Frank: Chapter 2

When Joshua awoke, he didn't notice the mask hanging on the wall. At least, that's what it looked like now. A mask made out of gray paper-mache by a Cubist-influenced artist. Joshua walked right past it, skipping breakfast, as usual, and had a hot shower. He dressed in the attached closet and dashed out the door, running so he wouldn't be late again. Everyone that saw him running looked around, expecting to see the police, anxious and disappointed.

Ten hours later, when he got home, he immediately took off his uniform and hung it up, good for another wear or two yet. Still in his underwear, he plodded to the fridge for a soda. He stopped dead in his tracks. Finally, Joshua saw the progressive mutation of his picture. An involuntary curse hissed through his teeth. The eyes were still following him, now slightly convex and completely three-dimsensional. Joshua knew that was beyond natural phenomena, not a weird side-effect of water damage. This was physically impossible. The bust issuing from his wall was made of more than one sheet of paper. There was too much surface area. Then he blinked and, once again, the picture was correct, slightly warped, crinkled at two edges. Joshua remained motionless and managed not to scream.

During Joshua's childhood, his father had gone crazy on three seperate occassions. The schizophrenia had lain dormant until his father was well into his twenties before manifesting. Joshua had always feared that he carried the gene, that one day he would go off of the deep end and never find his way back. Now he wondered, as he collapsed into his chair in front of the typerwriter, if this was the beginning, if this was the initial disconnect.

He wasn't hungry anymore. He really wanted a drink. In fact, it was all that he could think about now that he'd considered it. Just tonight. Just one. After hastily dressing, he risked a walk down to the corner story and used a bit of his grocery money to buy two quarts of the cheapest swill to be found. He could steal some bread from the workplace tomorrow. The walk back wasn't long but he killed half a beer by the time he was back in his chair. The minute lag between thought and action felt good to him, a familiar distortion. By the time he was screwing the cap off of the second quart, he was itching to write on his story. He fed a fresh sheet into the Smith-Corona and punched out words rapidly without pause. He channelled Kerouac. He wrote so fast, the 'e' quit sticking.

Quickly coming to the end of the page, he urgently began to replace it. In the silent aftermath of the rat-tat-tating, Joshua heard a voice that had already been talking for a moment. "....no point in going on. Your characters are two-dimensional. Plus, you don't have an ending." Joshua looked up and to his right, to where the monochrome hulk hung. The imaginary man was jutting from the wall again, facing him, and the mouth was moving. "Were you even listening to me?" it said.

"Oh what the fuck!" Joshua screamed. "No! I can't lose it here, alone, in this neighborhood where no one will call for help!" He took deep breaths but couldn't stop crying. "This isn't real," he said. "I shouldn't have drank the beers." He kept repeating that last bit in a whisper.

"Sure, Joshua," the drawing said in a conversational tone, "your wife left you because of your drinking problem. And, yes, you lost a decent job due to your drinking problem. But, believe me, this, what your seeing right now, it was coming regardless of what else you did as long as you were still writing that damn story."

"Wh-wh-what?!?" Joshua sputtered, shrill laughter edging into the question. "What are you talking about?" Joshua looked down into his lap, shaking his head. "You're not even real." He exhaled slowly and looked up. The figure was still there, foggy eyes locked on him, into and through him.

"I am real," the head said, mouth working to show square blocks of white teeth. "You made me six months ago in the middle of one of your drawing jags, when you had really hit your stride with the brush. I've watched you ever since, watched you gradually shift over to writing more, drawing less. Two weeks now without a drawing!" It's gray face was ever calm, but the voice seethed with anger. After a brief, composing pause, it continued, "I am real. I am. My name, the one you gave me but have forgotten, is Frank."