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I Was a Teenage Freak, Chapter 3 (Excerpt)
Hickory Dickory Dock
Horse guessed he was going he was going crazy. He didn't mind. Maybe going crazy was a good thing. Crazy people didn't really give a rat's ass what happened to them, right? He suddenly giggled. The high-pitched sound echoed faintly in the cavernous space of the basement. Little creatures skittered around him, keeping to the shadows cast by the streetlamp outside. Rats, rats, rats, rat's ass, rats are all around me, they stink to high heaven, they carry diseases and germs in their shit and I'm drowning in the smell but I don't care I don't won't can't give a rat's ass do rats eat cockroaches I wonder if they'll eat me if I'm covered with cheese why not why the hell not? Come and get me, suckers. Come and get me. Horse sighed. He craned his neck to look at the wall behind him, where he'd marked every day he'd been living in his apartment building's basement. The black strokes of the Magic Marker were barely visible in the dim streetlight, but he knew the number anyway. Fifty-eight. Fifty-eight days since the world found out the truth about Horse Bradley. He checked his wristwatch (a used digital Casio he'd bought at a pawnshop because his mom was too goddamn cheap to buy him a proper watch) and saw that it was only 11:36 p.m. Why wait? he thought. Midnight was coming soon. It wouldn't matter if he marked this day right now instead of waiting for the Casio to blink 12:00. Why wait? Well, maybe he'd get lucky tonight. A lot could happen in half an hour. Maybe an earthquake would cause the building to collapse, or maybe there'd be a fire. Maybe someone would bomb this bitch of a city. Or maybe there was a stray bullet somewhere out there with his name on it. Maybe. He'd wait for midnight. He always did. He opened his mouth, and a strange sound came out of it: a voice, hoarse and croaky from lack of use. "Hickory dickory dock. The mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, the mouse ran down..." No, he wasn't crazy. Nothing was ever that easy for him. |
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