Ok things are going alright! Getting up and motivated quicker, that's called discipline. Haven't hit that dreaded "writers block" yet, although I'm also not creating the levity I'm looking for quite. It's an ongoing process that subconscious is a snake to be charmed. I think I need to be more practical, and from a practical standpoint I should be writing more than I'm reading. So let's supercharge this thing and write thousands of words a day, guys. It's more important than anything else. "The Magnificent Obsession" plus other stuff like that.
Otto’s front gate swung open slowly with a humming sound when he saw the car approaching. The sun scudded behind the mountains, brown light covering the desert in a thin strip. There was plenty of vegetation but no cactuses, a foreign species of moss covering the road. Dark crevasses shined in the sand like shiny armpits.
Man do I get lazy some days.
Otto’s front gate swung open slowly with a humming sound when he saw the car approaching. The sun scudded behind the mountains, brown light covering the desert in a thin strip. There was plenty of vegetation but no cactuses, a foreign species of moss covering the road. Dark crevasses shined in the sand like shiny armpits.
Roger shut off the ignition and leaned his head forward on the dashboard, stretching his arms out beside it and twisting his neck from side to side. Jim was spry, his mind shooting off synapses like christmas tree lights. He pulled his arms inside of his parka and hopped out of the car peered out at the familiar gate with anticipation, like a meerkat out of the grass.
“Who the hell is there?” Otto called, shooting a warning shot from a hunting rifle up in the air. “Whoever you are, I don’t’ want any visitors. Shoulda seen the sign.”
Otto was a heavyset bear of a man. He looked more like a wild animal as he gestured animatedly at a generic “no trespassing” sign framed and mounted on a foot tall pike facing the house. His stature was reminscent of Foghorn Leghorn, his top half looked like a bowling pin which was absorbed by the mound of jello which was his lower torso. His head wobbled involuntarily as he approached, but his gun hand stayed steady. The muscles in his arms bulged involuntarily, like they were a volcano that might explode at any moment.
Jim ducked and covered his head, inching forward as quickly as he could while doing so. He knew Otto was liable to start firing at any trespassers. Roger panicked as he tried to get the key back in the ignition, scratching the wheel up around the entry point. When he finally got it in, it was too late, he was already staring from a distance down the barrel of a compensatory rifle.
“Ya’r better off getting out of the car, lemme have a look at ya.” Otto said, a hint of sadistic joviality in his voice.
“Of course this is one of your friends, of course it is.” Roger said to himself, ducking his head into his lap. He peeked up and watched through the windshield as Otto took a temporary break from harassing him to ascend upon Jim.
“The second we get by another phone I’m calling the looney bin and we’re going to have you penned up for good.” Roger threatened wistfully to himself, accidentally prying a little black metal piece off of the dash.
Otto stood over Jim, placing a forklift of a hand on his back. He lifted him up, and recognizing it was Jim patted the dirt off of his front side.
“Excuse me, Mr. Jim. You can’t be too careful these days.”
Jim laughed and put an arm around Otto, his giant gristly beard scratching against Jim’s neck. Jim’s arm felt like a toothpick, like Otto could snap it off at any moment, and he towered above him with rambunxtious energy.
“Bout time you got out from there.” Otto stared at Roger through the windshield. “You should turn off those headlights, I can’t see your pretty little face.”
Roger begrudgingly exited the cabin, like a kid being sent to the principles office for something he hadn’t been responsible for. He pleaded to Otto with open arms. “All I know is there’s some guy named Mr. Grey and he kidnapped my girls.” He paused between sobs. “Jim let a killer robot loose.”
“Ain’t nothing as shameful as seeing a grown man cry, clean yourself up,” Otto said, removing a disgusting handkerfchief from his sweatstained front denim pocket. Roger accepted it with reckless abandon, wiping sweat and tears from his glassy darkened eyes.
“There’s the lieu,” Otto said, pointing at one of two other monuments that dotted the property. “Here’s my house. That over there is the shack. Don’t go in the shack, it’s all chained off for a reason.”
Roger squinted and stared towards it, with Otto’s foreboding gaze fixing on him. The shack was tightly wrapped with chains, looking like a sports injury wrapped to make the joint completely immobile. A giant masterlock was wrapped like a bow through the chains; it seemed like a place that was dying to be broken into.
“Come on in,” Otto called as he walked back into his garage of a house. He slapped Roger with two fingers on the back of the neck when he lingered staring at the shack, the sun now almost disappearing completely.
The place stunk of rotten cheese and formaldehyde. A ten point buck head sat mounted behind a circular wooden table, leather couches flanking it on either side. Unprimed wooden stairs without a railing led up to a single bedroom with no door separating it from the main room, the ceiling much higher than anticipated from the outside. A small kitchen, more appropriately referred to as a nook, consisted of a rusted gas oven, a utility sink that jutted out of the wall covered in dirt and grime. A layer of white sealant covered the layer between the wood and the insulation.
They sat down after Otto gave the grand tour, which consisted mostly of a raised hand and a few garbled exclamations.
“Hup.” He pointed at the head of the buck, ostentatious as a man of his stature could be. He insisted the guys sit on the couch when he went to tay care of something and then disappeared upstairs, although not really disappearing because he was still entirely visible.
“He’s the only man Mr. Grey is scared of.” Jim said behind a raised hand.
“I heard that.” Otto yelled down the stairs, lifting his shitty boxspring mattress with one hand and pulling a wooden box on wheels out from underneath it with the other. “That grey faced drone might scare the ordinary man, but not me. I practiced ripping tin cans to pieces with my bare fingers, I’ll tear that guys face off.”
At this revelation, Jim noticed in horror that the garbage can sitting next to the couch was full of bloody tin can lids.
“He’s a nut, yeah, ok, he’s a little nutty.” Jim conceded.
The revelation of a new, less quirky and more scary world dawned on Roger, and he suddenly thought about what Jim had said again. The further away they went, the weirder the world got. He wouldn’t admit Jim was right outloud, of course, but it suddenly made more sense.
Jim admired the mounted creatures dangling precariously from the rafters. The moose head above him looked like it might fall at any moment, he could have sworn he saw it twisting on its screws.
Man do I get lazy some days.
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