The Promise in the Cellar (12 of 12)
Thread: Mission
“I am Professor Plum with the candlestick in the study,” said the curtain. A cat behind her continued to growl.
Mizzy replied, “Uh, okay.”
“I am Reverend Green with the rope in the library.”
“Uh, look…”
“I am Lizzy Borden with the axe.”
Mizzy began to back away, noticing in the gloom that a pair of shoes was poking out from the heaped curtain on the floor. A cat attacked her leg, screeching. She yelped and kicked the creature away, which raced off into another room.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, they say,” said the man behind the curtain who stepped out into view. “What did you leave Kansas for Dorothy? The lion’s courage? The tin man’s heart? The scarecrow’s brain? You had them all, didn’t you? You already had them all. This is your tragedy. It is the criminal tragedy of Western society, having everything and crying as if you have nothing.” He repeated one word in a menacing tone, “Criminal.”
She couldn’t make the man out clearly, a silhouette against the dull glare of the dirty windows. He wore something over his head, muffling his words and obscuring his identity. What had she walked into? She had told everyone her problem and one of them had turned it against her. A trap!
“Julie beat you,” the hooded stranger said as he advanced. “She beat you and took your man. She then took his child. Maybe they were happy in the end, you never thought of that did you? Little Miss Worst Case Scenario, aren’t we? What have you contributed? You helped an old man make tiramisu that no one ate – was that the sum total of your good works?”
She tried to turn around quickly but fell backwards over another cat onto the hard floor, slick and wet. Mizzy was frightened and felt alone and abandoned. There was no god here. She was on her own, betrayed by her own dream. Stupid stupid stupid! Blind!
“You are on your own, Mizzy. Betrayed by your own dream. This is what God is, he is Reality TV. Prizes for a few lucky ones, and to the gutter with the rest. Doesn’t that make your mad? Doesn’t that get your goat?”
Mizzy scrabbled backwards into the dark corner of the room and she knew there was no escape, pinned there. Heart thumping, sweat pouring, a few tears emerged and slid down her cheeks. “What is it you want… God?” she asked, hoping that there was some way out. The stranger was looming over her and she saw that something like a potato sack was over his head, with cut-outs for eyes and mouth.
“I am not God, Mizzy. You should have asked me for my name. But let me apologise, little lost Michelle, this isn’t really about you. This is about a greater good. This is about the abandonment of mankind to its own devices. A confrontation must be provoked. You are my first – he will be my last. This, I promise.”
Gloves reached down and tightened around her throat. Unable to speak, whining through constriction, struggled, legs lashing out slipping across floor, scraping out arcs. Cats stood by, watching, light fell, world sinking losing. Tighter, legs more slowly. Then smaller arcs. Smaller still. Then short, rapid twists of feet. Sunk, lost. No movement.
Click stop.
The omnipotent beings that inhabit your world are an unforgiving lot aren’t they? What has poor Mizzy ever done? Well a lot it would seem as she lurches from one mishap to another. I like the creepiness that edge each section. I like the downright insanity and very subtle surrealism that pervades throughout. I like the way you confound my poor befuddled brain at each turn. I think I know what’s going on and then wham. I loved the denouement. There you are leading me up the twisted gnarled path to what should have been a kind of God with all the religious pointers that you’ve strewn the sections with: stigmatas, churches, rectors but instead ‘it’ turns out to be…. ??? Vengeance and disappointment, guilt and impossible expectations, there is no love, no comfort, no joy. Mizzy is doomed the moment she is born if she is at all, I don’t know now because I have a feeling she may not even have existed that maybe this inebriated woman with the stop watch created a daughter that she could not have or control or want or maybe she is that being in the end who strangles her own child, who knows? She has the stopwatch and controls, well, speed and time of poor Mizzy. And I haven’t even touched on the cat. What do they symbolise if at all? Mythology is suffused with cats and cat lore. They may bring good or bad luck, depending. They are favourite familiars and have been hanged for being witches after all. but here they go through stigmatas. religion and mythology perhaps, but then religion is mythology.
You really do have a great talent for using the sparest of words to conjure up the darkest of atmospheres. You have a wicked sprawling imagination and are not afraid to write of powerful beings and the rage that they are able to unleash on the mundane. Which brings me to Mizzy. Of all the creatures on this planet, of all the beings in all the world, and omnipotency picks on Mizzy. Then again perhaps that is how it should be. The weak and the helpless and emotionally stunted are the first to go. “A confrontation must be provoked.” Between whom? Between what? And why? Why is Mizzy not in control of her own destiny? Why is the stopwatch in control of her?
I could go on and deconstruct some more – but then that’s a testament to how affected I am by this story.
This is powerful stuff. Thank you for sharing it.
Jennifer
x
The omnipotent beings that inhabit your world are an unforgiving lot aren’t they? What has poor Mizzy ever done? Well a lot it would seem as she lurches from one mishap to another. I like the creepiness that edge each section. I like the downright insanity and very subtle surrealism that pervades throughout. I like the way you confound my poor befuddled brain at each turn. I think I know what’s going on and then wham. I loved the denouement. There you are leading me up the twisted gnarled path to what should have been a kind of God with all the religious pointers that you’ve strewn the sections with: stigmatas, churches, rectors but instead ‘it’ turns out to be…. ??? Vengeance and disappointment, guilt and impossible expectations, there is no love, no comfort, no joy. Mizzy is doomed the moment she is born if she is at all, I don’t know now because I have a feeling she may not even have existed that maybe this inebriated woman with the stop watch created a daughter that she could not have or control or want or maybe she is that being in the end who strangles her own child, who knows? She has the stopwatch and controls, well, speed and time of poor Mizzy. And I haven’t even touched on the cat. What do they symbolise if at all? Mythology is suffused with cats and cat lore. They may bring good or bad luck, depending. They are favourite familiars and have been hanged for being witches after all. but here they go through stigmatas. religion and mythology perhaps, but then religion is mythology.
You really do have a great talent for using the sparest of words to conjure up the darkest of atmospheres. You have a wicked sprawling imagination and are not afraid to write of powerful beings and the rage that they are able to unleash on the mundane. Which brings me to Mizzy. Of all the creatures on this planet, of all the beings in all the world, and omnipotency picks on Mizzy. Then again perhaps that is how it should be. The weak and the helpless and emotionally stunted are the first to go. “A confrontation must be provoked.” Between whom? Between what? And why? Why is Mizzy not in control of her own destiny? Why is the stopwatch in control of her?
I could go on and deconstruct some more – but then that’s a testament to how affected I am by this story.
This is powerful stuff. Thank you for sharing it.
Jennifer
x
Mizzy’s purpose from day one was to kick the bucket. The original opening line of this story (when it was still provisionally titled “The Wizard of Oz”) was “Mizzy was his first victim which was rather sad, considering that she was only a practice run” but I have since turned my back on the author-voiced omniscient point-of-view. Besides, the tension at the end works better with the lack of foreknowledge.
This was supposed to be much shorter, character meets killer who she thinks is God, end of story. But I needed to explain what Mizzy was doing in this situation… and she grew a life. Which actually made the final page difficult to follow through on – she didn’t really deserve this.
Some of the images and metaphors have purpose and others don’t. The stopwatch – for example – was invented in part 3 because I thought the image was funny. Only later did I see that it could be used for other purposes, and was the obvious candidate for he very final line once I had got there.
The Promise in the Cellar, like most of the Hammerport stories of 2006, is a prologue.
Thanks for reading. I promise light-hearted stuff for the next couple of weeks. Then back to dark in 2007 for “The Crane”.
Mizzy’s purpose from day one was to kick the bucket. The original opening line of this story (when it was still provisionally titled “The Wizard of Oz”) was “Mizzy was his first victim which was rather sad, considering that she was only a practice run” but I have since turned my back on the author-voiced omniscient point-of-view. Besides, the tension at the end works better with the lack of foreknowledge.
This was supposed to be much shorter, character meets killer who she thinks is God, end of story. But I needed to explain what Mizzy was doing in this situation… and she grew a life. Which actually made the final page difficult to follow through on – she didn’t really deserve this.
Some of the images and metaphors have purpose and others don’t. The stopwatch – for example – was invented in part 3 because I thought the image was funny. Only later did I see that it could be used for other purposes, and was the obvious candidate for he very final line once I had got there.
The Promise in the Cellar, like most of the Hammerport stories of 2006, is a prologue.
Thanks for reading. I promise light-hearted stuff for the next couple of weeks. Then back to dark in 2007 for “The Crane”.
Poor poor Mizzy!!
🙂
A prologue?
Oh no! don’t lighten up! It’s christmas and one should never lighten up at this time.
Jennifer
x
Poor poor Mizzy!!
🙂
A prologue?
Oh no! don’t lighten up! It’s christmas and one should never lighten up at this time.
Jennifer
x