Wally’s Wacky World

        This is a not so upbeat piece of fiction . . . fabricated from what Wally would declare is spot-on.

Something was wrong. Wally couldn’t explain, not to anyone, though he wanted to so badly. Yet how could he? He wasn’t able to articulate to himself, either verbally or on the blank pages of his journal why he felt as he did . . . as if the world as he knew it, as he always had known it, was going to come to an abrupt end. It would be over. Gone. He believed it in his gut. No one in his right mind would understand a warning based on Wally’s premonition (“Another flippin’ nut case.”), folks would scoff at his fear (“What the hell is he worried about? That ain’t gonna happen.”), or he would be dubbed a wacky hippie who had sucked down too much smoke from his friend, Mary Jane (“Hey, dude, got any weed?”).

So yes, something definitely was wrong. This notion of his, that his world shortly would be turned upside down, or inside out, or split wide open from stem to stern, kept him up at night. He dreamed about it. It festered in his mind giving him headaches, gut aches, heartaches, or phantom pains in appendages he had never had. If only he could find some way to tell anybody, any one person, about his ominous suspicion that everything . . . everything . . . in its entirety, soon would be finished in midstride, in the blink of an eye. Not one person would believe. (“Yep, old Wally has gone off the deep end.” “Bonkers” “Old guy’s cheese has slid off his cracker.”). Folks would talk behind his back if they knew what he suspected. Wouldn’t they? Would they? Would they be right?

Wally harbored that thought. I’m not well. Maybe I have some terrible disease and I don’t know it. Maybe it’s the fact that nobody calls. People avoid me. Maybe I read too much. I’m a square peg in a round hole. I know it. I’m an oddball. But something is really wrong. I feel it inside, from my head to my toes; it’s whirling around like a specter. It won’t settle, won’t rest. Shit.

Something was wrong, but the truth was that Wally couldn’t do a damned thing about it. And though he was hopeless, though he had found it impossible to express what intuition had been dictating, he suspected he wasn’t alone. Others were as afraid as he was, and that was not simply a hunch. It was true. The signs were out there. Everywhere he went he was met with rudeness, intolerance, impatience, boorishness, and hate. Hate? Yes, even hate. And why? It was because of fear. It was because of dread. It was because of a pathetic feeling of helplessness. Any semblance of goodness or decency had turned in on itself. That is what was wrong.

Wally had sorted through it. He understood. Though he had possessed little of monetary value in his long life, he did own outright, intangible assets. He was erudite, he had gained an inkling of wisdom (even if he did say so himself), and his sense of perception was sharp. Yet, he pondered. What good does that shit do? Time and circumstances had left him with no choice. All he could do was hold what had come to be in his hands, his mind, and his heart and wait.