Good afternoon, House of Madness residents:
We've all found ourselves in a funk before, but the main thing is to get back up. Do you pull yourself up, or do you rely on the actions of others to help you get back on track? As always, I hope you enjoy, and most importantly, thanks for reading!
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This was Ed Beerman’s last chance. He’d been writing for the Houston Chronicle for the last five years, but lately his gift of gab had been failing him. If sports columnists could somehow get writer’s block, Ed was certain he had a bad case of it, as it had been a good three weeks since he was able to contribute anything to the newspaper, and his boss Mr. Merkley was growing ever more impatient with Ed’s lack of results. Sure, The Chronicle was a huge paper with plenty of writing contributors, but if you weren’t contributing, you weren’t getting paid, plain and simple. Top that off with a laptop that just took its last breath, and that left Ed stuck somewhere between a rock and a mountain.
Ed had tried Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon, but couldn’t find a decent price on even the most bare bones laptop he could lay eyes on. Ed had one final hope - there was an old electronics store down on Delta Street that specialized in refurbished TVs, cell phones, and PCs, so he put on his coat and headed down to see if he couldn’t just find something that fit his shoestring budget. As Ed entered ‘Control, Alt, Delete’ (Pretty stupid name for a store, he thought to himself), he found himself overwhelmed with the enormous amount of inventory the store boasted under its modest (and probably leaky) roof. Shelves overflowed with printers, hard drives, and all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, all accompanied by clever signage like ‘Bit you can’t resist!, and ‘Don’t worry, we don’t byte!’. As Ed perused the aisles, he saw a few other customers inspecting some do-dads, and a man behind the counter that could have been no younger than two hundred years old at first glance. Ed approached the old man and said “Laptops?”, and the old man pointed to a dark corner way in the back with a finger so crooked, he could have given directions around corners. As Ed approached a table marked with ‘ALL SALES FINAL, NO REFUNDS’, he saw a few relics that he wouldn’t have been surprised to carry the name ‘Commodore’, but in behind one of these and to the left of a bubble monitor was a very nice looking Lenovo, and Ed immediately became optimistic as he figured the old fart behind the counter couldn’t possibly differentiate the value between a prune and a diamond without the aid of his great, great grandson. As Ed opened the cover expecting to find a price taped to the monitor, instead of a number was just a giant letter H. “What’s the H for?!” Ed yelled back to the old man, and as the old man put on his glasses, he stood up and looked at what Ed was referring to. “Oh, that stands for Haunted”, the old man said, and Ed couldn’t keep himself from giggling. Ed carried the laptop over to the counter and asked “How much for a haunted laptop, then?” with a huge smirk on his face. “Twenty-five” the old man said. “HUNDRED!?” Ed asked, appalled at such an answer. “No, you idjit, twenty-five bucks! No refunds! As-is!”, and Ed paid the man as quick as he could, before he changed his mind.
Ed almost floated the entire way home, as he admired his latest purchase and considered his incredible stroke of fortune. Just as he was settling in on cloud nine, a thought came to him, and brought him back down to Earth, as he realized new laptop or not, he still hadn’t been able to write a simple sentence the last three weeks, as his brain seemed to be residing in a fog somewhere above the clouds. “OK, let’s give it a whirl” Ed said to the kitchen table, and opened up his new prize. Before Ed could say anything, his fingers were typing at a rapid pace, spitting out words faster than he could speak them, filling the screen at an alarming rate. An article about the Dallas Mavericks appeared, then a column about the Houston Texans, followed by an individual piece on LeBron James. Where had all of this come from, and how did he type it so fast without any prep or background info? “Holy fuck, I’m gonna be RICH!” Ed screamed into the air, and closed the laptop as he headed to bed.
As Ed walked down the modest hall towards his bedroom, he stopped to look at the family picture he had always hung there of him, his brother Mark, and his sister Pam, only now the picture was just of him and Mark. “What the fuck?” Ed said to himself, and headed into his bedroom where sleep would have to wait for a few more minutes. “H-H-Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “Mark, MARK! Are you fucking with me!?” “Eddie? What the hell are you talking about!?” Mark said, still half asleep. “The picture! The picture!” Ed screamed. “The one of you, me and Pammy! Where did she go?” Ed said in a crazed voice. “What the hell are you talking about, Eddie? What picture? And who’s Pammy?” “DON’T YOU FUCK WITH ME MARK, YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WITH A KEY TO MY PLACE!”, and Ed heard a click on the other end. “Hello? HELLO!? What the actual FUCK!?” Ed screamed, and headed back towards the kitchen to make himself a drink.
After a couple of shots of whiskey and half a can of Pabst, Ed was starting to calm down a little. As he stared towards the hall and wondered about the picture, the blinking light on his new laptop seemed to be beckoning him with its rhythmic pulsations. Ed lifted the lid, and his fingers instinctively went to the keys, typing away spasmically as his eyes tried desperately to keep up with them. Within minutes, Ed had a new article on the Houston Astros followed by an exclusive interview he’d apparently done with Jose Altuve. “What the fuck, I’ve never even met Jose Altuve, how in the hell could I have written this!?” Ed said to no one in particular. In a look of defeat, Ed closed the laptop once again, chugged the other half of his Pabst, and headed straight for bed. As much as he wanted to resist, Ed couldn’t help but look at the picture in the hall a second time, and almost fell to his knees when it came into focus; this time it was only a photo of Ed himself hanging on the wall, and tears started to flow down his face as he stared into his own eyes. “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, AND WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” Ed screamed into the darkness, and pulled out his cell phone to call his brother Mark again.
“The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up, and try your call again.” the voice at the other end of the line said, and Mark threw his phone against the wall, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. “I’ll FaceTime him!” Ed said to himself, and headed back into the kitchen to where the laptop still laid on the table. “No tricks! I’m just FaceTiming Mark, not writing any stupid articles!” Ed screamed at the laptop, but as he opened the lid, hs fingers began to type furiously about the San Antonio Spurs, and then Ed was gone.
“Hey, how much for this laptop, and what the fuck is this H for!?” a man asked as he laid a laptop on the counter of ‘Control, Alt, Delete’. “Twenty-five, and the H stands for ‘Haunted’”, the old man said, and began writing up the receipt, “It stands for HAUNTED!”, and he began to cackle uncontrollably.
NB
