The frog prince by THE MIGHTY LINGSTER Chapter 1 -- Life Is Like A Bowl Of Cherries No growth in this first chapter, but you have to read it if you want to have a clue as to what's going on. So saieth the Mighty Lingster, and let none question His word, lest they face the full force of His rapier-like wit. Also, shouldst thou dwell...(getting old)...if you live in a country which forbids access to adult literature, or if you are beneath the age of majority in the country from which you have logged into the vast neoprene tangle of the Internet, kindly take a flying fuck at a galloping goose, because I don't want you reading my shit. Got me? T H E F R O G P R I N C E by THE MIGHTY LINGSTER Chapter 1 -- Life Is Like A Bowl Of Cherries Johnathan looked down into the toilet as he voided the night's pee, his vision slowly clearing to reveal the filth covering the rim of the commode. Flecks of shit were scattered all along the inside, and he fought back a sudden urge to retch. "Goddamn fucking plumbing...!" he began, but suddenly closed his eyes and took several deliberate, long breaths. He opened the cabinet beneath his sink and pulled out the toilet bowl cleaner, and began the unpleasant chore. Minutes later, in the shower, he thought back to his reaction. "Not good. The stress from work must really be affecting me, I CAN'T let myself lose control. I just can't." He washed himself off, paying special attention to his hands, and then shut off the water and toweled himself off. His heart rate had slowed, he knew, and he went into the kitchen to make his usual ginseng tea. After finishing breakfast, Johnathan got dressed and left for work. He walked to the subway station, and got on the 9 train, which would take him downtown. He noticed an attractive girl stealing glances at him, but forced himself not to make eye contact. "Focus, focus, focus," he thought to himself. Reaching the World Trade Center, Johnathan piled out of the train along with most of its occupants, and made his way up and out to the street. He walk- jogged (jalked? wogged? he wondered) the two blocks over to 135 Broadway and pressed the button for the 23rd floor, "Hamlin Brothers Securities". Getting off the elevator, he began to walk toward his cubicle, in the north-east corner of the building. He passed his co-workers; most of them didn't know him yet, he'd only been here six weeks. They didn't know his name, they didn't know where he was from, and not a one of them knew he'd been in a mental hospital from 1988 until 3 months ago last Tuesday. It was a voluntary convalesence. Johanathan's doctors were prepared to release him less than a year after the 'incident', but Johnathan refused to leave. The doctors didn't know, or at least didn't BELIEVE, but Johnathan did. Johnathan knew and believed, he'd seen the effects of his losing control, and for more than seven years believed that freedom was the last and least luxury of which he should allow himself to partake. He banished his family -- refused to see them. Refused to see ANYONE he knew from before. And now, after 3 months in New York, he had made not even one friend. No lovers, not even prostitutes, would Johnathan have. No confidantes, not even acquaintances one could consider as more than minimally casual. Johnathan was an island. There would be no letter in a bottle, no Friday, no rescue -- Johnathan was resolved. Johnathan had focused on mathematical studies to keep his mind occupied and rooted to reality -- OBJECTIVE reality -- while he was hospitalized. He read Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, and the Stoics, but steered well clear of any author or philosopher even remotely Cartesian, Continental, or subjective. When he finally allowed himself to be released, he was well-equipped and pedigreed for a job as an accountant. He had his BA in Accounting from an in-house tutor, and his CPA through an outpatient program sponsored by the hospital. He was suited for a job on Wall Street, and he went in search of one. His test scores were excellent, and he soon found a fat envelope from Hamlin Brothers in his mailbox. He was offered a position starting at $45,000, and while that was quite low for a CPA in Old New York, Johnathan recognized that it was only because he was 26 that he was being offered as much as that without experience. A kid right out of college would be offered considerably less. Johnathan's every day was a tenacious exercise in routine. Johnathan would tolerate nothing else. The sameness was solid, it was palpable. No fantasy could penetrate it. Nightmares, however, sometimes poked through. Like many workplaces, Hamlin Brothers held a party on Halloween, ,and encouraged its employees to dress accordingly. And so it was that on this Halloween, 1996, Johnathan turned the last corner on the way to his cubicle and was confronted by a giant frog. His heart jumped into his throat, and his vision turned inside-out, as his worst nightmare confronted him. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! NO! NO!!! NOOOO!!!!" he screamed, ROARED, falling backwards and kicking himself spastically backwards against the floor. "NOOOOOO!!! GET AWAY! GET!! AWAY!!!" People flooded the hallway to see what was happening, and were quite amazed to see a look of absolute, unquestionable horror on Johnathan's face. Few, if any, amongst them had ever caught a glimpse of terror so raw as that which clearly resided in the snarl of Johnathan's lips, the taut bulge of his eyes, the claw-like grip of the carpeted cubicle wall in his hands. Johnathan had stopped screaming, even though he looked as though he still were. One co-worker silently noted the expression on Johnathan's face matched precisely the look on Lee Harvey Oswald's in the famous photo that captured Jack Ruby shooting him. Johnathan looked stricken unto death. Even after the frog removed its head and turned out to be Rebecca Hanson, the woman in the next cubicle, Johnathan seemed to be still possessed by the horror. It wasn't until his boss slapped him in the face that Johnathan first realized he had not been looking at a giant frog, but rather at a person in a frog costume. "Ah...Ah...." he gulped air, breathing for the first time in over a minute. "I'm all right. I'm all right. Frogs. Frogs." But he could not clear the memories from his mind. The years peeled back and once more he was lying in his sleeping bag, covered by his friends the frogs. "Johnathan," his boss spoke, "come with me." "Yes, yes, I'm okay, I'm coming." Johnathan dutifully rose to his feet and raised the corners of his mouth in a weak smile, as if to say, "Thank you for tolerating me." He followed his boss down to the big corner office that had a view of the Brooklyn Bridge, whereupon he was directed to close the door. He did so, and then took a seat. Johnathan was very good at sitting still, and he used this talent now to create the appearance that he was calm. "What just happened out there, Johnathan? Do you need to see a doctor?" his boss asked. "No. No, sir, I just had a little panic attack. That's all, sir," he reassured his boss. "It seemed very...extreme. You've been working very hard on the end-of-the-year bond-swap sales initiative, I know. Why don't you take today off? Go for a walk? It's clear you've been pushing yourself too hard, and we really don't want incidents like this morning's, do we?" "No, sir." "The firm retains a personnel consultant in midtown, and they have relationships with several stress-reduction centers and...mental health specialists. Perhaps we could arrange a meeting for next week?" "I...well, uh, if you think that would be something I, er, would, yes. If you think so. Yes." Johnathan stammered. "Okay, then. We'll see you tomorrow, then, Johnathan. Take the day to rest." "Yes, sir," Johnathan said, and then turned and left the office. He walked to the elevator, forlornly, upset that he'd so spectacularly lost his cool earlier. He rode down the elevator without thinking about anything, and then wandered north from downtown, aimlessly. Without much sense of time passing, he walked up through TriBeCa and Soho, past his apartment in the West Village, and up through midtown. As he passed Rockefeller Center, he decided he would continue on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and spend some time there.