The Appetite of Ego

Ah power, the elixir of madmen and tyrants, kings and Gods; the elusive gossamer puppet strings, those who control the strings of power control the masses around them. Power begets ego, ego begets greed, and greed? Greed begets more power. Stephen Bishop had no power, no ego. Greed? Greed he had in abundance. His very dreams were made of shockingly brilliant acts of greed, violence and sadism, but in the fleeting haze of his pathetic reality, he was a janitor; beneath the contempt of the staff and professors, hell he was beneath other janitors on the community college campus.

"Limp-dick, Hunchback, Chester the Molester", oh the grade school kiddies had been so cruel. "Gimp, old drooling troll and, Who the fuck are you?", the college kids were just as bad though at least they were more original. They saw him as mindless, moronic and inbred, nothing higher then a trained (and poorly at that) retarded monkey. But Stephen didn't really mind.

His appearance to the masses? Elongated jaw line, thrust forward like Kenyapithecus, high acne scarred forehead, beady eyes sunk in an overly large skull. Then there was the nose. The nose looked as if it would be better served as a bulb for a turkey baste. And constantly leaking. And thank you very much mankind for creating the handkerchief because there probably wouldn't have been enough trees in the great northwest to grind up for all the tissue paper that would be required to stem the downpour of slimy, rarely chunky effuse.

The nickname Hunchback came from the fact that there was a large rounded, sometimes lumpy, hump that protruded from the area around Stephen's left shoulder blade, causing the utilitarian shirts he was required to don each morning to have permanent wear in the place that the material made contact. For the last ten years the hump was there, growing larger by the year with no explanation. He hadn't been to a doctor, he couldn't afford to go, and what would they do any way? Tell him that he had to have it removed? He knew that. He would love to sleep on his back without automatically rolling to one side.

Chester the Molester? That moniker was earned simply by him standing in the hallways waiting for the grade school kiddies to get to their next class. He would stand, leaning against his ever-prevalent dust mop, and wait, head down, little eyes wandering around in his head. The left eye sometimes got a mind of its own and froze in place while the other one kept wandering. One day without warning his eye froze just as a little nine year old girl sat in front of her locker unconsciously allowing her little dress to ride up her thighs. His eye froze, seemingly transfixed on a flash of innocent panty. And the rest is history, shortly afterwards he was history as well.

Limp-dick? There was no telling where that one came from, he had never been laid, a twenty-five year old virgin; he couldn't even pay for it. He knew. He had tried, and while the aging prostitute was no catch of the day herself, she had the audacity to appraise him and the money that he clutched in a shaking sweaty hand, and promptly decided that she had too much pride and had better things to do like walk up and down the street in the freezing cold. She didn't even have a typical derogatory street comment to say. It was worse. She simply ignored him.

His life had been preordained at conception. Melissa Bishop, Stephen's drug dependant, runaway teen-aged mother, had been raped by two different men in the same night, the end-game of a drunken binge that left her on a dirty, lice infested mattress, her body covered in fluids, beer and cigarette burns.

Once she realized that she was pregnant it was too late. She couldn't afford an abortion, and couldn't bring herself to perform her own back-ally extraction with the seemingly requisite coat hanger. She resigned herself to exchanging sex for alcohol, drugs and a place to crash. She figured that it was a case of mind over matter, the future of her baby didn't matter so she didn't mind.

Around the time that Stephen was to be born, it was a wonder to most of those who had come into contact with her, that she was sane, much less had managed to remain alive. Her condition had made it exceedingly difficult to convince men to supply her with the drink and whatever mind-altering substances they could get their hands on, even more difficult to find a place to lay her head. The men became less and less prosperous, as if any of them could have be considered to be anything remotely close to being well off; turning from those who at least had their own apartment to homeless men who had broken into abandoned houses to protect themselves from the elements.

Melissa had found that if she was passed out, she wouldn't have to be aware of the drunken, slovenly, ill-tempered men that slobbered over her as they grunted and rutted into her grossly pregnant body. Sometimes one, sometimes five, occassionally more men would attempt to satisfy their sexual proclivities on her supine, nearly comatose, body.

She often made no effort to clean herself up, deciding with whatever remained of her mind that there wasn't a point. Venereal disease was inevitable; with no treatment available, by the time Stephan was born, there would be question of whether or not he would be born alive.

If it had not been for a coffee shop owner who was trying to remove some of the ever-present homeless people from in front of his business, taking pity on her and subsequently dumping her unceremoniously in front of the emergency room, Melissa would have had to have the baby in an alley somewhere. She had already decided in a rare lucid moment that she would put the child in the nearest dumpster and then try to move on with her life or her death, as the power of the street decided.

The resident OB-GYN, upon learning from blood tests that the creature that was trying to pass itself off as a human female, was riddled with disease and had apparently ingested some unknown intoxicating substance of an indeterminate amount as recently as that morning, immediately ordered a caesarean section, to make some attempt at saving the life of the child.

Once Stephen had made his unhealthy announcement to the world that he was alive and breathing, phlegmy but breathing, social services stepped in and whisked the child off to a foster home.

Now if Stephen had even the remotest semblance of normalcy this would have been the end of the story. Of course normalcy and Stephen were strangers to one another and up to this point never the twain had met. Six months, two weeks, three months, four days, the foster parents wouldn't keep him; he was dumped back on the system. The Department for Child Services became fed up with the case and convinced a judge to sign an order that would effectively lock the then pre-adolescent boy in a minimum-security mental facility indefinitely.

Indefinite, for the purposes of the Department for Child Services, could be best defined as "until the person either reaches the age of majority, or until such time as the powers that be (read state) decide not to fund the institution and thereby release the whole mess of humanity contained within out in to the wild, which ever comes first." In the case of Stephen it would be the latter and shortly after his 16th birthday he found himself in a halfway house that specialized in rehabilitative training, ie training to be a janitor.

He would have liked to have been anything other than a technician for the disposal of public waste, but Stephen had an inability to articulate his desires in anything that remotely resembled the English language, more often his utterances took on the characteristics of a flushing toilet. This would relegate him to performing menial tasks for which he didn't have to speak much less think. It was the natural assumption that because he looked like an evolutionary experiment gone wrong and sounded as if his mouth were a cotton ball dispenser that he was stupid. Far from the case. In his mind Stephen knew what he wanted, knew what he believed and was able, because of his treatment by others, to harbor a deep resentment for humanity as a whole.

**

Stephen lived on the second floor of a by-the-week-by-the-hour motel on Classen Street in Oklahoma City. The building, well known by and generally ignored by law enforcement, was the bastion of the petty drug and prostitute trade. Obviously petty trades, denoted by the conditions of the surrounding area. Weed infested former building sites, empty forsaken lots choked with the litter of humanity's refuse, street gutters clogged with the carcasses of birds and unidentifiable rodents and small woe-be-gone house pets; all the tell tale signs of squalor ad infinitum.

He had been living in room 210, just over the owners residence, for three years; his rent was taken care of by what the street people called his "crazy check". Because he had never been late on his rent the owner rarely had occasion to visit Stephen, and when he had, the two of them had never had what constituted a real conversation. Stephen's lack of definitive oratory skills and the Pakistani owner's resistance to using any more English than to say 'How many?' when someone inquired about room availability and, '39.95 one person, one bed,' precluded any enlightened diatribes.

No one visited, no one knocked on his door, and with the exception of the regular dealers and hookers, very few people knew he lived there.

**

Within the seclusions of his overly warm room-- he had a tendency not use the air-conditioning in the summer and turning the heat up to subtropical climes in the winter-- Stephen was able to think and dream. On this particular evening he had gone to bed, early as usual, with his mind creating a vivid fantasy of what he would really like to do with one of those girls, perching by the rail like vultures at a kill, just three doors down.

"If they could only look past this sheath of flesh and see that I am human. If only...If only...". His thoughts began to fade into the mist of the ethereal, dreams, visions, portents of the future.

He sits upon a throne of platinum, naked his desire protruding with god-like radiance. Maidens in virginal white, swirl around the dais of the throne, nearly brushing his perfect form but never touching. Touching was for later. The prostitutes, the waitress at the Denny's, the college girl in the dress he had passed in some non-descript hall. They were all there. Little tinkling, giggling bells tolling the ecstatic virtues that the girls possessed. One stands out. Glistening, shimmering, silky lace, flowing around her body. Indeterminate age, maybe ten, maybe thirty, high pert breasts in one glance, none the next, flowing healthy blonde hair, then thinned with age. Dancing to a tune that Stephen could not hear, but rather could feel. Rhythm of a sex act, just beginning or just ending.

The exquisite creature dances in front of the throne, twirling, spinning becoming the maniacal, nearly nauseating whirling of a Dervish. Stephen feels as though something was going amiss with his fantasyland. He needs to get control. Wake up.

He felt his control slipping further, wakefulness beginning, his mind tried to cling to the vision of the girl in his brain. He was beginning to sense a presence in the room with him. His eyes wouldn't, couldn't open, yet the presence seemed to be hovering over him.

"Wake up Stephen," a voice crystalline in his ear, registering in his now cloudy mind. He thought he was awake but his eyes still wouldn't open, they felt as if the lids were matted shut with a pound of sleep ooze that had crusted over.

There is a place within the subconscious mind where the body can feel everything, the mind registers outside influences, but the ability to move is impeded, the eyes are not open but they can see. Stephen started to struggle as he thought he saw his dream girl standing over his prone form.

"It is okay Stephen"

If the thing hadn't be moving Stephen wouldn't have believed his eyes and might have though he was still dreaming. There, in the light struggling to penetrate the thin motel curtain, he saw a speck of a creature, gnarled fingers, bug-eyed, long shaggy stringy hair that fell to its waist. In a way almost comical it was dancing--no-- hopping from foot to foot. A wicked sharp-toothed grin spread across its pockmarked face as it acknowledged that its new master was awake.

"Makest one wish my master," the creature croaked.

Stephen tried to speak out loud but the sound died in his throat.

"Thou needest not utter thy words. Thy mind shalt suffice."

A question formed in Stephen's mind and before it could come into full bloom the creature hopped off his chest and on to the bed. It waved its twisted fingers in the air and a tiny rocking chair faded into existence into which the creature promptly plopped. Another hand wave and a diminutive carved pipe appeared with smoke already wafting out of the bowl.

The creature took a long drag on the pipe and spoke, "Thou mayest call me Midori. What thou whilst, I shalt give it to thee."

With that he hopped out of the chair, which promptly vanished. Midori resumed the hopping motion as if he was a child doing the pee-pee dance.

Now Stephen, taking into consideration the fact that he spent most of his life in a fantasy world where anything is possible, couldn't quite get his head around the concept that a little creature that looked a lot like a fairy tale troll was hopping around on his bed. Much more than that, his rational mind refused to be convinced that wishes could be granted. After all this was the real world, and as he rolled his head to look at his alarm clock, more to get Midori out of his view just in case he was still dreaming, he realized that it was four in the morning and he had to get up and go to work.

He struggled to the edge of the bed, his hump dragging the thin worn sheet along with him. He wished that the damn hump would go away. It did. No fanfare, no mysterious chants, candle burnings, or hokey alter sacrifices necessary. The hump that had plagued his very existence for the last ten years, simply wasn't there any more.

He whipped his right arm over his left shoulder and gingerly patted the area where the protrusion had been just moments early. Nothing there. Well that wasn't right. Things like ten year old growths simply don't vanish in the blink of an eye, and certainly not by wishing them...

Stephen slowly stood up, turned around and looked at the troll still hopping around on the bed. Was it a trick of mind or the light? Did the thing that called itself Midori look a little larger?

"As thou canst see, thou hast the power to have all things that thy mind desireth."

His fantasy world, his girls, his sadistic desire for revenge on those around him who had endlessly tortured him for pleasure, he could have it all. Could he? He tried again to touch the spot that had once been a hump. Still nothing. He wished that his arm was longer so that he could make positively sure that the growth was gone. He quickly realized that he would have to be more careful than that as he found that his fingers were touching his waist and his arm was still flung over his left shoulder.

He wished himself back to normal and a curious thing happened. His arm shrunk back to its normal size and shape, his back straightened, he felt a slight tickling sensation in his face and spun to look in the mirror. He couldn't see. Two steps. Light switch. Two steps back. There in the sickly glow of dirty yellow light he saw his reflection. Blonde hair shimmering, long and healthy, haloing a face that could have been carved by God's personal sculptor. Ice blue eyes set perfectly apart, nose perfect, perfect and no longer running. He was perfect, he was in love with himself.

Stephen spun around and looked on the bed, the troll was still there, still hopping but now he could see a discernible difference in size. No matter, Stephen was perfect.

"More wishes master," the troll croaked.

More wishes, perfect. Not like those stupid Genii, always granting just three wishes, always some kind of life lesson attached.

What to wish? Anything? Everything? Better take it slow.

Stephen wished that he could articulate his thoughts in an educated manner.

"Thou mayest speak master."

"What did I do to deserve this?"

"The mind of desire hast great power, thy desires are powerful indeed and it was with thine own mind that thou hast created me.

Stephen contemplated the troll's words for a moment, "so all I have to do is wish for whatever I want and I can have it? What is the catch?"

"No catch, just what thou whilst"

"So if I want a new job, a new life, money, sex, revenge? Any and all of these things I can have?"

Midori nodded.

Well fine then. He wasn't going to go back to that crap job of his. As a matter of fact he wanted to try something.

"I want two of the best looking young girls that sell themselves to knock on my door and give themselves to me for free."

Nothing happened.

"I thought you said I could have anything that I wanted."

"I did not. I said thou mayest have what thy wish for."

"Oh, well in that case. I wish that two of the best looking young girls that sell themselves to knock on my door and give themselves to me for free."

A second later a light tapping on the door. Stephen turned his head to the door. Turned back to Midori, but the little creature was gone.

"Dost thou not be concerned master, I canst not be seen by others, nor heard by others. Open thou the door, thy desire awaits."

Stephen took the few steps to the door and cautiously opened it. Standing in the opening were two girls, maybe fifteen years of age and just as fresh as any he could dream about. Perfect bodies, scantily clad in just enough to not be obscene but not enough to show him that there was not a single blemish among them.

He swung the door open farther so the girls had access to his room. They stepped in with purpose and he gently closed the door.

***

A few hours later the girls emerged from room 210, hair disheveled, shoes carelessly hooked on a finger dangling from now weak arms. Bow legged.

In the room Stephen was sitting up in bed staring at himself in the mirror. That was almost as good as his dreams, though he hadn't the heart to do all of the wonderful things that he could think of, but at least he had been able to have a taste of paradise of his own making.

What to do now.

The telephone rang. He picked up the receiver and placed it to his ear.

"Stephen?"

"Yes," he spoke tentatively.

"We were wondering if you were coming into work this morning." His boss, sarcastic sounding. The man didn't really care, he was just trying to ensure that he wouldn't have to do the work today. Stephen wished that he had the guts to tell that cretin exactly what was on his mind.

"Listen, Jack. I have decided that it is time for you to know that you are an ass, and I wish that you could get fucked the way you have been fucking me for the last three years. Truth be told? I wish that you could live the way I have been living for all of these years."

A strangled moan in the phone. Then a heavy snuffling breathing.

"Jack?"

"Mmmmf!"

"Ohhhhh Jaaaaaack!?!?!" Stephen almost felt hysterical with joy. He had done it, he had taken revenge on his boss. He laughed into the receiver, "Have a nice life asshole!"

A muffled response was cut off by Stephen slamming the receiver back into its cradle.

The troll was standing on the foot of the bed, now almost six inches tall.

****

Although the neighbors would probably have the good sense not to admit, for fear of being carted off to some shady high-faluting asylum, the gothic style mansion had sprung up overnight. The interior was adorned with all the garishness that gold and marble and teakwood could offer. Winding staircases, sculptures in bronze, alabaster and marble, the requisite suits of armor, and a fountain that arced fifteen feet in the air. A solid platinum throne sat upon a black marble dias and seated on the throne was the slouching form of Stephen.

For the last ten years he had lived like a king. At first he had sought out everyone that he could remember who had taken the liberty of accosting him, belittling him, or generally treating him like a mushroom, something poisonous to be fed a lot of shit and kept in the dark. Their pain and suffering was the stuff of legend. It seemed that in a very short period of time, perfectly normal people were discovering all manner of deformities, impediments, rashes, disease and general malaise. All the while, there was Stephen, though no one had recognized him in his present form, laughing, chortling sometimes so hard that his sides would ache for days. And Midori continued to grow. Then he indulged in every manner of sexual excess that he could think of and even many things that he could have never dreamed, but as experience grew so did his appetite for all things of the flesh.

Stephen, on his throne, looked out on the expanse of the throne room floor, bodies of females intertwined like snakes, splotches of blood, matted hair, the carnage of the night before. Standing in the middle of the gruesome debauchery was Midori, seventeen feet tall, eyes glazed black, chewing on what had been a supple thigh. He smacked his rubbery bloated lips a few times, and slurped the marrow from the bone.

This was the trade off. Stephen had discovered over time that he didn't need to make as many wishes as long as he phrased them right. The downside to this discovery was that Midori hadn't grown very fast. There had been a confrontation. The result was that if the troll couldn't continue to feed as he wished on the ethereal food of Stephen's desire, then he would instead feast upon human flesh.

*****

Five years later a tower nearly one hundred feet tall appeared behind the mansion. Midori had become too big to stay in the house. Stephen had wished the tower into being, and was now beginning to wonder if he could wish Midori out of existence. Although he had never had any problems with police showing up at his door inquiring about missing people, the one time that had happened the officers vanished without a trace, Stephen was becoming fed up with the trolls appetite. Everyday it became a chore to sit and watch Midori consume body after body; some still alive and screaming as he popped their heads off and tipped the still writhing bodies upside down and draining their blood like a choice bottle of ale.

Enough was enough. The troll had to go. After all, didn't Stephen have everything that he could ever want? This partnership had to end.

Stephen strolled out into the backyard that was laid out like a Grecian garden. He went to the tower near the rear of the yard, and hollered, "MIDORI, WE NEED TO TALK!"

A rumbling of the oaken doors scraping flagstone floor, hinges shrieking from rust.

"Methinks my master is correct."

"What do you mean?"

"Dost thou believest I canst not know that which is in thy mind? Thou art of the same mind. The time hast come for this partnership to cease."

Stephen, with a niggling of comprehension, began to step back.

"Thou hast no more ego left to whet my hunger, thy wishes carry no substance, no sustinence."

Fear rippled through the man, as the troll's eyes became black Stephen turned and ran. Through the mansion, slipping on clotted blood, he wished that he could ecape. He could feel the thump of awesome weight behind him. Wishes were no good any more.

Out the front doors. Down the driveway. He could feel the scorching breath on the back of his neck. He didn't dare turn around.

In the street, cruising slowly, a tour bus. Delight in the faces of senior citizens as they looked to and fro through the windows. A tour of the star's homes. A man running, practically flying across grass, a sprinkler suddenly springs to life, sunlight filtering through the droplets, faux rainbows dance in a light breeze. The man running, screaming at the top of his lungs, unintelligible words. Looking over his shoulder, wild-eyes casting about, in different directions, the man looked as if he were some how changing. Jawline becoming elongated, back becoming stooped. A mass growing out of his back. The unintelligible words becoming garbled even more. Then the body looked as if it had been snatched by some unseen hand and pulled by invisible marionette strings into the air. Ten feet, twenty feet. The body rose. Thirty feet, forty feet. The passengers craned their necks to see the body rise fifty then sixty, seventy, eighty feet in the air. At about ninety feet the man's head disappeared, then his body to the waist, and lastly his feet.

The passengers believing that they had just witnessed a Hollywood special effect, began applauding. The bus continued on its way.

On the curb, Midori, hopping from one foot to the other. His mistress would be along soon.

******

The alley way was like any other big city alley. Clanking of cats banging around in trash cans, rats scurrying from one pool of black shadow to the next, trying to avoid the cats. Snuffling, crying, the liquid hacking of tuberculosis. The ever present effervescence of urine, and human feces. In a refrigerator box, lined with three week old shredded newspaper, lay the figure of a woman. Sixty years old, homeless for twenty, over-weight, over-the-hill, under appreciated. Dreaming. Trying to visualize a time when she was beautiful and the object of everyone's desire.

The stirring of a light breeze with a hint of pleasent fragrance. A girl peers inside the box. Midori is in her hand hopping from one leg to the other as if he can not wait to begin his work, to be fed on the delicious desires, wishes and ego of the human psyche.

The girl sets Midori on the slumbering woman's bosom, whispering in her crystalline voice, "Make a wish upon Midori, and all your desires shall be fulfilled."