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    Mannequin Man
    Mannequin Man
    Mannequin Man
    Ebook80 pages1 hour

    Mannequin Man

    By Steven D. Bennett

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A man is driving, following a distant dot that stays on the far horizon. The road ends at a shopping mall, and upon entering he meets his father, whose morning ritual was to walk the mall. He realizes, slowly, that he is dreaming, as both his parents have died. But that realization also gives him the freedom to talk to his father in a way he never could. Coming upon a storefront they see a family inside having dinner. It is themselves, circa 1967, and as he watches himself and his brother as kids, his father casually asks his mother for a divorce. The man then knows the reason for the dream: it is an opportunity to find answers to questions that have plagued him his whole life. These are illuminated in other storefronts, each corresponding to important events from the past. Along with interactions with other people they meet, he is confronted with anger, fears and resentments that he has always blamed on his father. But as they talk he also finds empathy and understanding, realizing that the past they shared made him the man he has become, while uncovering a hidden key to a lifelong mystery.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteven D. Bennett
    Release dateFeb 2, 2019
    ISBN9780463201787
    Mannequin Man
    Author

    Steven D. Bennett

    I was born in Boston and grew up in Connecticut and San Diego, which gave me a good background in both history and tanning. I have four children and six grand-children, remarkable in that I am only 35. The fact that I have been married for almost 36 years is the result of an in-utero wedding and honeymoon.I have published many short stories, poems, songs, and recently wrote and directed a musical melodrama that was performed in the San Diego area. With six books under my belt (THE PATH OF DAYS, TRACE THE DEAD EYE, HUMOR OF THE GOSPELS, HUMOR OF THE GOSPELS Daily Study, THRONE and THE CHUCK-IT LIST) I am looking for a bigger belt to stuff the seventh, which hopefully will be completed in time for the Christmas season. It is about a writer who finds to his horror that a mistake he made on page 47 completely invalidates the plot, forcing him to thus track down and kill anyone who has bought the book lest they spread the truth about his miniscule talent. It is titled DON'T READ THIS! and looks to be a best-seller, unless people take the title literally. Fortunately, nothing I write can be taken literally. It is also fortunate I did not stay with the working title: DON'T BUY THIS! Personally, I don't buy a word of it.I also have a blog, I Wandered Off the Tour: A Journey In Self-Publishing, which contains my thoughts and experiences through the tormenting process of creation.Other than writing, I like listening to the same dozen albums and re-runs of the same dozen TV shows I've heard and seen hundreds of times, to the endless delight of my wife.

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      Book preview

      Mannequin Man - Steven D. Bennett

      MANNEQUIN MAN

      by

      Steven D. Bennett

      ****

      Smashwords Edition

      ****

      Copyright © 2019 by Steven D. Bennett

      ****

      I'm driving.

      I'm driving. I'm hungry. My neck hurts. My head pounds. The image of a hard bed and flat pillow lay crumpled in a corner of my mind but I don't make the effort to reach it. It irritates that I don't make the effort and it irritates that I'm afraid to. I don't know why I'm afraid. I don't want to think about why. It irritates that I don't want to. And it's comforting.

      It irritates that it's comforting.

      I squint through tight slits. My brain screams with each pothole. The sky is early morning gray which cuts into my brain. I grab the sunglasses from the dash and put them on. The screaming stops, but now I'm in a dark cave and can't see. I take them off and toss them back. The screaming resumes.

      A bitter cold bites my neck. I reach back and grab my hood and yank it over my head. The cold stops but now I'm in a bag and can't breathe. I pull off the hood and gasp for air. A bitter cold bites my neck.

      I put my hand flatly to the vent. The lever is on HOT but the air is cool. I move the lever back and forth angrily. Anger makes things work. It ignores me so I keep doing it. I'll wear it down. Anger's the key, the motivator. But why am I angry at an object? It didn't do anything but fail, and it wasn't even aware that it did.

      I slam it into position with my fist. I feel heat. I've won! But victory over objects is temporary as it soon turns cold. The iciness moves down my back.

      The road stretches out to a distant dot. I don't know where I am or where I'm going or how long I've been driving. I don't want to think about it. That would be going backwards and I'm not going backwards. I've already been there. I want to be where I'm going. I want to be there and have already left and going somewhere else.

      I pass the house again. Dirty white stucco, red tile roof, patches of brown grass in front, a red convertible in the drive, ugly wire fence encasing all. Every few minutes I pass, or it does. It's a marker, a monument, like the tumbleweed in the empty lot across the street that doesn't tumble. I pass the house and watch it shrink away in the rearview mirror only to look ahead and see it growing larger before me. It's like a silent movie where the backdrop is a canvas painting on a long loop that goes around and around, the same scenery showing over and over. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe the background is moving and I'm not. Maybe I'm not even driving.

      The bridge appears. The loop has run out, or a new one begun.

      It straddles the road up ahead, an ugly cave of concrete. I feel a tinge of recognition but there's no reason I should. I've never been here before. Or maybe I have. As I drive under there's a familiarity that brings no answers, but it's important. There's comfort as it covers me. Significance lies underneath. Yet it remains hidden as I exit into the light.

      ∞

      I get out of the car and shut the door.

      I'm standing in the middle of a parking lot outside a shopping mall. It's where the road suddenly stopped. No further destinations needed, apparently, though the distant dot is still distant, hanging in the air, waiting for a road to reach it.

      A few cars sit in the spaces closest to the entrance. There's no reason I shouldn't park closer. But I don't like being closer. Closer irritates. I like being distant. It brings comfort. It makes sense to be closer but I don't deserve to be closer. I deserve to be distant.

      I press my face to the glass door and stare inside. The mall looks empty. Nothing moves within. I haven't tried to open the door. I'm afraid to. Reason and purpose lie inside, so I know I will enter, eventually. But I'd rather be outside. It's closer to escape. Escape brings comfort. Opening irritates. But eventually always wins.

      I grab the handle suddenly and pull. I do it so fast it surprises me, as if my body made the decision before my brain could interfere. The door opens. I'm even more surprised, but confused, and freeze as warm air rushes over me. I don't blink, I don't breathe. It's like a game. I'm a mannequin. Immobile. Invisible. Nothing can touch me. I can stand like this forever.

      The door wasn't supposed to open. It never has before. I'll have to enter because of eventually, but I can't until I know the reason it opened and the reason it opened is inside. Stalemate. There's nothing left to do but do nothing.

      But nothing irritates.

      Curiosity buzzes like an electrical current and pushes me forward. I lean against it but it gains ground by inches. I finally give in to the inevitability of decreasing distance and let it move me into the mall.

      The building is silent yet I hear an echo. The echo of nothingness. Every store is closed; it's too early for the living. Maybe the echo is my heartbeat, or maybe the mall has its own.

      I walk to drown the sound. A dozen steps away is a large blue-and-white tiled pond. It is empty. Drained for the winter, I think inanely. There are cartoon fish pictures on scattered tiles in the pond, giving the illusion of fish life. But the pond is merely decorative, serving no purpose even when full. It's obvious from the images that the pond was made with children in mind, so that they could imagine a lake teaming with life and have something to play with while

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