by Strand, Jeff
My left arm was not as precise of a process. They simply took turns whacking at it with the claw end of a hammer. They weren't able to get it entirely off that way, of course, but most of it was gone before they reverted back to a saw.
Do you want to hear something truly messed up? They slept in shifts. I swear to you, they slept in shifts so that one of them could continue mutilating me while the other one rested.
They didn't get greedy or impatient. They didn't go for the torso until all four of my limbs were completely gone. I'd long since stopped bleeding. If somebody had described this scenario to me, I would have assumed that at some point you'd get used to the pain, but that's not the case. Every cut hurt as much as the previous one, though perhaps that's the product of them being knowledgeable enough to vary them.
Then they set me on fire.
I don't know why that crossed their moral boundaries, but it did. She began to cry, then he began to cry, then they just sat there crying and holding each other while I thrashed and burned.
They didn't extinguish me. They just let me burn on the cement floor until the fire went out by itself.
They wiped their tears away. Then they buried me alive, right in their backyard.
I spent nine years underground. Nine years. I didn't die of hunger, though I felt constantly on the verge of starvation. I didn't perish of thirst, though I was always dehydrated. I didn't suffocate, though I spent every waking moment gasping for breath.
And I didn't go insane.
I have no idea why I didn't. Must have been some sort of weird byproduct of the black magic. I remained eternally sane. Eternally aware.
One day, some ten-year-old kids dug me up. My body had not rotted, so their first reaction was to freak the hell out. I pretended I was dead (which was not difficult, since I didn't have much skin left) so as not to freak them out even more.
Once they got over their initial trepidation, they pulled me out of my grave and took me into their clubhouse. I guess the old owners of the house had moved out. I wouldn't have thought that they'd leave a living torso buried in their yard, but, again, I'm pretty sure they weren't right in the head.
I became the club mascot, Stumps.
They put silly hats on me, threw darts at me, and basically treated me like I was less than human. I put up with this for a couple of weeks, since it was so much better than being buried alive, but finally, when one kid was alone in the clubhouse, I said "Help me."
He shrieked, picked up a baseball bat, and bashed away at me until the lower half of my skull was obliterated. I would not be doing any more speaking.
The next day, when his friends confronted him about my appearance, he denied everything. I guess he didn't want them to think he was hearing voices from Stumps.
After a few more days, the kids got worried that they might get in trouble for having an unreported dismembered corpse in their clubhouse. As they carried me out, I began to move as much as I could. They dropped me and ran away screaming.
Later, they buried me again.
I assume they made some sort of pact.
They may have decided it was all in their imagination, or I may have haunted their memories for the rest of their lives. I'll never know, because when I was discovered again I'm sure they were all long dead.
The future. Still no flying cars (seriously?) but you do have this awesome machine that's letting you transcribe my thoughts.
I could have lied and said that I was...I don't know, Jesus or somebody, but I want my true story to be told.
Though I see from the disapproving way you're looking at me that perhaps telling the truth was a bad judgment call.
A laser? Really? Come on, you've got this miracle creature in your lab and you're going to disintegrate it?
All right, fine. Bring it on. Let's see what happens.
JOHN HENRY, THE STEEL-DRIVIN' MAN
It happened in West Virginia, or maybe Alabama, around 1869, or maybe a decade later. This ain't a story about facts.
They say that no man alive could drive in steel like John Henry, and I believe 'em. With a hammer in his hand, he'd pound those spikes into the rock like you or I might stick a toothpick into freshly baked angel food cake.
Oh, he'd had muscles to spare when he was a slave, but he'd gotten even stronger after he was freed. He wasn't building the railroad all by himself--that would be crazy--but he was doing more work than any other steel-drivin' man, that's for damn sure. And believe me, the steel-drivin' men were not lazy people.
Too bad they all were gonna lose their jobs.
That's because some enterprising fool had invented a steam-powered hammer. How could a human being compete with such a machine? These poor workers and their families were gonna starve to death, all on account of "progress."
Well, John Henry, he put forth a challenge: he would race that mechanical hammer, and prove that a man could beat a godless contraption. And if he won, the workers would keep their jobs.
The race began, and oh, how the other workers cheered him on! Not to mention his wife Polly Ann, who not only cheered louder than the steel-drivin' men but looked better doing it. John Henry's hammer, it came crashing down over and over, sparks a-flying, drivin' those steel spikes with the power of a god. Now, John Henry was a God-fearing man and would not have made that particular comparison himself, but to the outsiders watching the whole spectacle, it seemed appropriate.
Thing is, that steam-powered hammer was doing a mighty good job. I suspect that when John Henry put forth that challenge he'd secretly hoped that the machine would break down after six or seven spikes and he'd win by default, but nope, it was pounding in those spikes at a rapid pace. Despite his muscles and his passion, John Henry was falling behind!
"Keep driving in that steel!" the workers shouted. "We believe in you! Don't let us lose our jobs!"
By now, John Henry had worked up a sweat of such quantity that more perspiration emerged from his pores than a normal man had of all bodily liquids combined. Oh, he was feeling the ache all the way down to his bones. His vision was starting to get kind of blurry at the edges, and that damn steam-powered hammer was generating so much dust that his lungs burned with every breath.
But if you think John Henry gave up...well, you don't know John Henry.
He doubled his efforts. That's right, when any other man would have quit, John Henry hammered in those spikes even faster than before! I wish I'd been there to gape in amazement. He hammered and hammered, and though you might think that a couple of those spikes were crooked or not quite in all the way, you would be wrong. Every one of those spikes would have passed the railroad owner's inspection. John Henry was not a man to do slipshod work.
And then he caught up to that steam-powered hammer.
And then he passed it.
That's right, he passed it. Technological advancement was completely pointless when John Henry's hammer was at work. He was suffering, suffering bad, as if his arms might rip right off his torso at any moment, but John Henry was going to beat that infernal machine!
Yet with only three more spikes left to hammer, John Henry thought that he was going to die.
"Don't die!" shouted the other workers. "You've only got three spikes left!"
John Henry was so exhausted, and he'd sucked in so much dust, that for a moment he wasn't sure that the voices of his co-workers were going to inspire him enough to finish the task. But then he heard the voice of his beloved Polly Ann, making the same general point that the workers had made, and he knew that he could pound in those last three spikes.
Slam! Two spikes left.
Slam! One spike left.
John Henry, he raised his mighty hammer, and he let out the loudest grunt any human being had ever grunted up to that point in history, and he swung that hammer down and drove in that last piece of steel.
He'd won the challenge! He'd beat the machine! The workers were going to keep their jobs!
And then John Henry, with every ounce of energy in his
body used up, dropped his hammer, fell on the ground, and died.
* * *
"John Henry, wake up!"
John Henry opened his eyes. "Huh?"
It was Polly Ann, crouching over him. Her beautiful brown eyes were filled with concern. "We think you may have been dead, but we resuscitated you!"
"I saw a bright light," said John Henry. "I was floating toward it, and some angels were beckoning, and then suddenly I was right back here. I think you did bring me back to life. Thank you, Polly Ann."
Charles, who was a steel-drivin' man just like John Henry but not as efficient, patted him on the shoulder. "We're glad you ain't dead, John Henry. Because we need you."
"Why?"
Charles pointed. "They've done invented an even bigger and faster steam-powered drill! They say it can do the work of twenty men! We're all gonna lose our jobs if you can't beat it!"
"I'm very tired," said John Henry.
Charles and Polly Ann took him by the hands and pulled him to his feet. "You're our only hope!" said Charles. "You've proven that a man can beat a machine once! Now we just need you to prove it one more time!"
"We can do this tomorrow, right?"
"No! The challenge is now! You've got to win, John Henry, or we're all going to lose our jobs worse than before!"
"That doesn't even make sense."
It took three men plus Polly Ann to lift the hammer, but they put it back in his hand. John Henry looked out at the faces of the workers and knew that he couldn't let them down.
Like I said, I wasn't there. But if I had been there, do you know what I would have seen in John Henry's eyes? Resolve. Resolve not to let down the other workers. Sure, he'd exhausted himself to the point where a medical professional would have declared him legally dead, but that was at a time when they didn't necessarily have the proper equipment to make such a declaration with complete accuracy. People used to get buried alive all the time.
An ugly thing, being buried alive. You may think there are worse ways to go, like when they chain each of your appendages to four different horses and then send those horses on their way in four different directions, but that's got nothing on the horror of waking up alone in a coffin, six feet under the cold ground.
But you know what? If that happened to John Henry, he would've busted his way right out of that grave, dusted himself off, and gotten right back to work. That's the kind of man he was.
Anyway, John Henry didn't get buried alive. He got to his feet, and he stared at that steam-powered hammer, which was all shiny and new, and he could feel the strength flowing back into his arms. He pointed at the hammer and said, "I'm sending you back to the scrap heap."
Well, everybody applauded and cheered, except for the driver of the steam-powered hammer, of course. He frowned a little.
And John Henry, he drove in those spikes like a man possessed. He'd been half-dead, and yet he worked like he'd spent the past week relaxing on the beach in a hammock, sipping drinks out of a hollowed-out pineapple. How many people do you know who could do that? I think you'll understand that I mean no disrespect when I say that, in similar circumstances, you probably would have just let those men lose their jobs. I know I would have. "Nope," I would have said. "Just let me die all the way in peace."
They weren't lying when they said that this steam-powered hammer was faster than the old one. Hell, that thing was twice as fast. It was so fast that a few of the workers admitted that though they didn't want to lose their jobs, they could see that the machine was indeed more efficient than human labor, with the added benefit that nobody had to suck dust into their lungs, and, yeah, they were still hoping that John Henry won the race, but they could understand the perspective of those in charge.
John Henry worked twice as fast as before, without sacrificing quality. Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam! Inanimate objects or not, you almost had to feel sorry for those steel spikes.
The driver of the steam-powered hammer started to get kind of nervous. He was going to look like a real jackass if he lost to a half-dead man, and the financial implications of losing this challenge were dire. Railroad owners would cancel contracts all across the nation, and he'd have to lay off thousands of workers in his factories.
"John Henry's pulling ahead!" shouted Charles. Actually, John Henry had pulled ahead a couple of minutes ago, but Charles had been too flabbergasted by that fact to speak until now.
A big ol' cloud of dust had formed, so thick that the spectators couldn't see what was going on. But when the dust cleared, do you know who'd won the race?
That's right, John Henry.
Did you know that some railroad workers would swing their hammer so hard and so often that their intestines would come out? Yep, their intestines! Can you imagine that? But not John Henry. His torso was strong enough to keep those intestines inside where they belonged.
But he fell to the ground, closed his eyes, and everything went dark.
* * *
"John Henry...?"
"Go to hell."
"John Henry, wake up. It's me, Charles."
"I'm pretty sure I just asked you to go to hell."
"John Henry? It's me, Polly Ann."
"You can remarry after I'm gone. It's okay. I give you my blessing. Be happy."
"John Henry, open your eyes!"
John Henry didn't want to, but after some more coaxing he finally opened his eyes. Charles and Polly Ann were crouched over him, looking concerned.
"Is everybody still employed?" he asked.
Charles and Polly Ann both nodded.
"Good. That's good."
"How are you feeling?" asked Polly Ann.
"Like somebody set my whole body on fire, and then took their sweet time in extinguishing me. I don't fear death. Death right now would be like a cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer day."
"Don't die," said Charles. "We need you."
"I can't help anyone."
"They say there's a man who can control the elements. A practitioner of the dark arts. By manipulating the earth, wind, water, and fire, he can drive in spikes faster than any steam-powered hammer! Maybe he doesn't use the water or fire. I'm not sure how it works, but unless you can beat him, we're all gonna lose our jobs!"
"My hammer's right there. Have fun."
"No, John Henry, you're the only one who can win the race!"
"If that's true, then maybe we need to accept the idea that progress isn't such a bad thing, even when there's collateral damage. You shouldn't continue to use outdated methods when a better option exists just to maintain the status quo."
"Come on, John Henry, you can't really believe that!"
"Do you want technological advancement to remain stagnant? This could be your chance to acquire some new skills."
"Please, John Henry! Don't let us down!"
John Henry looked into their eyes, and at that moment he knew that he had to accept this challenge. He had to show the world that supernatural abilities couldn't replace a man with a hammer.
The practitioner of the dark arts looked pretty much the way you'd expect a warlock to look. He wore a black cape, had a pointy mustache and pointy beard, and laughed a lot even when nobody told a joke.
John Henry lifted his hammer high above his head, and the challenge began.
John Henry was my father.
I kept trying to find a good place to insert that piece of information, but there really hasn't been one, so I apologize for just blurting it out like that. I assure you that you're getting an unbiased telling of the events, even though I'm his son.
Well, the warlock waved his arms, and cyclones appeared! Their winds were so strong that the other workers had to step back and shield their eyes, lest rock particles slam into their irises at a hundred and forty-five miles per hour. John Henry's eyeballs were more resilient and he kept his eyes wide open so he could see what he was doing.
With those cyclones, the warlock could lift spikes into the air and slam them down four or five at a time! He ke
pt cackling with laughter the entire time. John Henry wanted to laugh right back at him, but he could hardly breathe.
Several of the workers shouted words of encouragement, trying to inform John Henry that they felt he was the superior competitor in this race, but their voices were lost in the swirling winds.
My guess is that a couple of the workers felt that it was worth sacrificing their wages to watch a warlock summon cyclones with his hands, but nobody ever admitted to it.
Some men, when faced with what seems to be an unwinnable challenge, drop into the fetal position and tremble. Well, John Henry trembled a bit, but he didn't drop into the fetal position even once. "I'm going to beat that warlock," he said, figuring that it didn't count as talking to himself if he couldn't hear his own voice, "and I'm going to save everybody's jobs. Then I'm going to take a nap."
He wondered if the cyclones would stop if he bashed in the warlock's face with the hammer. Then he decided that such a thing would not be true to the spirit of the challenge.
So John Henry, he began driving in that steel even faster than before! If you'd been there and been wearing protective eyewear, you would have gasped at that steel-drivin' man, I promise you that. I would never use language unbefitting a gentleman, but anybody standing there that day could be forgiven for taking the Lord's name in vain.
And when the cyclones dissipated, do you know who'd won the race?
Nope, it was John Henry!
The workers cheered and applauded even louder than before. "That John Henry, he's done it again!" they shouted.
The warlock, he was a sore loser, and he flung a lightning bolt at John Henry's head, intending to vaporize him. But John Henry, he held up his hammer at the last instant, and the lightning bolt bounced right off it, and that warlock became the one who got vaporized.
The workers stopped their cheering and applauding. Even if the victim is an evil warlock, you need to show respect after the loss of a human life.
Unfortunately for John Henry, you can't work that hard and just walk away whistling a merry tune. He got dizzy, collapsed, and then everything went dark.