Visions of a Madman

Bob awoke from his sleep, a sharp pain coming from his nose. He tried to reach his hand up, but found he could not move it. He opened his eyes and saw an overly dressed, matronly woman standing on his chest. The fact she was only three inches tall explained why her standing on his chest had not woken him up. The stick with the star ending in sharp points in her hand probably explained why his nose hurt. But the most disconcerting thing was the dozen or so other tiny, matronly woman standing on his beside table.

“What the hell?!?”

The small woman smacked Bob in the face with the pointy star.

“Tch! Watch your language Robert! I will have none of that.”

“You tell him, Florence!”, said one of the bedside table women.

“Who … what are you?”, Bob pleaded.

“Close. Let’s try being a little more polite, shall we?”

Florence raised the star capped stick, poised to swat Bob again. Bob winced involuntarily.

“Sorry! Please don’t hit me with that again! Who are you, ma’am?”

Florence lowered the star capped stick.

“Much better. I, Robert, am your fairy godmother.”

“My what? Sorry! My what, ma’am?”

“Your fairy godmother. You may call me G-Ma Flo. I am the one who looked out for you as a child, using my fairy magic to ensure you came to no harm.”

“Why are you hitting me with your wand then, G-Ma Flo? It hurts like hel … it hurts a lot. And why am I tied down to my bed?!”

“Well, Robert, you as so many little children, have not live up to our expectations. You were so full of potential when you were a child. And now … well, now I am just disappointed with you, Robert. So disappointed I gave up my wand for something with a little more … walloping power.”

“Preach it, Flo!”, called out another of the bedside women.

“Disappointed? Why? I mean, I grew up, I went to school, have a good job, a good life …”

Florence swatted his nose with her stick.

“OWWW!”

“Oh quit your crying, Robert. My sisters and I have taken it upon ourselves to knock some sense into you and others like you. It is something you need, Robert.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to have my nose … OWWW!”

Florence pulled back on her stick and readied to swat Bob’s nose again.

“Don’t you sass me, Robert! Sass me again and I will inflict all the diaper rash on you that I whisked away with my fairy magic when you were an infant!”

“Sorry, G-Ma Flo! I won’t sass you.”

“Good. Now where was I?”

“You were getting to our demands!”, piped up a third woman from the bedside table.

“Ah yes. Now, Robert, if you do not want the ills you avoided growing up due to my protection to visit themselves upon you all at once, you will need to do the following. First, we will need $100,000 …”

“What do you need money fo … OWWW!!!”

“Do not interrupt you fairy godmother when she is speaking, Robert! The fairy godmother business does not have good retirement benefits, hence the need for the money. Second, you will need to accept that the world as you know it is not the way the world works. Case in point, before this morning, you had no idea fairy godmothers existed. Suffice to say that is merely the tip of the iceberg. Third, you will need to find yourself a wife, Robert, or a husband, we really don’t care which. And then have children. Or adopt children. Which ever way you prefer to go. And, this it the important part, Robert, be sure you teach your children that life is more than what they assume it is. Do you have all that, Robert?”

“Y … yes, G-Ma Flo.”

“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say. But I am looking at some pretty compelling evidence saying they are, in fact, wrong.”

Burt and Wiley both looked down at the dollar bill sitting on the kitchen table. The flowering branch growing from it was hard to miss.

“I wonder what would happen it we planted it?”

“What do you mean? Grow a dollar tree?”

“Well, if it is a tree. It could be a shrub. Or a bush.”

“Point. So you want to plant this dollar and see what comes up?”

“Sure. It could wind up producing new dollars from the flowers. Like fruit.”

“Money is not fruit, Burt.”

“And it is not a flowering plant either. And yet, here before us, is a flowering dollar.”

Wiley paused and scratched his chin. The dollar had looked like any other last night when he had placed it on his dresser with the rest of the cash in his pocket. Then this morning there was a small branch coming off of it. Out of it. And only this one; none of the other bills had sprouted branches. If this dollar did actually turn into a money tree, or shrub, he found himself wishing it had been the twenty he put on top of the dresser last night that had sprouted instead of one of the singles.

“So, do we just put it in a pot and water it?”

“I suppose so. Until it is big enough to plant outside. No point planting it when someone could accidentally step on it.”

“Or pick up the dollar.”

“That too.”

They left the dollar on the table and drove to the garden center down the road. Twenty minutes later they were back with a large pot and a couple bags of potting soil which they brought into the kitchen.

The dollar had sprouted a second branch while they had been out.

“It seems to be growing pretty quick, don;t you think?”

“What do I know about plants? I guess it could be, but maybe that’s normal for dollar bill trees.”

“It could be a shrub.”

“Right. But maybe it is normal for it.”

“I suppose.”

They proceeded to plant the dollar bill in the pot and watered it. By that afternoon, there were five more branches, each one now looking like its own plant growing out of the pot, and each one sporting dozens of flowers. By the following morning, the plant was eight feet tall and brushing the kitchen ceiling. Several of the flowers had fallen away over the night and small, mottled green fruit now hung from the branches.

“The advertisement said it would get up to twelve feet in diameter.”

“I think it got a little bigger than that.”

“Well, sure, I mean look at it.”

“Like I could look at anything else. I told you this was a bad idea.”

“You never told me that.”

“Yes I did! I said ‘Terry, this is bad idea.‘ I think you may have been on the verge of hyperventilating when I said it, but I did say it.”

“Yeah, well, that didn’t stop you from taking your turn blowing it up.”

“Who am I to stand in the way of your dream, Terry?”

“Still, you could have stopped me.”

“Nope. You have to live and learn. And what have you learned from this experience?”

“That advertising is not always accurate.”

“That’s an understatement. I mean this thing has to be eighteen feet in diameter at least. It filled the entire living room. But I think you should have learned ‘I will always listen to Ralph. Ralph is always right.‘”

“Oh come off it. You’re not always right.”

“Did I or did I not tell you not to date Charlene?”

“Yeah, OK, you were right on that one.”

“And I also told you not to buy into that lunar mining stock, right?”

“That sounded like a solid investment!”

“Terry, there is no lunar mining company. It was just a scam. And even if they did manage to set up a mining operation on the moon, how were they going to get the ore back to Earth again?”

“Um … mass drivers?”

“Right … do you know what several tons of material would do when it is shot to Earth? It leaves huge craters. Do you really think they would have been able to recover anything from the craters in their supposed ‘Arizona Reclamation Area’ and still be able to pull a profit, even if it were a legitimate business?”

“Well, it still sounded good.”

“You are an idiot, Terry. And for this brilliant scheme of inflating an over sized balloon indoors … why were we set up in the far corner of the living room? I mean we can’t get out since we are stuck in this corner behind an over inflated wall of … what is this made of again?”

“I don’t remember. The paperwork that came with it was on the coffee table.”

“Ah, right. And the coffee table is where again?”

“Under the balloon.”

“Well, it’s not like we’d be able to grab it if it were right here. I can’t even move my arms, Terry. How do you intend to get us out of here?”

“Well, I have a safety pin. If I can just release it and …”

<POP>

“It’s killing me, doc.”

“And why do you think it is killing you, Viktor?”

“Why? I don’t know why it’s killing me, doc, all I know is it is.”

“What do you experience whenever you are around them, Viktor.”

“Well, as soon as I walk into a room with them, my eyes tear up. Then I get this burning sensation in my chest, like the air is igniting as I inhale it. When that happens I excuse myself immediately and go get some air.”

“Mmm-hmm.”, hummed Dr. Stellweiter as he jotted down some notes.

“Viktor, perhaps you just have an allergy.”

“Look doc, that’s not the way this is supposed to work. Onions should not be a problem. Garlic, yes. Holy water, sure. Crosses, definitely. Daylight, oh you betcha. But onions??? I’ll be a laughing stock.”

“Oh now Viktor, I don’t think anyone will be laughing at you.”

“Oh sure they will doc. The other vampires will prank the hell out of me. And I think someone already knows. I found a bag of onion rings in my car!”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“What? Oh, violated, I suppose. I mean they would have had to break into my car to put them there …”

“No, sorry, I meant, did you have any reaction to the onion rings, Viktor?”

“No, actually, I didn’t. But it could have been all that breading that kept me from reacting to them.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Dr. Stellweiter made some more notes.

“What am I going to do, doc? I’m a nervous wreck. Every time there is a vampire potluck, I’m afraid someone’s going to bring somthing with onions in it and I’ll burst into flames if I eat it.”

“Well, I am going to refer you to an allergist I know. Good doctor and sensitive to your particular … needs. His office has extended hours so you should be able to schedule an evening appointment with him.”

“And what if it is not an allergy?”

“Well, then there must be some underlying cause to your fear of onions. Perhaps they remind you of garlic. Perhaps in your mortal life you had some traumatic experience with onions that you have repressed and it is just now revealing itself by manifesting as as psychosomatic response. It could be a number of things.”

“Hmmm … I can’t think of any onion-related trauma.”

“It could be you are suppressing the memory, Viktor. That is assuming you do not have an actual allergy. Until that is determined though, perhaps we should go back to discussing your conversion. You had told me that the vampire who turned you was laughing as she drained your blood?”

“Yeah. I had broken out some garlic, biggest garlic I could find, but I was slow on the draw and she knocked it out of my hands. Next thing I remember was her fangs piercing my neck and her laughing as she drank. Well, kinda laughing. Kind of a nom nom nom sound, but different.”

“Different how, Viktor?”

“It was like ‘non yon don wok’ followed by a slurping noise…”