Free CLANK: A Book of Madness (Psychological Satire Novel) Unsettled Office Worker Loses the Last Screw by Draven Madpen Page A

Maintain. Maintain.
    The phone on my desk begins
ringing. I reach out to retrieve the receiver. A moment of clarity. An
explosive realization… It’s an epiphany, a vision. I instantly replay an
earlier incident in the day. It’s Wilmer walking into the office, he’s carrying
the foreboding package… CLANK!
    I know that! The disagreeable
noise reverberates in my head, rattling off the sides like a frantic pinball. I
hear the sharp-pitched clink again. It can’t be! Another glass bowl? But how!
    CLANK! CLINK! CLANK!
    My God… I’m growing weak. I’m
Superman; kryptonite is near, even more powerful than before. The clinks are
much harsher, much more strident in comparison to the old nemesis. Each clank
is now accompanied by a vibrating note which jars my brain incessantly. Like a
chinaman banging away on a gong just behind my head. CLANK! My head dips
downward like a turtle attempting to hide within its shell. The room is closing
in on me. Blurred streaks of walls and desks and floors and windows. A swirling
mass of chaos – each CLANK! resulting inanother fuzzy image. The
phone continues to ring but I’ve become so disoriented that I can’t locate the
receiver.
    A voice calls out from
somewhere.
    “Answer? Are you going to
answer that, Jerrard?” It’s Wilmer.
    Answer it? I can hardly even
breathe! Cromwell busily banging away on his death drum – hassling me with such
trivial questions! The dirty scoundrel knows the truth! Death is seconds away,
I know, it must be. My window is closing fast. The office door shrinks away
like a camera zooming out in the old Hitchcock films. My body instinctually
crawls over the desk, rolls onto the floor and staggers to the door. I fling it
open dramatically, instantly collapsing into the hallway, still somehow
managing to shut the door behind me with the last bit of dying strength.
    The clinks are still audible
through the thin walls, yet nearly tolerable. I’m still in terrible shape. It’s
only just begun. Crawl boy, crawl! Keep moving… Out of time… Too late…
     
    While I nodded, nearly dying,
suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping on my
tender side. ‘Tis some pest, I mumbled, tapping on my tender side… it
must be this and nothing more. At some point I must have covered my ears
and began rocking back and forth, curled up, lying on the ground pathetically.
The tapping comes again. I don’t open my eyes. I can’t. It might be the living
clink. The horror finally coming to take me! The clank lives! Taking a mortal
form to finish its dark deed… A hand shakes me yet again, only much rougher
this time. I’m forced to open my eyes, to inspect, to take sight of the
aggressor. The face I see is shocking. It’s… it’s incredible.
    “Are you alright?” the person
asks.
    My head bobs in a motion not
suggestive of a yes or a no, only random movements.
    “What happened?” the voice
demands.
    “Clinking!” I manage to gasp.
The sound is still within earshot, though highly muffled.
    The face, Natasha’s face,
looks down at my weakened body with complete and utter bewilderment. The tramp!
She has no clue what is going on or just how near to death I truly was. Perhaps
still am.
    “What?” she says.
    Right. I can’t make a
favorable impression on her when I’m mentally sound. Now that I’m curled into
the fetal position, babbling incoherently, my chances have been reduced
drastically. Or so I thought.
    “Clanking!” I spew. “The
clanking! Get me out of here!”
    She hears the distant sound to
which I’m referring -- her face contorts in odd fashions. I know what she’s
thinking. That little noise has immobilized you? Are you a goddamn maniac?
Well, to be honest maybe I am. But right now I’m trying to survive and she’s my
only hope.
    “Take me away from here,” I
behest urgently.
    I’m a little man, very light,
around one hundred and forty pounds soaking wet. Natasha most likely weighs one
hundred twenty to one hundred