. He saw the world with untainted eyes. Jack wanted that innocence. He wanted those eyes. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain in his leg. He looked down with disbelief. The child had kicked him!

"You're a bad man!" Braxton Chambers said.

Just then the elevator lurched to a stop on the ground floor and the doors opened up. Before Jack could reprimand him, Braxton bolted into the lobby and out the front door. At first Jack was in shock, but after a while he began to wrap his head around what had just occured. Maybe the boy saw his true form, his essence, saw what he had done. After all, he was a bad man. He had done terrible things. But how could the child possibly know about that? Either way, Jack was spooked, and this, coupled with the nasty sleet he could see pouring down outside the front doors, made Jack decide that his time would be better spent in his empty apartment with a glass of scotch.

He poured his glass of scotch, sat down in the only chair he had in his modest apartment--and just at that moment everything went dark. He flipped the light switch near his door to make sure the darkness wasn't just in his mind. Sure enough he wasn't crazy--well at least in this very small instance. He fumbled around in his jacket pocket for the gold embroidered zippo that he kept there and used it to light the candles he had placed on the Table next to his pictures. As the apartment was lit up by the soft orange glow of the candles, Jack turned around to face a reminder that he was in fact, very crazy. There, standing in the corner of his apartment was a tall dark-furred rabbit, about the size of a man. His face was covered in a dark shadow. It always was.

"Hiya, Jacky."

"Hello, Marv."

Jack & Marv

Jack was nervous. His eyes darted around the space of his empty, one room apartment. He had been living there for almost three years but had never taken any effort to furnish his tiny home. It had been about 2 weeks since his last "episode", and that's what made him so antsy. He took the little round pill bottle out of his pocket, removed the lid, and shook two ovular shaped pink pills into the palm of his hand. For a while, he just stared at them. Jack didn't like doctors. He thought they were all just a bunch of quacks trying to get sickly people's money.

"Guess I have no choice." He reasoned with himself.

He lifted his hand to his mouth, tilted his head back, and popped the two pills down into his throat. They tasted awful, like green peas. Jack hated green peas.

Soon his attention wandered to the singular table sitting in the middle of his mostly barren apartment. On it there were several pictures. One was of the house where he had grown up; it reminded him of a simpler time, a time when he never would have needed to be on an any kind of quack medicine. Another was a photograph that he had purchased from an arts and crafts store of a girl riding a bicycle. He wasn't sure why, but something about that picture had always drawn him in. The last picture was that of a tall and beautifully gothic structure. It was a church. Jack's church. He couldn't bare to look at it, yet it was impossible to turn away. His eyes began to fill with tears. He could not believe what he had done. What Marv had done.