Preston, a study of a unique man.
Preston.
Preston was waiting for his chance. He had his gun; he’d made sure to load it before he got to work. He didn’t know anything about guns, he had gone to the shooting range twice earlier in the week in an attempt to get at least a vague idea of how they operate, but had only learned that he sucked at shooting guns. He’d managed to knick the paper silhouette a number of times, but he was a fairly intelligent man and he knew that shooting a paper outline of a man, a man who didn’t ever move, wasn’t comparable to gunning down a real person. Real people can run, or possibly wrestle his gun away from him. So, nervous as he was about sticking a loaded gun down the back of his pants, he didn’t think he’d be calm enough when the moment came to both load the gun and shoot it before someone got wise to him. He’d considered using the bathroom, or loading the gun in the car before he walked in but he didn’t think his stomach could handle that amount of tension.
Preston had walked into the office and sat down at his desk, the same way he did every other day. The only thing anyone might have noticed that was odd about him was his unusual stiffness, he didn’t dare move around too much, scared as he was that his weapon might go off in his pants and blow his shin off. He sat at his computer and watched out of the corner of his eye. People bustled around, talked about whatever. “Nobody has any idea.” Preston said to himself.
Preston was wrong. Everybody knew he was going to “shoot Bob Thornton”. There was no Bob Thornton; he was a figure of Preston’s imagination. While Preston was prone to sitting in the corner at meetings he hadn’t been invited to, muttering vague threats at all in attendance, his work was for the most part first rate. The brass also just flat out didn’t pay him. Nobody even knew where he came from, he’d wandered into the office one day under the impression that he worked there and nobody had bothered to correct him. Now Preston was going to shoot his imaginary rival and his coworkers were just going to have to put up with that. Nobody was sure if he was going to shoot up a cabinet that he thought was “Bob”, or if he might just pull out a stick and yell bang in the general direction of his delusion and run out. At the very worst they figured he might shoot a temp worker. This theory however was an unpopular one. Preston had never shown himself to be anything but a harmless raving lunatic. If he did kill a temp worker nobody would hold it against him, with the exception of the temp worker who would of course be dead. Since everything would undoubtedly work itself out nobody attempted to stop Preston from doing his thing.
Preston had to kill Bob Thornton. He hated him more than he had ever hated anyone in his entire life. Bob never appreciated anything Preston did for him. Preston ran little errands for Bob. His dry-cleaning for instance; Did Bob think those suits got taken to and from the Chinese laundry by themselves? Perhaps that they had sprouted legs and under their own power taken themselves to and from the drycleaners? Is that what Bob thought?
Preston was of course insane as has been stated in this story already. So whose laundry was he taking to the cleaners? There was no cleaner. Or more accurately there indeed was a Chinese Laundry right across the street from Preston’s apartment but Preston never went there. Aaaand ok I’m tired of this plot. I thought this would be a good story but I think it’s extremely obvious where this is going, and I don’t have any interest in finishing it. Sooo….
Preston walked into the locker room of the New York Giants.
“Hey, fellas.” Preston said.
“The hell are you white boy?” said a large Asian man with vampire fangs growing out the top of his mouth, protruding from his upper lip.
“I’m Preston. I was the main character in a short story. The idea was that I would kill my imaginary friend or something. Except he was my enemy. It was hilarious in makes ya think kinda way.”
“Yeah that’s kinda clever.” The Asian vampire said.
“Then the authors dad came in and read it. He said that he was afraid they’d lock him away if he ever showed that story to anyone, so he decided to write another one about a cornfield or something. Tame stuff.”
“Yeah…” Said the Asian. “What like field of dreams?
I the author of this story decide to take the self-awareness of these characters away and I rebuild the fourth wall. In keeping with the basic premise of Prestons character I make Preston think that the Asian man (Who’s name is now Finnegan Wong) is trying to steal his eardrums. The Asian man is now a sadistic police officer. The setting remains in the locker room of the New York giants. Finnegan is also accompanied now by a second police officer.
And one more thing: I intend to write this next part in play form.
Finnegan will for the duration of this scene be reffered to simply as bad cop.
Interrogation.
Two men with signs around their necks that say “good cop” and “bad cop are standing around. Another man with a baseball bat is in the corner and the Preston is tied up in a chair.
Bad cop: Why’d ya kill him Preston? Trying to rob him? Need money for drugs?
Preston : “I don’t do drugs!”
Bad Cop: You will when I’m done with you. Or you’ll wish you had.
Good cop: Listen to him Man.
Preston “I didn’t actually kill anyone!
Good Cop: Maybe he’s telling the truth.”
Bad cop: I can smell a liar in a snowstorm from thirty miles away. He took it.”
Gay man: No I-
BC: Shut up! Just shut your face! We know you killed him it so just button up your word hole!
Preston: Listen you can have my eardrums! Just let me out of here.
BC” Looks like we got ourselves a psycho!
GC: Hey now..
BC: I’ll tell you what, he’s the craziest thing I’ve seen since the crazy monster came to crazy town.
Bad cop gets up close in his face.
“Listen sister Mary Johnson…” Silence “I’ll eat you. I’ll kill you and eat you with my bare hands. Raw. Not because I’m a cannibal. Because deep down in my gut I hate you, and the only way to completely destroy you is through digestion.” He pushed his head very close to prestons face. “Do-You-understand?”
“Listen you can’t do this I know my rights!”
“Your rights? Listen if I snap my fingers, just once, this man (points to man in corner with bat) Will kill you. Just one snap. (Snaps his fingers and man starts to go forward)
Man with bat: “I’ll kill you!”
BC: “Woah, not yet. (man goes back into corner) You can see he’s crazy. He rapes cancer patients. As a hobby. he finds that fun. He has no testicles so he gets no pleasure out of it, he just likes it. He thinks it’s great. He’s pure evil. He’ll kill you.”
“So your rights mean dick!”
Good cop: Listen theres nothing you can really do to prove your innocence so just confess. At the most you’ll get thirty days.
Bad Cop: In a coffin!
“What law did I break exactly here?”
Bad cop: “I don’t know, I don’t care. I’m not even a real cop.” Camera pans away to Preston “We’re circus clowns “ Pans back to show good cop and bad cop with clown wigs and noses, and now they’re signs say “good clown and bad clown”.
“You think that makes me less dangerous to you right now? Because I’m a trained clown? It doesn’t. It makes me more lethal if anything I have nothing to lose, I’m a damn clown.
What else is there to say?
Play over.
Now I have to finish this story. It needs an ending.
Preston breaks into the vault that his company keeps all the petty cash in. He doesn’t take any money. What’s he going to do with money? He’s crazy as a loon. Instead he pinches a loaf in every single strongbox in the entire room. Why would someone do that? Because he’s nuts. I like that, I don’t have to give a motive at all for anything Preston does.
Now when I say “pinch a loaf” what I’m saying is he laid down a big slippery water moccasin. I can’t begin to comprehend why someone would do this. It’s a disgusting vile act. It took days for him to finish, and while I’m not going to outright say he was tripping on mushrooms the entire time, he in fact was tripping on mushrooms the entire time.
“Oh my god Preston”.
Uh oh. Somebody has discovered Preston! What are you going to do Preston?
Preston doesn’t even know what’s going on. He’s seeing what dogs see right now.
“Preston what on earth…” It’s a woman. What could she want?
“Preston we have to get you out of here.” She says.
But that’s not what Preston hears.
“England expects everyman to do his duty to the best of their ability.” Is what Preston hears.
Preston decides right then and there that he wants to hide in people’s mailboxes and murder them when they get the mail. Preston wants to do that for America.
I could go on forever. I find this all very funny. This story degenerated into me trying to make myself laugh, such a long time ago.
Preston jukes left fast. The woman has no chance. Preston head butts her in the throat.
And Preston continued to do crazy things for the rest of his life. He has earned a warm spot in my heart.
To end this sort of story I will relate to you a piece of actual dialogue I once heard.
“No, I’m just saying he likes to have sex with kids and that’s weird and you like having sex with dudes, and that’s sort of weird too. I’m not saying they are anything alike I’m just saying, your both sexually kind of F-ed up, so like you guys could maybe hang out, and like swap F-ed up sex stories.”
And by heard I mean it would be funny if someone said that.