The Wizard of Ooze

Be forewarned: in all likelihood this story is probably one of complete fiction. Even I'm not sure of its veracity. I'm a simple messenger. But regardless of its truth, its a story worth telling. I heard it from my father in a long drive away from a long night at work. I was burnt out, sinking deep into the comfort of the night and the more tangible pleasantness of the cheap fabric seats of my family's '95 Taurus. I was bitching about my work, as I was wont to do in those hazy shifts washing dishes at the Galley. Leave it to my dad to prove why I was so wrong.

"Back when I was in Alaska, long before I met your mother, I was wandering aimlessly, clamping on to whatever career I could find. For a while I was fishing in the inhospitable waters between Anchorage and Russia with a crew of Aleut natives, trying to capture crabs and fish from the embrace of the frozen waters. I guess Deadliest Catch sort of ripped off our gimmick some years down the road. Then for a while I was a miner, burrowing deeper and deeper inton the heart of the earth until I strode through her black ventricles, striking gold from spare arteries long forgotten by man's eyes. But the  job I'll never forget was my time spent in an oil refinery. The job itself was unremarkable. The pay was meagre, the work was tedious. But it was at this refinery that I met the Wizard of Ooze. He was an older man, in his mid-sixties. And I feel no shame in saying that if he'd wanted to kick my ass, he very well could've. He was sinewy, still pulsing with a virile vitality that most men abandon upon marriage. A bachelor for the entirety of life, this man was immune from that depravation of strength, instead maintaining a surly distance from his more docile coworkers. I observed him from afar at first; he was assigned to the purification booth, an area generally regarded as on of the more hazardous of an inherently dangerous plant. But he never seemed worried...instead he derived an enjoyment from his work that was unparalleled by anyone else on the plant. After a period of observation, I felt an inexplicable compulsion to talk to him, if only to truly appreciate his peculiar demeanour. His voice was different than I had expected, gentle, even as his vocal chords were frayed by the toll of years of whiskey and cigarettes. When I asked him why he enjoyed his work as he did, he replied simply "It's all for fun isn't it?" I was baffled by this. When I asked him for clarification, I soon realized what he meant. He told me that in the Vietnam war he had been an assassin for the American government. He hadn't enjoyed having to kill people, cloaked in an anonymity rendered irrelevant by the barbarism of war, but he did so anyways out of a base patriotism. At one point he even claimed that he'd been commissioned by Uncle Sam to assassinate the French royal family. While this homicidal conspiracy had been unsuccessful, he was still proud of his involvement in a scheme so grandiose. Even so, when the war ended, he found himself in a strange place. The army had cultivated an innate ability for murder, sequestered deep beneath his gentle nature, but in peacetime, he was useless. He became a nomad, moving from place to place, trying to adopt what skills he could and inevitably failing. This cycle continued until he reached Alaska. It was there that he discovered an inexplicable talent for purifying oil. And so, despite the danger, he whiled his days away in the purification room. He was so glad of work that didn't require his base talents that he performed his services at the modest cost of lodgings and food. He was so glad to have found a skill of his separate from the savagery he had displayed that every day he would head to work with a broad grin scrawled easily across his face. I was shocked to hear this. I hadn't imagined hm to be a killer, and even to this day I think he might've been taking the piss, telling me some elaborate hoax, trying to distract me from whatever real reason he was so invested in and pleased with his work. But whenever I pressed deeper, he'd simply smile ruefully and say "It's all for fun anyways isn't it?". After a while we became friends. I quickly realized that he had no interest in dwelling on his past, so our conversations soon became focused on our futures. He encouraged me to settle down, find a girl worthy of my love and have a son to bear my name. I encouraged him to do the same, in a gently mocking tone. I'm glad I took his advice now, but I'm saddened that I failed to recognize the desperation behind his persistent hints that I needed to adopt the shackles of domestic life. I realized what he meant when the company called me. It was 1995, and my son was two years old. I'd been out of touch with the Wizard, corresponding exclusively through occasional postcards. The company told me that the Wizard was dying, and that he wanted to see me before he passed away. Without hesitation, I explained to my wife how important it was that i see him, and I bought a ticket to Anchorage. I saw him bedridden there, and it broke my heart. His frame restricted to a linen tomb, sequestered in a wing of the hospital people aren't expected to exit intact. But even as I entered to room, he was smiling broadly, although in a more resigned fashion than I'd seen while we worked together. Turns out all those years handling toxic substance, even with the delicacy that had earned him his Baumian moniker had proved carcinogenic. Even as he smiled like a bachelor in the prime of his youth before me, he was dying of cancer, But what he said to me has stuck in my mind ever since, and I've made a point of not letting it slip away. "I've done a lot of bad things in my life. I've killed people. Hell, I even tried to kill the French royal family. Fuckin' dog and pony show THAT was. But I've also done some beautiful things. I've made love, crafted it from thin air in the arms of beautiful woman and watched it float into thin air, scarlet and proud. But for the most part I've done a lot of tedious shit. Hell, I grew up, I worked at an oil refinery for Christ's sake...that's a good forty years of my life of little to no consequence, a tale of sound and fury told by an idiot signifying nothing. But you know what I realized? It's all for fun anyways." And with that, the Wizard of Ooze took his dying breath, releasing himself from a life that had shepherded him through a turbulent era, forced him to violent acts and rewarded him with gentle beauty. And his mantra rung out in my ears, resplendent in its resigned finality."

I listened to my dad's story, unsure of whether it was one of his anecdotes he'd trot out to test his mettle as a storyteller, trying to gauge whether his craft would sell in the cut-throat business of modern literature. Chances are there is no Wizard of Ooze, and he's just a figment of fiction fantasized in a brief moment of artistic indulgence. Either way, ever since my father told me the story, I've never managed to complain about my work with anything remotely resembling sincerity. Or anything else for that matter. Whenever I think things in my life have taken a turn for the worse, I think about the Wizard of Ooze, that peculiar man who spent half his life in a failed conspiracy against French royalty and the other half labouring happily in an oil refinery, working gladly with his killer in a tragic partnership. And I recall his mantra, recited cheerfully to the day he died. "It's all for fun isn't it?"

Truck Stop Flowers

I'm standing in a truck stop bathroom, sequestered off near a little-used exit on the Kansas interstate. I'm running on caffeine alone, jittery as I brush impending sleep insistently from my eyes. In my heavy-lidded daze I almost don't notice the flowers. Almost. As I'm washing my hands, they're grazed gently by the thorns of a spare rose. I look down, momentarily invigorated by the shock of such abrupt physical contact. And I see a whole bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I've ever laid eyes on, glowing in the crimson splendour of young love, abandoned to the ignominious tomb of a basin streaked with stains of questionable hues. They are immigrants here, foreign in this sovereign nation of motor oil smudges and crude epithets and enticements scrawled upon the walls in black Sharpie. Looking closer, I see the tiny gems of glass mingled amidst the verdant thorns, and I draw my gaze forwards. The mirror has been shattered by some impact, the epicentre of its crystal mosaic bearing conspicuous resemblance to a fist. There are spare tracks of faded iron trailing gently down the mirror's cracked facade, rusted by the flickering light. With all the care I can lend to my quivering fingers, I brush the shards from their resting place on a bed of abandoned flowers. I stand there a moment, thinking about fragile things; rose petals squandered on an enamel grave, crystal jewels scattered carelessly by the desperate fury of a glancing blow, and heartstrings in the night, taut to the point of breaking. I walk out of the derelict empire, taking drags of the evening air and savouring it before I release it back into the Autumn sky. In my left hand I'm clutching a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen. While I absentmindedly stroke the thorns, taking care not to puncture my callouses, I realize that even these fragile things possess an edge, something sharp even in their delicate embrace. I'm still thinking about this as I pull onto the interstate, sirens perforating the taciturn cloak of the night with a mechanical lament. Flowers, glass, and a heart to keep, with miles to go before I sleep.