The Happy Snerd Chap. 1 (Patreon)

Mortimer Snerd was driving the I-70 through western Kansas again. It was enough to break a man, and it did. Something in Mortimer snapped.

Mortimer shoved the gas pedal flat and yanked the wheel to the right. He hauled off the I-70 in Walker, abandoning it, swearing he’d never look back. He took the corner around the gingerbread St. Ann’s Catholic Church inadvisably fast, already plunging into the madness of the moment. 

Mortimer sped up, ignoring the tire squeal and the smell of burning rubber. He raced down the road next to the old train track, past the railroad siding that was longer than a city block, and burned down Old Route Forty. Like if he could just go fast enough, he could escape the I-70 and all it represented. 

The detour would add time to the trip, but maybe the bright lights of Hayes, Kansas would add a new color to the cholera yellow and tombstone gray journey. It was something different. He needed something different. He needed something to fuel the mad rush of euphoria that came from escaping the I-70. It wouldn’t be enough to let him escape the Christian rock that blasted from the only radio stations his car seemed willing to tune into. That wasn’t an act of God. Quite the reverse.

The car was supposed to have both Apple Carplay and Android Auto. As backup, there was a USB port. Mortimer should be able to stream off his phone. He had carefully loaded it up with positive affirmations, self help books and even some guided meditations. Which you shouldn’t use while driving at seventy five miles an hour, but given the way his body prickled and clenched with anxiety every waking hour, he figured it would be a wash. 

He was a gold member at Hertz, and shouldn’t have to put up with broken ports and broken software in his rental car. But here he was, screaming his frustration to the ghosts of Yocemento, cursing Marconi and praying the Big Creek would flood and carry him away. 

The Creek was running dry. Kansas was running dry. Like the whole country was remembering this was supposed to be a grassland desert, and nothing good would come of mechanically sucking the aquifer's teats ‘till they bled. Nothing good was going to come from flooding the earth in the name of King Corn and small family farms that hadn’t really existed since the Dust Bowl. Mortimer knew. He had seen it all by now.

“You’ve been left behind,” the radio crooned over soft rock instrumentals. “You’ve been left behind.” 

But he hadn’t. He hadn’t been left behind. He was right where he was supposed to be. Mortimer had networked his way into a job. White collar work was hard to come by these days, even when you had an expensive MBA. He sent out four hundred and eighty three job applications before he finally accepted that it’s not what you know, but who. He knew someone who was hiring. 

Mortimer hated to do it. Hated it. But Mortimer had expenses. He had his undergrad student loans. He had his MBA student loans, and didn’t that thought make him seethe with rage. He had his car loan. He had to pay the rent. His taxes. The utilities. Internet. He had to pay for groceries. Pay to wash his clothes. Pay for gas. Pay just to live.

He kept seeing people on the internet saying you should save up such and such percent of your pay, invest in your 401k or Roth IRA or gold. Mortimer was just trying to keep up with the interest on his credit card debt. Paying down the principal was a dream. Saving for retirement? Not even a dream. He needed a job. So he found his old bully from highschool, and asked for the privilege of serving him.

The bully plainly had no recollection of bullying Mortimer. The bully seemed to think they had gotten along in highschool. He was very willing to hire his old schoolmate, and had just the job for him. It was just a little conversation, a little writing, and a lot of driving. 

“Just a few easy trips through farm country every month. A life on the road, wild and free. A new woman in every truck lot, a new palace in every motel!” The bully laughed as he said it. There was even a seventeen dollar per-diem for food.

Mortimer hated his old bully. He could tell that the bully didn’t really think of him as a real person, and never had. His old bully didn’t believe farm country was real either. Not really real. And none of the people living in farm country were really real either. 

Mortimer understood his old bully a little better after two years on the job. He hadn’t seen a real human in all of Kansas this trip. There had been ‘people’ in the cars and gas stations, and someone had rented him the car, but he was absolutely certain none of them were real. 

They were set dressing, animatronics in gas station tee shirts. Real people would understand that spending twenty minutes picking out a ‘road soda’ from the liquor fridge at the gas station was stupid as Hell. So was leaving your ‘95 Ford Ranger covered in Molon Labe stickers and decals of Jesus with an M-16 in the parking lot. 

The tweakers (who didn’t know much of anything was real but their need for meth) flitted around the parking lots, avoiding the bright lights and looking for things to steal. They might not know Greek, but they knew that the rifles on the rack in the back of pickup trucks could be pawned. They gratefully accepted the Spartans’ ancient offer.

How could any of these ‘people’ be real? They were trapped in the liminal expanse called Kansas with him. Not that eastern Colorado would be any better. It was hard to get more dead and buried than Arriba Colorado. 

Maybe there would be a resurrection. His absolute most desperate resort for positivity and motivation was the Christian Radio station. Sometimes, those messages of brotherhood, love and salvation got him through a bad ten minutes. And that was the thing- when the cold is really on you, and the gray is rising up to choke you, you go ten minutes by ten minutes. There had been bland music for the last half hour. Listening to it felt like being a stab victim watching someone else get the bandage. 

“I’m Bishop Jeremaih Winkler, your companion on your journey between here and Heaven this blessed hour. With me as always is Sister Sandi McGuire.”

“Woo hoo!”

A radio ministry. He was so far gone, he was prepared to thank God for it.

“Haw haw! Last week we talked about whether the Gospels really were ‘woke.’ A very serious topic in these dark days when we Christians are everywhere attacked and persecuted for our faith. I know many of you were concerned about this “Turn the other cheek” business. Well, we know the truth, don’t we? 

Brothers and sisters, Jesus came with a sword. Jesus kicked out the fat-cat bankers and fought the deep state. He volunteered for the Cross! He never quit. He refused to tap out like a LIBERAL SODOMITE would. The LORD our GOD took the worst they could give him and then came back even stronger.”

“Amen! Can I get a Praise Jesus everybody? Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, ‘cause we WILL be ready for Round Two!”

“Praise Jesus, Sister Sandi, Praise JESUS! And I know there was a lot of passion and a lot of pain out there last week, but today I want to talk to you about something we can all take comfort in. Just as Jesus picked up the sword of righteousness, so will every good Christian in the war against the Antichrist. But it is vital to remember, even in those darkest moments, you are never alone. I’m talking about your heavenly brother in arms. I’m talking to you about your guardian angel. Now, this ain’t your Hallmark Card dope in a dress with a fluoride brain smile guardian angel. I’m talking about the real deal here-”

Mortimer finally hit the radio in the right spot to switch it off. Blessed silence fell on him. Even the road noise drifted away in a monotonous hum. Vanishing from perception. A gray noise that disappeared with the dying light of the day. Darkness came on, and with it, the automatic headlights on his beater rental. 

He drifted into the night. The mania that took him onto Old Route 40 had faded as the miles passed and the sun set. It felt right to be in a numb bubble. Letting the gray and the cold finally wash over his head. This, too, was a sort of madness. The other end of mania. Torpor. Even if he was sitting at home right now, he didn’t know what he would be doing. Watching Youtube shorts on his phone while ESPN ran on the TV, probably.

Mortimer didn’t watch sports. He just needed the flickering lights of the big screen to fill the space of his empty apartment while he lost himself endlessly scrolling. Watching other people pretending to live like real people should.

He felt the gray drowning him. He didn’t feel even strong enough to wave before he went under for the third time. Mortimer knew he couldn’t live in the gray. He used what tools he had. “Every challenge I face helps me grow and become stronger. I am worthy of love, success and happiness.” The affirmations weren’t cutting it tonight. He risked turning the radio back on.

“A RAIN OF FIRE, SISTER SANDI! A SECOND FLOOD TO CLEANSE THE WORLD OF SINNERS AND SODOMITES AND LIBERALS AND GROOMERS! A RAIN OF FIRE THAT CONSUMES THE WHOLE WORLD. AND WE SHALL STAND ABOVE IT ALL, SISTER SANDI, BORN UP BY OUR GUARDIAN ANGELS. THE BLESSED ELECT, SISTER SANDI, SAFE IN THE ARK OF JESUS WHILE THE SINNERS DROWN IN HELLFIRE!”

“Christ!” He nearly yanked the car off the road, the noise hitting him like a Tacoma in a preschool parking lot. Mortimer scrabbled at the radio, trying to switch it off again. He must have successfully hit something, because Bishop Winkler was lost in a cloud of static. His headlights were jerking around, sweeping over cleared corn fields and the empty highway while he tried to straighten out. Then the headlights died. A second later, so did the engine.

The brakes still worked. Mortimer was able to pull over without driving into the irrigation ditch. There was a faint ticking, as the heat left the hood of the car in the cool night air. November in Kansas. It got chilly.

He tapped the dash. Not so much as a warning light. He gave the infotainment system a slap. Nothing. Tried the overhead light. Nothing. Grabbed his phone. It had gone dead. Which he should have expected, given the USB port was busted and his phone hadn’t charged since last night.

He really tried to stay optimistic. He really did believe that there was a good future waiting for him, if he just worked for it. It’s just that, some days, it was hard to keep the faith. Then it was down to the individual minutes. That determination to fight the gray empty of this alien world.

Mortimer opened the door and stretched. This was the first trip that his old bully told him was really urgent. He had a big meeting in the morning. Big. He sighed, and started looking for a discreet place to take a piss. 

There was a light, stabbing, burning on his skin. It seemed to come from above him, there was a loud ringing noise and he was floating, he could see himself floating in the light, floating above the desolate fields, the fields naked and ashamed under the blinding light!

Mortimer was standing in an empty room. Every surface was the same high gloss white. There weren't any lights, but he could see with perfect clarity. There was no door or window.  

The longer he looked around the room, the more he started to doubt its existence. For one thing, he wasn’t sure that it really was white, or that he was standing in it. Some nagging part of his brain was trying to tell him something else, but the majority had decided on something more familiar.

“A featureless room that makes you hopeless and depressed. This is it. I have reached the highest level of Kansas.”

“Well, it sure is funny you saying that.” The voice was slow and dripped of half bright hick. The drawl pulled the words in strange directions- “It” with a T that smacked the ear like a pickaxe, then the taffy-pull “shhhhhoooore.” And yet, despite the affected brain damage and the vocal contortions, each word was clearly understood.

The speaker was about three feet tall. He had a battered straw boater on his head, wore a plaid suit that looked like it was cut from the upholstery of a condemned sofa, and clumpy black shoes. His nose was long, pointed and the cherry red of the committed alcoholic. It matched his plump, brilliantly crimson cheeks and gave an explanation for his hooded, sleepy eyes. His wide mouth hung open in the perpetual hope it would rain soup. He certainly wouldn’t want anything that required biting or chewing, as his incisors were jutting out over his lower lip at a forty five degree angle to where they should have been.

He was also, quite plainly, a puppet. There was a moment of horrified recognition, then unspeakable fury.

“What the actual-”

“Gawrsh, you can’t say that, you’ll get us into trouble! Noser, I don’t want no trouble. I just got me a new summer job.” The face contorted into a frown, as one hand jerked from side to side.

“As a lifeguard, maybe?” Every second of the American Film Institute performance with this dummy had been seared into Mortimer’s memory. Each second a cringe-filled microcosm of shame.

“Naw. Well. Sorta.”

“What, then? What is all this? Why are you here? And where’s the man fisting you?”

“Language! Err. I think. Is that a bad word? I plumb don’t know. He ain’t exactly here. Or a man. Or have hands. ‘Cept when he does, of course, in a manner of speaking.”

“What is all this? TELL ME!” Mortimer ran at the puppet, but he never seemed to get any closer. Like the space in the room was infinite, and the distance between him and the puppet was the only constant.

“See, you were supposed to learn. Well, not just you. He tried to teach you, but none of you seemed to get it. Gawrsh. And people say I’m slow!”

Mortimer stopped running. He was so mad, he felt like he was losing control of his limbs. Like he couldn’t run even if he wanted to, his limbs locked up with childhood humiliation and adult despair. 

“So he’s trying this now. New things. He shure done gone and made himself a whole thing for you. Well, not just you. Heeyuck!” The doll chuckled.

Mortimer felt himself collapsing, his limbs seeming to fall off as his brain locked up with rage. Some small part, almost inaudible inside of him, said that he was overreacting, that he wasn’t this kind of person, that he rarely got angry thanks to the therapy and pills and the cultural Alzheimer’s of the public. But it was a very quiet voice, and the doll’s slow hayseed drawl rolled right over it.

The doll reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cards. “Nice fresh pack, only been used since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Not like my old cards. Can’t use my old cards anymore since my cousin marked ‘em all. Then the poor feller forgot what the marks ment!” He threw them up in the air, and they fell like leaves over the increasingly fictitious floor. 

The back of the card was blue. For some reason, Mortimer could see they had a naked fairy riding a bicycle on them. Bicycle cards. He knew them. You could buy them almost anywhere. 

“Now, all you gotta do is put them in order. Not any other cards. Just these cards.”

“What other cards?”

The doll smiled his slow, dumb smile, and pulled out four more decks. One after the other, he threw them into the air.

“Just them By-cycle cards. Not the others. In order by suit, if you please, ace two three and so on, I was never much good at counting over Jack.”

“How? HOW? My damn arms and legs fell off!”

“Heeyuck! Why just using the ‘ole noodle. Even a blockhead like me knows that.”

“That’s impossible!”

“Ain’t. You just ain’t learned how yet. So you gotta. Just them By-Cycle cards, now. And in order. Else it don’t count and won’t work. Ain’t that a hoot?”

The doll waved awkwardly and vanished. 

Mortimer was left thrashing in the null space, the white room infinitely extending around him. Now the fixed points were him and the cards. The only things that mattered. His brain, and the cards.

He didn’t know how long he lay there. Mortimer stopped thrashing after a while. When ‘down’ is an undefined infinity, he couldn’t even worm his way around the room. Time seemed to be another one of those unfixed points. In a fit of boredom, he tried to send his mind out towards the cards. 

Nothing happened, of course. 

He kept at it. He imagined his frustrated brain thrashing about in the air, like an angry worm. He kept trying to reach for the cards, and achieved absolutely nothing. But he never seemed to get tired in this nowhere place, and there was quite literally nothing else here, so he kept at it. Thrashing and groping like a blind worm fleeing the flooded earth. Unable to even conceive of birds. 

This went on for an indefinitely long time. His subjective sense of time was long gone, and his subjective sense of self was chasing on its heels. But he kept at it, and eventually, the blind worm nudged into something. There was a shape in the air. A tiny little shape. If he had to guess, it would be smaller than his eyeball. Maybe even smaller than his pupil. 

It didn’t matter. It was only an imaginary brain worm. He pictured the extension of his mind spitting out threads that moved like tentacles, quickly wrapping around the shape. It started feeling familiar. The threadlike tendrils invaded invisible crevices, finding turns and microstructures. It all felt so natural. As though the worm would naturally expand and contort around the shape, molding it inside and out with its intangible flesh and invisible tentacles. As though it could do nothing else but that. In what was surely no time at all, his little brain worm could replicate the shape perfectly. 

So he did. There was a small explosion of cards, and standing proudly above the heap was a solid deck. The puppet appeared again.

“Gooollllleeee! Gee whillikers, will ya look at that? Like you had done it a thousand times before. Heh heh. Aww, I’m joshin’ ya.”

Mortimer glared up from the floor. The puppet couldn’t keep the dialog right. He had the right voice, the accent, the inflection, but the vocabulary was off. There probably weren’t more than a few hundred people still alive that knew this hideous thing as well as he did. The absolute definition of useless knowledge.

“Wheeel now that ya gotcha little doohickey, why don’tcha try doing it before the cards hit the ground?”

The doll threw all the packs in the air, a blizzard of playing cards falling down around him. Mortimer made the shape with his brain worm, and out of the two hundred and sixty falling cards, fifty two of them shuffled together almost instantly, and landed neatly in the doll’s hand.

“By-cycle blues, fifty and two, in order by their Sunday best suits.” The doll laughed softly, an almost gentle “Haw haw.” sound. “Guess it’s time to send you in. Remember now, you’ve already lost a lot. Got to get all the energy you can, while you can, and get out. Good luck neighbor!”

“Wait, what is all this-”

The white became overwhelming, crushing, and then, darkness.

Mortimer was standing in a cavern of concrete and steel and other materials he couldn’t name. Impossibly vast. Bigger than a stadium. Bigger than city blocks folded together in some Inception-addled nightmare of form and space. 

He didn’t know how he got here. It was cold. There was a steady metallic clanking coming from somewhere. There were flights of stairs a dozen feet wide and hundreds of yards long, flanked by broken lightbulbs the size of a man. Scattered pillars held up giant statues of headless angels and vaguely Buddhist or Hindu gods, but none looked quite like anything he knew. 

He looked up. He couldn’t see the ceiling. At least down seemed firm. He wasn’t sure where the dim light was coming from. Things seemed to be more shadow than real, despite the oppressive materials. It looked like a mad cathedral to brutalism and pop religion, haunted by who knows what ghosts. There was a shifting nose, like something scraping against the concrete. 

He found out real fast what lived here.