Awful, Ohio Page 3

After the love, Troy’s body had flooded with urgency. He had envisioned a better life with Lacy, exposing her to his idea, as he now needed to do what was necessary in accomplishing what needed to be accomplished. He kissed Lacy farewell, departing from the sheets of their bed in deep pursuit of their purpose, as Lacy watched, tangled in the covers, with her hopes restored.

  Troy’s mind and thoughts were focused on how to blow up the sun, unaware of what his body was actually doing, as the years of mechanical routine dressed him, fed him, took him from his home, placed him in his car, merging him onto the highway, and parking him directly into the parking lot of his place of employment. Troy was unaware that any of this had happened, as he was still focused on his plans of destroying the sun.

  His place of employment was the largest contributor to the thriving economy that bloomed from Awful, Ohio. It had the most jobs that needed to be done, occupying the largest portion of the plethora of humans that entered into Awful, Ohio. It was a manufacturing plant that created, packaged, and distributed food condiments, advertising to specialize in hot sauce. Mad Ted’s Uckin Hot Auce was the name of the cardinal condiment that the factory manufactured. The name was derived from its creator, Mad Ted, who wasn’t mad or displayed any signs of mental imbalance, but it went with the entire gimmick. The slogan was to suggest just how hot the hot sauce was, uckin’ hot, which was to imply that it could burn away one’s ability to pronounce consonants.

  Troy sat inside of the car and stared at the circular formation of the steering wheel. Every molded groove that encrusted the wheel to fit with the ripples in his closing fist coruscated like a blinding penumbra, washing away his mechanized objective to enter into the warehouse. Troy remained seated in the hatchback, parked in the parking lot, focusing on his newly devoted purpose of destroying the sun. His mind and thoughts were constructing various plans, ideas, blue prints, and concoctions, each invested into the same result of destroying the sun.

  The parking lot was warm, soaking up all of the heat that the sun was deploying onto the pavement. The heat was rising from the pavement, and into the car. Troy began to sweat, feeling the temperature rise in the hatchback. He looked out the window, glaring up at the sun that stared down at him, like the watchful eye staring at all of its children. It knew what Troy was trying to do, and did everything that it could to prevent Troy from engaging further into cosmic anarchy.

  The temperature kept rising, increasing the heat in the hatchback, but it wasn’t enough, as Troy remained committed to his new conversion, remaining devoted to meticulously constructing the most efficient solution to what he dubbed as his and Lacy’s problem, extinguishing the sun.

  Troy’s first plan did not involve any destruction. What it did involve was shading the earth from the sun’s deceiving rays of warmth. The plan involved the construction of a large umbrella rocket that would launch into space, locking into orbit around the sun. The umbrella rocket would line up perfectly in front of the earth, orbiting at the same velocity. Once detonated, the umbrella rocket would expand, shielding the earth from the sun’s light, pluming into a shading penumbra, blocking all of the sun’s rays and warmth from entering into the earth, shading the earth from the exposed for the rest of eternity. “Out of sight, out of mind” was acceptable for Troy, even if it still allowed the sun to sustain existence, because as long as Troy was able to extinguish it from the mind, then it wasn’t possible for it to impose its hazardous influences onto the earth’s population. There would be no destruction, and there would be no end. Troy was more often than not a kind and warm hearted person, very willing to share the large universe with other floating bodies. The sun would still be there, but as long as he couldn’t see it or experience any evidence that the sun would normally leave, he would be content with the results. This was the least destructive, and probably the most environmentally friendly approach to the entire objective. But the self’s contentment was the only thing constituting the mind and body. Passive aggressive behavior isn’t always the easiest solution.

  But as the heat increased inside of the blue hatchback, Troy’s brain began to swell, boiling inside of his skull. The warmth was consuming his compassion, as the sun remained directly above the blue hatchback, emitting its power and punishment onto Troy. But Troy was fearless, remaining focused, seeking immediate resolution, fighting back. Mass annihilation crept through the expanding tissue of Troy’s brain, thinking that destruction was the most easily accessible way to attain the goal, regardless of how barbaric it was. A large nuclear missile was the first sun-destroying method that Troy conjured up. There wasn’t much complexity behind the theory. Troy had seen many missiles being launched into space through fictional and non-fictional media. He just wanted to launch a big ass nuclear weapon towards the sun, blowing up the object, so that it dissects into millions of particles floating in multiple directions, releasing the manifested power within the great, fiery being that floated directly above his revealed existence.

  Troy understood that the destruction wouldn’t be well received by the deceived population, but he justified his maliciousness with deep philosophical thought, designing a system of morals that would tolerate such a heinous act. Troy concluded that that sun was not one large entity, but billions of tiny entities imprisoned together against their will. It wouldn’t be mass annihilation, but mass liberation. He convinced himself that blowing the object to smithereens would be liberating for the billions of particles that are being restrained from living an independent life. Destruction wasn’t a sin, but a blessing. The image replayed through his head, a large missile colliding into the plasmic core of the sun, erupting into the center, exploding and catapulting the billions of particles into every direction, expanding through the deepest parts of space. The solar system would be released from its orbital restraint, disarming the earth, endowing it with the freedom to float freely in every infinite direction that space had to offer, engulfed in the peace of the abysmal belly of black space. The image was toothsome and beautiful.

  “Hey Troy, soaking up the morning’s last minutes of freedom before stepping inside?” These words were exhausted from the mouth of Lou Stooles. Lou Stooles was a coworker. He had walked over to Troy’s beat up hatchback, noticing Troy still sitting in the driver’s seat. Lou Stooles offered a friendly morning expression, blending with a smile and soft chuckle. His round, forty-three year old stomach sagged over the tightened belt holding up his pants. His waist and legs were much too small for the mid-section that was blooming from his torso. He would never hesitate to express what was on his mind, crack a joke, or even toss out a harmless insult. His stomach would always gyrate with waves from the over friendly glee. Today, those waves ran through a pin striped, short sleeved, button down shirt. The wave was almost strong enough to buckle the space and time spectrum, causing irreversible changes to existence. Whether they be harmful or beneficial were unknown.

  Lou acted as if Troy was a major entity within his life, as they had known each other since Lou had entered into the hot sauce workforce. However, Troy was emotionless regarding Lou. He didn’t hate or despise the man, but he never found anything enticing enough about Lou Stooles for him to want to spend time with him outside of work. Lou Stooles was nothing more than a flesh locker, patrolling through Awful, Ohio, encasing organs and muscle that collectively created everything that Lou Stooles was, without creating the collective consciousness that is required in rejecting the demands of Awful, Ohio. Troy would never admit such an affront to Lou, but he indirectly thought that his relationship with Lou was expendable.

  The relationship would sometimes become strenuous on Troy because he didn’t want to waste time pretending to be something that he wasn’t, a friend. But Troy never wanted to come off as being callous, so he would make a friendly effort to avoid Lou. As long as Troy did not make eye contact with Lou Stooles, then he would not be obligated to acknowledge Lou’s existence. Troy never wanted reimbursement for providing Lou with this favor, but Lou was either persistent or st
upid, because lacking eye contact never halted his frequent interactions with Troy. As long as Troy had work, Troy had Lou.

  “Oh, no,” Troy responded subtlety. “I was just thinking about something.” His response was delayed, but the delay went unnoticed because of the altered time caused by Lou’s stomach gyrations. Habitual activity overpowered Troy’s body, as he was removed from the hatchback, abandoning the ideas that were going to remove him and Lacy from the exposed. His expressionless face buckled under the pressure of reality as he was appalled at the hideous blue shade that his car was colored in. For a moment, Troy had forgotten what kind of car he was driving, and even forgot about his home, and the dreadful job that he instinctively drove to every morning. His inability to focus on his surroundings was a blessing, allowing him to progress further with his sun-destroying liberation. But it was all demonically interrupted by Lou Stooles. Lou Stooles noticed Troy and his mannerisms, responding with another laugh, as he had always thought to know Troy for having a dry sense of humor.

  “Yeah, I hear that buddy!” Lou responded with enthusiasm, spewing phlegm from his mouth in toxic cackles, attempting to indoctrinate Troy into accepting their careers. Lou was an avid smoker, finding that his time was best utilized in coating his lungs with tar. He removed a cigarette from the breast pocket of his striped, buttoned down shirt, placing it into his mouth. Lou had exceptionally small hands, causing the cigarettes to appear much larger. Often, Lou would be approached by random members of Awful, Ohio, requesting the location of where they could find the larger cigarettes. They were always saddened and perturbed to discover that they had been deceived by Lou and his small hands.

  Lou’s excitement to inhale a lit cigarette would cause his flesh-filled limbs to flap recklessly, fumbling the cigarette through his miniature fingers, while simultaneously attempting to release the matches. Because of his infantile hands, Lou Stooles always had to strike the match multiple times before it sprung fire. A funny, conflicting image would display in the minds of spectators, as it would often resemble an adolescent attempting to smoke a cigarette for the first time. Troy would always fill with installed temptation of ripping the cigarette from the boy’s hand, and scolding him mercilessly for the careless mistake that the boy was inflicting onto his own life. But he always stopped when he remembered that it was Lou, who was a forty-three year old man with a family and nothing else going for him in life. Troy would stand there and stare, watching Lou like a meat closet, with every parable of flesh and organ on display like a window dummy without any existential awareness. “Take it all in, big fella,” Troy mumbled silently, as he stared at Lou, carelessly fumbling his life support tools with his small hands.

  “Does the boss still have you working in D3?” asked Lou. His question was laced with fabricated confidence. The cigarette danced up and down in his mouth, in sync with every syllable enunciated from his mouth. It was hypnotic and enticing, and Troy stood still, star struck at the seductive image. Lou grabbed a match, pressing it against the rough strip on the pack, striking it multiple times before igniting the tip. He pulled the flame to the edge of the cigarette, breathing in the fire like sipping cold soda from a straw. The flame stretched into the end of the cigarette, as if it was looking for a place to hide. A cold, dark cavern, shelter from the exposed. But the flame would illuminate everything that was there, exposing the tobacco and the irony stuffed into the tip. It could never hide. The lit cigarette remained in Lou’s mouth, as he brought his fingers to his mouth, wetting each tip. The tip of the lit match was centered between the moist index finger and the thumb. Lou merged the moist fingers together, extinguishing the flame.

  “Yeah, I think so,” was the response that crawled from Troy’s disinterested mouth, forgetting what he was responding to. He was enraptured by the vision of Lou’s moist finger tips extinguishing the flame. It was provocative and influential. Again, Troy Slushy’s mind separated itself from his surroundings, blue printing more ideas, envisioning a large space ship containing two prongs erecting from the front of the space craft. Each arctic pole would be dissected from the earth’s body, fused to the ends of each prong. The earth had to sacrifice something for the reward. The spacecraft would float up to the sun, with each prong mounted by one of the ice filled poles. The two prongs would close together, extinguishing the sun forever, reenacting Lou’s moist finger tips extinguishing the match.

  After spending another morning with Lou Stooles, Troy was no longer interested in a quick and painless liberation, separating the billions of sun-particles for their own personal destiny, but instead, something as cold as permanent removal from existence, extinguishing the light of every particle, and the ability for each particle to expose anything ever again. Of course, Troy would first need to find a way to dissect each pole from the earth, and mount them to the prongs with an adhesive stronger than chewed bubble gum. Perseverance is much more eminent in accomplishing a goal than feasibility, which was unquestionably in Troy’s favor.

  Lou and Troy’s wandering conversation meandered with them towards the warehouse. Troy’s eyes looked up the structure of the building as they walked closer to the entrance. Perched above the building was the sun, hanging like a watchman, guiding Lou and Troy towards the warehouse. It woke up bright and early to keep an eye on its children scattered through Awful, Ohio. The warehouse was tall, and the closer Troy got the higher and higher the warehouse would elevate into the sky, reaching for the sun, hoping to touch and experience the architect of existence.

  It was clear that the warehouse admired its creator. But the warehouse was confused. It was being deceived. From the perspective of earth, the sun appeared to be a glistening hole, secreting soft lubricants and beautiful aromas, offering infinite peace and comfort. The building would erect closer and closer, wishing to rest inside of the glistening hole for warmth and comfort, absorbing as much of the creator as possible. But the being that was the warehouse was being destroyed, with every ultra violet ray breaking down its physical structure. Troy’s heart became swollen and sympathetic. He touched the building with his hand before walking through the entrance doors, hoping to console the being with real love. He placed his face and chest against the brick exterior, holding the building, hoping that the sympathy would transfer from his body, into the warehouse and its being, offering salvation. Lou stopped and stared, confused why Troy was hugging the warehouse. But his confusion never lead to judgment, as he could hear Troy whispering to the structure, “Soon it’ll all be OK. I’m going to destroy the sun.”

  Chapter 3

  “The Colors” – Theodore Sphinctor