Everything that's in my head

Chapter 4

When Adam awoke he was alone. He drowsily lifted himself onto his elbows and took in his surroundings. As the drowsiness wore off, he slowly became aware of an ungodly smell emanating from the under the blankets.
Checking to see if there had been an accident during his nap, he let out a howl loud enough to wake the dead. For what had terrified him beyond his wildest nightmares were the thousand vile suppurating boils that covered the entire length of his body and that let off a smell akin to rotting meat. He threw himself out of bed and ran to the en suite bathroom and thrust his head down the toilet and emptied his guts. He wretched and wretched until his stomach tightened into an iron ball. Finally, he drew himself up to his full height and staggered to the mirror. What stared back at him was a ghastly vision of Hell. The boils that covered his body also covered his face. It was hard to distinguish healthy flesh from between the mountains of red and angry buboes. He screwed his face up in disgust, only for a rivulet of yellow, putrefying puss to burst forth and ooze down his face, drip off his chin and onto the floor. He stank of death. He could hardly breathe. He threw a towel under some hot water and covered his face, screaming for Dougal until his throat was hoarse. The old man was nowhere to be seen.
'Help' he whimpered to no one in particular

He scratched at the infections, until they bled red and white and gushed in torrents down his legs. The mess on the bathroom floor was indescribable.
He leapt into the shower and turned the thermostat up to max, scrubbing himself under the scalding water. In his hysteria he half noticed how much his penis had grown and how like a pendulum it swung between his legs.

He felt he was drowning. He felt he was plummeting toward hell. His fear gave way to wrath and he began to tear his room to pieces. First the pillows were disemboweled. Then he hurled a table through the window with a deafening crash followed by the mattress and other sundry items. He must have punched the wall a hundred times as his knuckles were red raw and bleeding by the time the pain was too much to bear.
He steadfastly refused to accept his new condition. ‘No’, Adam repeated to himself over and over again, ‘this cannot be’.
He attacked the curtains and ripped them from their hooks. As he prepared to throw them out of the shattered window, two burly men entered the room. One was the corpulent French cook and the other was the Sergeant-at-Arms. The Frenchman had hands the size hams and he grabbed Adam around the waist with gentle but fearsome strength. The two men wrestled Adam to the floor. The thinner of the two sat on Adam’s chest while the cook, tied his feet with silken handkerchiefs. With the violence of the last half an hour having spent Adam’s energy, he went limp, too weak to resist being flung over the fat man’s shoulder and carried from the room.
He dangled there for a humiliating 10 minutes while the fat man had a conversation with someone Adam didn’t recognize, before being marched purposefully towards the great hall. Adam demanded to be put down shouting weakly,

‘This is no way to treat your lord and master’.

But it had little or no effect on the cook who was deaf to Adam’s plaintive cries and oblivious to his wriggling. It suddenly dawned on Adam that he wasn’t and probably never had been ‘lord and master’ of the castle and he made a bet with himself that they had been humoring him all along. This realization made Adam's soul sag in the middle and he felt deflated and usurped. He made another bet with himself that it was Dougal who was the real ‘lord and master’. He felt like a child and began to sulk.

His boils chaffed and bled and were causing a great deal of pain when the doors of the great hall opened to a buzzing sound that was altogether unfamiliar to him. It came, as far as Adam was aware, from the back of the hall and sounded like a host of insects hovering around a nest. It was a low, sawing type sound, which was menacing and utterly un human. Adam’s bowels turned to ice as he was carried towards to the great chair, which could easily have been a throne.

He was placed upright on the seat and all the blood returned to his head in a rush, making him blush; before him lay 2-300 hundred black beetles, buzzing and whirring here and there, some rubbing their back legs together, others cleaning their antennas assiduously. Adam sat mouth agape: shaking from head to toe, speechless with fear and squirming in his seat. To have all of them together like this was truly revolting. Sure, he had seen Dougal as his true self but this was wholly different.

He stood facing the black throng, unsure at what to do next. Together like this, they smelt of horses mixed with something else; an unpleasant, bitter smell that was sinister and menacing.
They twitched and writhed, some throwing him a cursory glance before returning to their grooming. Some had human heads with solemn faces and long raven black hair. Others had human bodies with a beetle head. It was gross and disgusting and Adam could not look at them.

‘Would you like one of us to change, my Lord?’ Came a familiar voice from among the heaving throng. 'So you might get your bearings?'

‘Why are you calling me Lord, Dougal?’ asked Adam, not unreasonably.
‘And where are you?’
Dougal’s voice was lost among the multitude; it was certainly his but which beetle, Adam didn’t know.
Adam spoke with genuine fear in his voice.
‘I’m scared Dougal, I’m scared of all this and I want you to help me, have you seen me? Can you see me for what I am? I’m hideous!

‘All hail Earnest Serius, all hail’, chanted the congregation.

At this command the room fell silent and the beetles shuffled to attention, silent and motionless, which Adam felt was even more unnerving. The insects had formed themselves into ranks and when Dougal shouted another ‘All hail’, they repeated the salutation as one with a deafening roar, causing Adam to flinch.

‘Dougal, cut out the all hail, you're scaring the shit out of me’.

‘My lord, my lord, we do it because you are worthy of it’.

‘Dougal,’ replied Adam, non-plussed at Dougal’s blatant lack of co-operation:

‘Can we agree you don't call me lord.’

‘But the anointed one, you have returned. You saved us from what we were and now you have come back’.

Adam had had enough. Dougal was seriously pissing him off. He was purple with rage.
‘I am not Earnest Serius!’ he bellowed. But it was no use. The beetles chanted his new name until Adam had to put his fingers in his ears and shrink into the chair, eventually curling into a desperate ball. The beetles formed a circle round the ‘throne’ and proceeded to march, four deep, around Adam, extolling his new name as if he was Charlemagne himself.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the gathering came to an end. The Beetles filed out in dribs and drabs until there was only Dougal, Adam guessed, remaining.

‘Dougal, is that you?’, Adam said faintly.

Dougal changed back into his human form and sat on the small stage beneath the throne, crossing his legs, looking very pleased with himself.

‘My lord’, he began, grasping his left knee with both hands, ‘This may have come as a shock, but greatness, don’t forget, can be thrust upon one’.

‘Our lord found us in the desert. He had been wandering the wasteland for years, delighting in his solitude but at the same time pondering the big four; who he was, why he was, what he was and when he was. He only managed to answer two of them. He knew who he was; he was Earnest Serius after all; the man who had inadvertently, wiped out the human race. He knew when this happened as well, although he certainly lost track of time when he went walkabout. The other two though; what he was and why he was; he couldn't put his finger on. Why had he been cursed so badly? What was he a man or an insect? When he met us or rather Eric the Blessed, the first one of us he actually held, Eric was able answer them and Earnest was grateful. They were easy questions: Eric just made him aware of how easy they were. It was easy because the moment he looked into that mirror, the world died. He discarded humanity like a sweet wrapper, for he was not one of them, never could be. He saw in us an understanding. We would not judge him; we would not shy away from him, mock him and would, in time, venerate him
We copulated at some stage, not in the sense that you would have it. Only when Lord Earnest had finished fiddling about with our DNA did we he mix us with him. Fairly unromantic I give you; all done as it was, at the bottom of a test tube'.
He thought for a bit, trying to place when this miraculous event had taken place but the mental effort defeated him.

'A very long time ago, we mingled and what you see now is the fruit of that union.'
Adam didn’t see this as particularly pressing. He was confused. Not an hour ago, he had woken from an innocent afternoon nap only to wake as a festering gargoyle and be chanted at by a bunch of insects. He was having a major sense of humour failure and it showed.

‘I am not Earnest Serius’ , he growled.

‘Oh my lord, you are. When we unearthed you, we found the same with you as with my lord Earnest. Ok, physically you are different, but in here….’
Dougal pressed a finger to his heart and continued.
‘Here, you were identical’; all that self-loathing, all that wrath. It was as if our lord had risen again. You could be twins on the inside.

Adam sat with his head in his hands not saying anything for a good three minutes before he said quietly,
‘I don’t want to be Earnest Serius, I’m Adam, it’s not much I grant you but I really don’t want to change.
‘But you have so much in common, Lord.’ Dougal said despairingly.

Adam did something then he instantly regretted. He reached down from his throne and grabbed Dougal by the lapels and put his face inches from the old man’s nose.
His eyes were like hot coals and they burned into Dougal’s with a hatred that Dougal had never been privy to before.

‘Don’t call me lord’. Adam growled through gritted teeth.

Dougal struggled a little and shrank from Adam’s gaze. He went red and turned back to his true self. Adam lost his grip of his jacket and covered his face with his hands lest Dougal would strike him with a claw.

Dougal was incensed. Yet despite his fury, he could not bring himself to strike the new messiah. Far from it, it would be tricky to explain to the council, after all this time, if he were to harm him in any way. He turned back to the Dougal of old and flashed Adam an oily smile, which went someway in defusing the situation. He placed his hands on his knees and rose slowly, thinking deeply about the different tack he was about to adopt.

‘I would like you to understand just how grateful we are to you, taking on this mantel of responsibility. One must remember that we were once but humble insects until you, or rather our Lord, lead us from the desert and made us in his own image.
For thousands of years we have worshiped his likeness. When he finally passed on, we were bereft, alone and unloved for the shepherd had abandoned us; but what a legacy, what an inheritance. He gave birth to the nation, the brotherhood was born and you my lord have inherited the lot. Think what it would mean to have all these folk worshiping you, on bended knee, singing hymns in your honour. I mean come on!

Look! Can’t you see the resemblance?’

Dougal ripped a painting of Earnest from the wall in a clatter of falling plaster and then produced a photograph of Adam having just come round from being disinterred and eagerly laid them next to each other.

Adam looked at both but was unimpressed.
‘I look nothing like him’ he said, rather coldly.
Dougal threw the painting to the floor and resumed what was now becoming a tirade.

There was desperation in his voice. It was shaky, tight and verging on hysteria. He was beginning to plead almost beg. Adam watched with a growing sense of empowerment, as he realized there was an opportunity taking shape here that could be exploited or at least examined more thoroughly.
Dougal's short speech came to a grinding halt and he stood in front of Adam his mouth opening and closing like a hooked fish.
‘Please’, he said meekly and sunk his chin into his chest.
Adam let him dangle for a while before rising from his throne and beginning a slow walk around the 'great hall'. There were piles of steaming, yellow excrement on the floor where some of the younger insects had relieved themselves in a state of religious fervour. Adam trod in a pile he hadn’t seen, which took some of his authority away and made him look slightly ridiculous as he scrapped his foot on the floor, trying to get the stuff off.
‘Whose idea was this?’ he asked.
Dougal gallantly proffered his handkerchief, which Adam ungraciously snatched from his fingers and continued with his line of questioning.
‘Who was the architect?’ It was you, wasn’t it Dougal? You were the man who dreamt up this charade and now your little protégé isn't playing ball. All this time, you were grooming me, molding me into this thing, this monster. I took your friendship in good faith, I'm very disappointed'.

‘You weren’t ready’, snorted Dougal, petulantly and folded his arms.

‘How could you ever see me as Earnest Serius?’

‘It was something I thought you could grow into’, said Dougal, thinly.

A game of verbal tennis had now commenced between Adam and Dougal, with both men firing forehand smashes from the baseline. No quarter was asked and none given.

‘This is terribly unfair. You could have asked if I wanted to be a stinking messiah with a severe skin condition. This affects my human rights’.

This was weak from Adam, as no such court existed any more and hadn’t for some time, nonetheless, the principle was still there and Adam wanted to raise awareness of it; advantage Adam.

‘Where I come from, this would be deemed as blasphemy, which is heavy Dougal. I mean to rise again, that’s like Jesus.’

‘Who?’ asked Dougal,

‘Don't be sarcastic', said Adam, exasperated.

‘How could you believe in a god after what you did?’ Dougal snapped.

The silence was uncomfortable and it was now Adam’s turn to dangle in the wind.

Dougal moved in for the kill.

‘You turned your back on life. You couldn’t live in a world that had you in it. You were at war with Adam and the only way you could win was to kill him. When our Lord Earnest looked into that mirror, he shared the same thing. He stared into hell himself. The only difference being what he saw was external; what you see is internal. You are the same being because your souls are entwined. You are Earnest Serius and he is you!

Dougal was spitting now. His face was flushed and he had the frightening countenance of an enraged headmaster.

Adam bellowed back.

‘I MADE A MISTAKE, OK! If I had sought treatment, I might have survived but I didn’t and now I’m marooned on this godforsaken planet with you, INSECT!
For me, at the time, it was the only way, anything to stop crying. When I’m like that the world is a ghastly place to be, I mean really horrible. But I got there under my own steam, I designed my downfall; it was me who paved the road to my own damnation. That’s what made it so much worse. Ok, if I had been an innocent placed in a difficult situation, then I could have coped with that, tough it out because my heart would have been pure. But when it's your fault then you hate yourself for it; you might as well dig a grave and have ten thousand horses ride over you. I’m sorry to all those people whose hearts I broke. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. But that was then and this is now, ultimately, finally, in the end, eventually, call it what you want, you have to move on. Thank you, Dougal for what all that you have done for me, but I’m not Earnest Serius; I don’t want to be. I want to get better'.
Adam stopped talking abruptly. The two men stared at each other, looking for an answer or a flicker of understanding. Adam was determined not to budge an inch and Dougal was at a loss what to say next. He had, after all, spent a considerable amount of time on this project and he was damned if he wasn’t going to give it one more try.

‘You threw your life away like so much litter. You screwed up your soul and tossed it into the bin. So forgive me for thinking you were so unhappy with your own self I gave you another; one that is worshiped, one that is adored.'

‘And one that smells like a carcass, great Dougal'.

‘You humans fascinate me, you set so much by what people think of you, how they see you; where really it’s just not that important’, said Dougal loftily, giving Adam the distinct impression that the learned professor didn’t really understand his predicament.

Adam dropped a few decibels, bit his lip and tried to calm down. A light bulb flickered on in his head and he began to speak.

Dougal raised his hand as a sign to stop. There was no point in continuing, Dougal it seemed, had made a huge mistake.
He reached for his glasses and began to polish them slowly; giving him some time to think.
'Alright' he said finally, I accept that you don't want to be Earnest Serius.'

'THANK YOU', said Adam exhausted with the arguing and the whole experience generally.
'But that is not the end of the story, not by a long stretch.'
Dougal’s voice dropped conspiratorially and he looked around the room, looking for others of his type.
'The community you see, are expecting results. We have waited for a long time to have our saviour back and this will come as a great disappointment. They might become disillusioned and question the whole enterprise.'

'So, you're in a hole' Adam offered helpfully, less depressed now, sensing there was a way out of this.

'I wouldn't say hole' but in a certain amount of difficulty, yes.'

'What will they do?', Adam asked, sitting down next to Dougal, in front of the throne.

'It is uncertain, but Howard might do for us both'.

Dougal looked at the floor, a broken man.

'Who's Howard? Adam asked, his chin on his chest, looking at his many boils.

Dougal flashed him a look that said, 'don't go there' and Adam bit his bottom lip wondering what to do next.

Presently, the French cook entered and perplexed at what he saw, swiftly withdrew.
Far from Dougal worshiping at Adam's feet as might be expected, all he saw was Dougal crying on the Lord's shoulder, as the latter comforted him by stroking his hair.

It took some time to coax Dougal back to Adam's study. He sat him down in one of the grandest chairs in the room and fetched him a sherry in a bid to restore him.

'Pardon me dear boy, but it has been my whole life's work; two thousand years and for what?'

Adam really didn't know what to say. He felt guilty having let the old man down, yet the idea of being Earnest Serius for a second longer filled him with an unimaginable dread. He didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
Instead, he left Dougal in the chair and went to look out the window. He was getting used to the smell his body gave off but the festering sores still plagued him and smarted every time he moved.
He could not leave Dougal in the lurch. That was a given. He loved the man; Dougal had become the closest thing to a father that Adam could think of. It would be despicable to leave him like this and he didn't like the sound of Howard either. A grisly death at the hands of an insect filled him with horror and if anything were to happen to Dougal, he would be alone in an unsympathetic and hostile world. It was time to cut a deal acceptable to both and one that Howard would buy.

He mulled over the exact nature of what this deal might be, before turning to Dougal, who by now was the very picture of despair and spoke clearly and precisely.

'Ok, Dougal we are in the soup and the only way out of it is that we work together'.

Dougal didn't move.

'I will be Earnest Serius, but only to Howard and whoever else might 'do for us'.
Dougal looked up as if he had heard the engines of a plane overhead and one that might waggle its wings.

'I will pretend to be Earnest Serius but only for a while. Then, when this has all blown over, I will leave this place and go and live in the house with that lady you are making. There you will restore me to my normal state and I will be the Adam of old'.

Dougal launched himself at Adam's feet, babbling prayers of the saved. He hung on to Adam's ankles with a tenacious grip that left Adam acutely embarrassed.

'Will you my lord, will you?'

'Call me Adam, Doug, now get up, we have much to plan.’