Travel Bug (21 page)

“Please stop feeling sorry for yourself. It’s pathetic.”

“One last book and then…”

“Oh, do shut up. You love yourself way, way too much for suicide.”

“Okay.” Her assessment of his arrogance made him smile now.

“Now what do you think?”

“You tell me, you’re the ugly fucking muse.” There was a brief pause. If this thing was his new business partner, it was a hell of a way to treat one. An apology was in order. “Sorry about that…”

“You can’t help it. That’s you. You’re a selfish prick. I told you that.”

“Please, no more visions of the history of my sex life.”

“Shut up, old man.”

This time it was really, truly awful. The women he had slept with and they were many, spoke up. They had a lot to say about him and how… disappointing of a fuck he was. A thousand women agreed that he sucked in bed. His technique for giving women oral satisfaction left them unsatisfied.

“I have never been with a man that bad,” said the muse.

“Oh, neither have I.”

“Makes me wish I was with a woman,” the muse said.

“This is college; you can be straight and still do that.”

“It’s cooler than fucking that loser. Oh, sorry that’s you, isn’t it?”

David was crying. He really hated every single moment of the women’s voices. Thousands of voices and very few satisfied customers…

“I’m a great lover!”

“Sorry but you’re not. You’re a damn good writer…”

“Shut the fuck up you stupid fat ugly bitch!”

“Temper, temper, baby, please take it easy.”

A glimpse of David dating and fucking some older women in order to further his literary and academic career was intoxicating. The fat bitch finally cut David a little slack. The guys, oh the guys who talked with the author in question about sex all the time. He bragged to his fellow professors and even male students (how pathetic) again and again and again! Who had the best tits and ass? Which women moaned the most, hey, the guys need to know this vital information.

“Mature.”

“Well, I know I’m a child deep down.”

“A selfish child, I would even go as far as a sociopath.”

David witnessed all the times he lied about the women he slept with and started false rumors about them. If they didn’t like him, they were either lesbians or married. Hell, they were married lesbians and had no time for the guru of fuck. What a big liar he was. David was getting very embarrassed by all of this. He didn’t like this must putting him to the test like this. He was thinking almost out loud about how to get rid of the wicked muse.

“You can’t get rid of me, David. I’m your muse,” she said sincerely.

David stared blankly into his fireplace. He watched the flickering flames and contemplated his terrifying and absurd existence. He was sick and tired of being bullied by a supernatural fat chick.

“Let’s go! You’ll like this next trip. I promise.”

“Okay.”

Many greats, almost all suicidal alcoholics walked up to him and congratulated him on his novel “One Wish.” They said that it was an honor to be in the company of such a fine gentleman and scholar. David was nothing if not a proud man. He was very happy in the company of dead famous writers.

“Now you see what you can be. Perhaps you can see what I can be as well.”

“I don’t follow, muse.”

“Sorry.”

The forgotten dreams and nightmares of his colleagues appeared in terrifying detail. He wept again. Some men’s dreams are in vain. That was the sad state of affairs of the lesser talents at Donnis. David felt superior but not in a good way. He felt like there should be some competition. Hell, someone else should have kicked him in the balls to get to Pandora’s Box. He was alone. David was Prometheus and the rest of the staff was stupid wimps. It was lonely at the top of genius. The part of David that was more heart than ego was beginning to make its appearance. He was more defensive than ever.

“Hey muse, why are you still here?”

“To help you, of course, my master, you know that.”

“Where are we going now?

“I think you know.

“Straight to hell, I’m sure.”

“You got it, stud.”

The fires of hell surrounded him; he felt their terrible surreal heat. He thought this might be an illusion. Hell might be made of ice for all he knew. It was good enough for the final part of Dante’s vision of damnation. David knew he was not just a jerk. He was a fiend, a ghoulish man whose heart was filled with self-love and self-hate simultaneously. Once again, the elect were there. This time they were not in paradise but rather perdition. There was fire but it seemed to be more like an illusion. The souls felt more like they were freezing rather than burning. The great alcoholics were all there. Some looked happy, others terrified. A few looked like they wish they could commit suicide again and get it right this time. What made it hell was the appearance of their personal muses. They were all fat chicks.

David walked towards the refrigerator. It had no milk, butter, eggs or bread. It was just like the old days for this author. The fridge was filled with whiskey. He poured himself a huge glass.

“Here is to getting really drunk and writing the great American novel.”

“Here, here,” she toasted him and drank an even bigger glass.

“You know, I’m really beginning to feel inspired. You know something else; with every drink you don’t look so bad.”

“Oh, you flatter me.”

“Too bad I’m going to die from cirrhosis of the liver. I’ve got a few more books in me, you know. There are quite a few freshmen students I would like to have sex with as well.”

The muse sprinkled some golden dust in one his gigantic glasses of booze. He drank it very fast and was happy to discover it greatly added to his buzz. David was so embarrassingly drunk now he was falling down and bumping into the walls.

“Where is the fucking typewriter?”

“Don’t worry, sit down and write.”

“I will start now.” The typewriter was now in front of the once great writer.

“Excellent, David…”

“Just keep the drinks coming. I want to drink so much I forget what you look like. I want to be so drunk I would sell my own soul. Well, sell it again anyway.”

“As you wish…”

The thing was that the devil himself couldn’t have been that much worse than the Jinn. And he knew in time, he would stop drinking and go back to his real drug of choice… sex. There would be future dealing with the prince of darkness. Was liquid courage (what made you curse at folks you didn’t like) and liquid muse (drunken inspiration, sleeping with ugly chicks) the same thing?

David considered himself to be the luckiest writer on the planet for having such a beautiful creature for his muse. The time for being honest was over. It was time to start writing his new novel.

“If there are such things as angels and demons then… where do we fit in, the scheme of things, Harold?” I asked him.

“Son, I’m not sure.”

“Why do I keep having dreams and visions about this professor Dr. Wells?”

“You mean dreams of him and his work?”

“Yes and sometimes his most famous student Christopher Wisdom. Why?”

“Andrew, I don’t know. Perhaps there is some connection we simply don’t know about but it seems unimportant know. Jezebel is priority one. Having access doesn’t give one all the answers. Some questions have no answers. Do you have the answers? Do I? Does that damn bug?”

There was a pause.

“No and not having the answers drove Jezebel insane.”

“Why do men kill?” Harold asked me bluntly.

“I don’t know, why the fuck do they commit suicide?” I asked him.

“Fuck, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either, great grandfather. I do know that Wells is extremely well read. And I know that anger is my muse.”

“Let’s go see that girlie man Shakespeare…”

“Hell yes!”

We did.

While that “sissy” in tights wrote some of the greatest words ever written in any human language, Harold and I drank beer and hung out watching him put the whole mess together……

“This is awesome,” said Harold.

“What is?”

“That you and I cheat time together…”

“Well, Harold, the good news is that we are here to witness……”

“Magic……”

“Yes……”

“Harold, writing is magic, I guarantee you that…”

“Excellent,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered him.

A true believer has all the information and we still don’t know why man kills man.

“I think that you’re crazy,” said my great grandfather. “I guess it runs in the family.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you much more about that later,” he said.

We found ourselves right back at our headquarters, looking at the unnamed species once more.

“The story that I have next is too awful, too perverted for me to even write down.”

“Even more twisted than me being poor,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered him.

“Keep it to yourself and don’t reveal it then,” he answered sincerely.

“Do we privileged folk spend so much damn time amusing ourselves that we are in utter denial and don’t do the right thing?”

“Well, you won’t like the answer but it’s the gospel truth.”

“Try me, Harold.”

“Well, because we can…… …”

“Oh, I know it is. That’s why I can party and get laid and ignore the fact that I’m putting off finding the crazy woman who killed my parents.”

“Well, we’re trying to avoid going insane due to our time travel experiences. Living in denial with the travel bug ain’t your ordinary party vacations…”

“Yes,” I answered him.

“The violence is what you are sheltering yourself from, Andrew. I don’t blame you one bit, the world is a cold and cruel place as you well know. Hell, you know it more than most men who have ever fought in two, three or even four tours of front line combat! You’ve seen the big, ugly picture and yet you want to leave this journey as a follower of Jesus helping the poor and meek. That almost makes me cry and…”

“Why?” I asked him.

“Man is very violent, my boy, simple as that. Mankind is violent. We are essentially a brutal species.”

“What?” I asked.

“Think about it, sunshine, Christians fed to lions, witches burned by Christians, Jews killed by Europeans, innocents killed by Muslim terrorists and free speakers murdered by communists and unconstitutional wars stared by the modern day American government.”

“Okay,” I said. “I understand.”

“The hell you do, perhaps someday when you’re dead, you’ll understand.”

“You know… I’m thinking maybe I made a mistake, perhaps I should return to my own time and start the seminary……”

So much violence in the world and yet nothing to prove. How I could misbehave is unknown to me considering it all I ever wanted was to be recognized for my virtue and good faith.

“Andrew, do you still believe in the church’s teaching that people are basically good?”

“I still have faith in man’s good side.”

“How is that possible?”

“We’ve seen people burning witches, what about those who nearly were burned to try and defend them against the church’s corruption? The Nazis were unspeakably evil but the people who hid the Jews from them were unbelievably brave and good. Those who risked death in the coliseum to defend Christians from the lion’s den weren’t too shabby either. The righteously angry Muslims who hate how their faith has been hijacked is also a good thing. The horrors of a man like Flick’s dictator friend were not the original intent of Marxist revolutionaries. Their hell was often paved with good intentions to help society’s starving poor masses. The reason Trotsky got killed with an ice pick by one of Stalin’s thugs was that he wanted the people to decide if Communism was workable or not. If it wasn’t, they could simply vote it out like any other democratic political system.”

“I overheard her when I was younger…”

“The white haired witch who travels through time, is that who you mean?”

“Yes, of course,” I answered him.

“Good.”

“Anyway, she was arguing with some of the hired help, her fellow maids about hell. She said most people will go there. One of the ladies asked her if she was pro-life and she said she was. She said that they did not yet reach the age of accountability in order to choose Christ over the devil yet. So they all got a first class ticket to the kingdom, no questions asked.”

“I see.”

“So, I overheard this woman say that that would make abortionists the ultimate followers of Christ. They send souls straight to heaven and statistically, most of them had they lived a normal life would now be burning in eternal torment.”

“And she said?”

“That there was some truth in that statement.”

“She’s fucking crazy.”

“No kidding, Harold. That’s why I would prefer to think people; most are innately good. That would mean a hell of a lot more people are in heaven.”

“Do you remember your father telling you that terrible story about me when the church bells would ring?”

“Yes.”

“I told them that the bells were actually a warning to the town that the Christians were on the loose…”

“That’s not funny,” I said, laughing.

The violence of the world and our travel bug trips was overwhelming on the soul. That’s when we decided to take a few more happy trips. Many adventurous westerners have been to Egypt but none outside of our family have seen the pyramids being built over and over again, like we have. We even stuck around for the sphinx. Our appetite for history was insatiable and since my parents died for us to have that privilege and Harold was the only real friend I’ve ever had, by God we made the most out of it.

“Where you want to go now?” asked Harold.

“Let’s separate the heroes from the myths; I want to see the victors of great military wars for who they were. I don’t want to see propaganda; I want the real deal, heroes, it that’s what they are, warts and all.”

“That’s a pretty damn good idea, Andrew.”

“Glad you approve. Let’s go see some heroes.”

We did.

Amazing, watching Americans who fought against slavery rise up against those who would treat humans as cattle. A pleasure to watch them fight like the heroes that they were but a tragedy to watch them die…