by Bill Evans
“MINDY MOES MAGICK MIRRORS,” was the feature at this location.
“Oh boy,” Gregor gasped. “This is gonna be fun.”
GREEN MAN MUST PAY
(part forty one)
Gregor excitedly paced through the labyrinth of mounted mirrors along the worn and trodden pathways that sprawled like an intricate spider web in all directions inside the tent. Each sectional partition provided its own surprise to both Gregor, and the enthralled crowd of grouped visitors with whom he was assigned.
In one section, the mirrors made Gregor and his group look tall and skinny. In another section, they were made to look short and fat.
“Look at me,” Gregor chortled. “I am four feet tall and weigh almost a ton.”
Everyone in the crowd laughed.
Gregor felt a kinship with his “gang of misfits”, as he decided to label them. They were his new friends.
Gregor loved having friends.
The ‘gang’ headed on over to the partition where the mirrors made everyone’s heads look the size of beach balls. They guffawed with laughter. Many put their arms affectionately around each other. There were many photos taken. Even a group photo was extemporaneously arranged by one of the members.
Gregor was happy. He was so very, very, happy.
_____
The proctor for Gregor’s group announced that the 30-minute tour in the house of mirrors was coming to an end. The group moaned in mock disapproval.
“But never fear my fine feathered friends,” the guide squawked. “The grand finale is upon us, and will surely astound even the most laconic of our denizens in these confines of this jubilant and jolly jamboree here today. Behold-the culmination of our festive folksy gala. Ladies and gentlemen. I present to you- ‘The House of 100 Images!”
Gregor loved it when people like the proctor spoke with such eloquence-even if the words themselves didn’t make much sense.
Just like the proctor, Gregor considered himself a wordsmith of sorts. Being near a kindred spirit only endeared him to this carnival experience even more so.
_____
Each member of the group was blindfolded.
They had to take turns being led into the grand finale room. When Gregor’s turn had arrived, he was formally taken by the arm by a lovely scantily clad attendant. On que, the blindfold was formally removed. Gregor was startled to see himself in the middle of a large partitioned space, with literally 100 images of himself staring back at various angles.
He was transfixed by what he was seeing. In mesmerized amazement, he pivoted and then curtseyed. His head swam with dizzying intoxication, as he slowly spun around and around. He could see his self-image diving up and down, darting to and fro, rocking back and forth, in a psychedelic dream like delirium.
It was unadulterated bliss.
_____
Gregor paused to catch his breath. His beautiful assigned attendant whispered flirtingly in his ear that his time had expired, and that she would lead him to the exit. Gregor blushed and smiled shyly. As she led him to the exit way, Gregor turned one more time toward the mirrors to get a final glimpse of his multiple images.
Gregor gasped.
He observed 100 images of a man in the mirrors.
They were not self-images.
They were not images of Gregor.
The images of the man were familiar, however.
This man was dressed from head to toe…in green.
GREEN MAN MUST PAY
(part forty two)
The middle-aged man peering back at the stunned Gregor through 100 sets of eyes, began cackling sinisterly.
Why would he show up here? How had he been able to follow Gregor? Hadn’t Gregor taken every step necessary to prevent this from happening?
Gregor rubbed his eyes and shook his head. Surely this wasn’t happening. It had to be a dream-or more precisely, a nightmare. After quickly looking away, Gregor returned his focus to the mirrors. Before him stood the image of a man he knew only too well. This man was wearing a green bowler hat, gold-rimmed glasses with green speckles on them, an olive green denim suit, with lime green luminescent socks and wing-tipped shoes just a shade darker.
“Ggggrr…Green Man. Wh…wh…what do you want?”
Gregor’s inquiry elicited rib-splitting laughter from Green man. He almost fell to his knees with hysteria.
Green Man suddenly turned serious, and looked sternly at Gregor.
“Gregor-you’ve been a naughty boy,” Green Man’s voice echoed in a scolding tone. “You know what you’ve done. Now the punishment must be dispensed. You know the routine.”
“I…I’m allowed to make friends. It’s not fair. You never let me have anything.”
Green Man listened patiently to the protestations, while shaking his head “no”, and waving his right index finger back and forth.
_____
Gregor began to feel a wave of panic infiltrate his brain. That fleeting emotion soon departed, only to be replaced with anger. Finally, a firm resolve seemed to take over his senses.
Gregor made a decision. He would reason with the heinous serial killer. Well, he would try anyhow.
“Hey old buddy,” Gregor stammered. “Can’t we work something out here? Everybody doesn’t have to die. How fair is that? Right?”
Green Man continued to shake his head in disapproval. Then with a coldly calculated gesture, Green Man jumped up and clicked his heels like a leprechaun. The 100 green men that surrounded him hauntingly followed suit, creating a surreal imagery. An imagery of absurdity. An imagery of fear.
Green Man flashed a toothy grin. A gold filling on his front tooth gleamed a brilliant and blinding reflection off the 100 mirrors.
A wide-eyed Gregor turned to the stunned crowd of about fifty whom had still been in the tent. They looked on in gazing wonderment, trying to discern to whom Gregor was having this bizarre conversation. They all stood there paralyzed…with fright.
“Don’t just stand there…run,” Gregor shouted pleadingly. The crowd didn’t move.
This left Gregor with no choice.
Valiantly, Gregor raced toward Green Man and flung himself headlong at the murderous criminal. The impetus of Gregor’s momentum carried him into one of the mirrors, toppling it sideways. The mirror then fell into another, and it into another, causing a ‘domino effect’. The harrowing shrieks of the crowd could barely be heard above the breakage of tons of glass. Sharp, splintered glass shards sprayed the area, cutting and gouging many of the crowd members. They instinctively huddled closer together toward the center of the staging area. This proved to be a fatal mistake. The mirrors tipped inwardly, and in a thunderous collapse, toppled violently on top of the huddled friends. In a moment, the harrowing cries and shrieks literally died away.
The dust slowly began to settle.
A deafening silence followed.
GREEN MAN MUST PAY
(part forty three)
“Most everyone here has been sliced to ribbons.”
After the comment was made by an EMS ambulance crewmember, the team leader thought he’d heard something. It sounded like a very weak and faint murmur. Was it laughter?
“Someone is alive. Find him”
While calling out to the voice, the trained crew began to systematically sift through the carnage of broken glass and debris. After pulling up a large broken mirror frame, and removing part of section of drywall, they saw him.
Gregor was mortally wounded-but not dead. Apparently the sheet of parched drywall that had first fallen on him, shielded him from the sharp edged glass that had proven to be lethal to the others. Gregor did not escape unharmed however. A very large shard of the tempered glass had impaled itself into the upper extremity of his left leg. Gregor observed the injury for the first time, as the crew frantically yet carefully cleared away the debris that had burie
d him.
It looked like an iceberg jutting out of the Arctic Sea. Or was it the Antarctica? Which one had the North Pole?
Gregor could not remember. Nobody could really blame him for not thinking clearly at the moment. Could they?
As the extraction process was taking place by the highly trained EMS staff, one of the members had a question of Gregor. Morbid curiosity demanded that he ask it.
“Dude, when we first heard you, it confused us. We thought we had heard some sort of giggling. Why were you laughing?”
“Oh-that. Why yes of course. It was the remark one of your colleagues had made,” Gregor replied as a smile returned to his face. “It was something about everyone being sliced to ribbons.”
Gregor paused, as did the working crew. Everyone on the scene was now listening.
“It’s just that I find emergency room humor so amazingly funny. I think that kind of humor is cutting edge.”
“Please pardon the pun,” Gregor then quickly added.
The EMS crew stared at Gregor in unbelieving and stunned silence.
_____
As Gregor was being lifted onto a stretcher, he glanced around. He saw what he was looking for. In a reflection from a broken mirror fragment, the figure of Green Man was lying still. In an ironic twist, Green Man had a similar injury to Gregor-only it was to the other leg-the right leg. The other difference was that Green Man was dead. Although Gregor was severely injured and clinging to life himself-he was not dead.
Gregor smiled with jubilation and satisfaction. He had done it. He had finally defeated the sinister adversary whom had plagued him for a lifetime.
Gregor had done humanity one final service as well. There would be no more serial killing-at least by this monster.
_____
They say that hearing is the last of the senses to remain.
Gregor was losing consciousness. He was fading fast. He had heard the words…”pressure is 60/25 and dropping. Pulse is weak. The femoral artery has been ruptured. He’s lost too much blood.”
A blackness ravenously and unrelentingly overtook him. He gasped weakly in response.
_____
Gregor could now rest easy. He would be branded a hero. Most importantly, he had completed a vow that he had made long ago.
Gregor had made Green Man pay for his sins.
Gregor had finished what he had started.
Finally!
At last!
…or did he?
END