Paincourt Antique

Title: I want to believe

The phone was ringing off the hook. “Where in the fuck is my answering machine?” thought Dr. Wilson. He stumbled off the couch, cranky from a bad TV dream he was having. “Fucking stupid television!” he screamed and then picked up the phone, ” Dr. Wilson speaking.”
On the other end of the phone, violent music was blaring, MY WAR!!! YOU’RE ONE OF THEM! YOU SAY, YOU’RE MY FRIEND, BUT YOUR ONE OF THEM!!!!” “Dr. Wilson SPEAKING!” the music was pissing him off.
“HELLO!?!”
“Ah, um, yes, Dr. Wilson, this is Thomas, er, Tom Roth, I’m like, one of your patients.
“Yes Tom, could you turn the music down? Have you been drinking?”
“Ummm, yeah, hold on.” Tom mumbled.
During the pause, Dr. Wilson thought, “I should have never left the West Coast, and people think everyone in Los Angeles is fucked up? They don’t hold a candle to these hillbilly’s.”
He heard the music turn off and Tom making dreadful noises on his way back to the phone.
Tom said, “Dr. Wilson, hello? Hello?
“Yes, Tom.” Replied Dr. Wilson in a loathsome manner.
“Well, um, you remember saying that if anything bad happened, er, um, an emergency, I could call you at home?”
“Of course, Tom I like to give my patients that extra attention, if necessary, have you been drinking again? I can come over, we can talk about it.”
“Well good, um, I’ve got a real humdinger here, yes sir, a hum d-i-n-g-e-r!!! Do you remember me tellin you all about them aliens and you said that I was just wanting to believe in em to fill a spiritual void or something? Little gray guys with big oval eyes?
“Of course Tom, I told you these are delusions.”
Tom cut him off. “This ain’t no delusion doc! I got one, he’s dead, have him here in my house, in my cellar! I drug him down there after I got him, I hid him, you know the others will find out, I’m freaking out here!”
Dr. Wilson replied “Now, now Tom, that is absolutely crazy, now I’m coming over there and we’ll call your sponsor at AA and get you straightened out.” He thought, “Shit this guy is nuts when he drinks, no wonder his wife left him.” “I tell you what Tom, I’m calling Andy and we’ll be over in a little bit.”
Dr. Wilson ran some water over his face to wake up a bit, “What a nut-job.” He thought. “Let’s see, one house call, 200 bucks, not bad, and to think I used to baby sit drunks in college for free.” He called Andy, Tom’s AA sponsor and told him to meet him at Tom’s house in about an hour.
On the drive over, Dr. Wilson popped in a CD to relax. “Ahhh, Crosby, Stills and Nash, ‘Teach your children well,’ he began to sing along.
“Man I still got it.” As he thought about his voice and his looks and his car. Heavy Summer Raindrops were falling on the windshield; a nice heady, warm wind was blowing through his hair. Soon he reached 401 Beacon Street. “You know, for being a crazy fuck, this guy sure has it going on, shit after I’m done with him, he’ll be getting a second mortgage,” he chuckled.
Dr. Wilson knocked on the door. Tom answered immediately, “That you Doc? Hurry up, come in here.”

“O.K. Tom, hold on, can I have some water?” Tom replied, “I ain’t talkin to you unless you have a beer. You just have to see it, man!” See what?” replied Dr. Wilson. “The God Damned alien! Weren’t you listening when I called? Jesus!” With that Tom forcibly grabbed Dr. Wilson and led him to the cellar. The cellar wasn’t well lit and was full of spider webs and old, long neglected objects. Just as creepy as any cellar.
Dr. Wilson chuckled, “have you lost your mind? Maybe I will take you up on that .”
Tom cut him off, “see, do you see this beast?” Dr. Wilson looked down, and he saw a rabbit that had recently been shot.
He exclaimed, “Tom, that’s just a rabbit, is this some kind of joke? I think we need to get you in to the office a little more frequently.” Then he began to look up, somehow Tom was in a bunny suit, grinning from ear to ear. He wondered, “Did I miss something?”
Tom began talking excitedly, ” I have taken a life of the other, and now I have become the other, his life force has crept into mine .”
Dr. Wilson began walking slowly backward, “Tom, why don’t we go back upstairs and talk about this.”
“No time for talking, the Leader has let me know things, the Leader says you may not know them!” Dr. Wilson stumbled over an old lawn mower; a screw or something jutting out of it cut him right under his ankle. He jumped and screamed a quick scream. It was then that he saw the ax in Tom’s hands. He turned and ran. Stumbling up the wooden stairs, he felt the blow, he felt sick, dizzy and fell down into the wet grass and mud. Pain shot through his body “so this is it?” He thought. The smell of the grass reminded him of mowing lawns when he was a teenager. He didn’t want to open his eyes, but he did. He saw .30 or 40 rabbit’s gathering around him, they were talking to him, they were telling him secrets of the universe and at the same time, they were reading his mind. He saw Andy’s headlights shine on the shed in the backyard, he tried to scream, “Go away!!” but, all he could do was gurgle up blood and a little vomit.
Soon they final blow was dealt and the doctor was a doctor no more. Tom stood triumphant over his first victim. “There is much more to do,” the master spoke telepathically as he wiggled his pink little nose. “Yes master!” responded Tom.
He began to walk out to his driveway to greet his next guest, Andy. The head alien/bunny then telepathed, “What is the first step to recovery Tom?”

Addendum 2010:
I would some day like to expand on my idea of the "alien all around us" feeling that I sometimes have. I found this short story silly and fun but my intent behind it was menacing. I suppose that part did not work out. I originally had these quotes at the beginning:

"Solve unto me the enigma that I then beheld,
interpret for me the vision of the loneliest one.
For it was a vision and a foresight. What did I then behold in parable? And who is it that must come some day?

Who is the shepherd into whose throat all the blackest and the heaviest will crawl?
-The shepherd bit as my cry had admonished him; he took a good bite, and spit the head of the serpent far away: -and sprang up-

No longer shepherd, no longer man–a transfigured being, a light surrounded being, that laughed. Never on earth laughed a man as he laughed!

O my brethren, I heard a laughter which was no human laughter."

-Nietzche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

FOLLOWED BY:

“Just like I Nietzche to suck my dick”
–Steve Albini

I now find that particularly telling of my self confidence issue. I don't suffer that so much these days, so I left that out.