The Chronicles of Jasper, Act I

I am a sick man....I am a spiteful man. No, I am not a pleasant man at all. I believe something is wrong with my liver. When I stand up too fast both my kneecaps pop. I loathe small children and take pleasure in watching them suffer. The smaller the child, the better. I have dreams at night. Most of the dreams are terribly dull, such as making toast or clubbing baby seals. But sometimes I have a reoccurring dream where I am riding a magnificent unicorn and smiting the unrighteous with a flaming sword. When I wake from this dream, my sheets are covered in a sweet, syrupy liquid and my cheeks are wet from tears. I am allergic to peanut skins and vulcanized rubber. I once attended a fetish show and broke out in hives for months. My world is pain. Suffering is my drink of choice. I am drunk daily.

It wasn’t always this way. I was happy once. Selling frozen snacks to young children was my trade, and I was damn good at it. In 1969 the Vietnam draft started, sending fresh meat to the jungle conflict. I was a pacifist by nature, and had always bruised easily as a child. My mother forbade me to play outside when I was young because she thought I was the chosen one and the clouds were harbingers of the devil, plotting to steal me away at the first opportunity. I told all of this to the draft board, but they accepted me anyway. I had no choice but to flee to the frozen wastelands of Canada, and disguise myself as an ice cream vendor. Alas at that age my mustache was fuzzy and weak, and the elder ice cream patriarch of the area saw through my ruse. Being a kindly old man, he had some pity over my plight, and took me under his wing, teaching me the finer art of ice cream preparation and handling. For years I lived a lie, driving an ice cream truck for Chilly-Tyme Ice Cream, a popular purveyor of chilled goods since 1897. When my ice cream mentor suddenly died in a timber wolf attack, I was left to continue his proud tradition and grow the most hearty mustache my face could muster. For a while there I was happy. For a while I was complete.

Then things changed. The love for my delicious career died, and I developed an unfathomable disdain for all living creatures. My fellow men were ugly brutes, caring only for their immediate needs and base cravings. Women were shallow harlots, guarding their sexual secrets with burning mace spray. But children were the worst, always running after my light blue truck like I was the pied piper, a mindless pack of rats issuing forth from their dark, infested cubby holes when the “jingle jangle” music of the truck echoed through the desolate suburban wastelands. If only I could lead them to the sea and drown the little spawnlings, I might have had a chance to save my sanity, but it was not to be.

Why am I telling you all of this? Is it ego, masochism, or even redemption? Is this a desperate attempt to save myself or perhaps explain why I did the things I've done, or the things I'm about to do. Deep down inside I know there is really no hope for me; that I am too far gone in the suffocating darkness. I'm too deep in the hole of depravity and there is no rope long enough to reach me. There is no joy for Jasper, only loneliness and destruction. Such is my lot.

If I had to pick one event in my life where I turned from the carefree jolly sort to a horrible monster, it would be that fateful sweltering day in the summer of '84, the year of the bullfrog. Recently I'd been having some money problems because my Ovaltine addiction had spiraled out of control. In the past, the laughter of children was like a chorus of angels cooing in my ear, but lately they were turning into harpy-like screeches. Babbling brats would congregate near my truck, waving their miscounted sticky change in little grubby fists. Their orcish pig-faces, smeared with spittle and filth, would bleat out their ice cream demands, randomly pointing to the array of pictures on the side of my vehicle. One such spawn, a little boy who sported an insolent head of curly blonde hair, couldn't decide on what treat to choose and was holding up the line. I screamed, "What do you want from me?" at the top of my lungs, turning my face crimson red in unfathomable rage. This only made the child bawl and salty tears shoot out of his face like those silly Japanese animations. I simply couldn't take it any longer and shoved an ice cream cone into his dirty maw, surprising him enough to fall down on the cement sidewalk and clear a path for the other children. Once the stampede of greedy snotlings passed, he was left in a dusty, crumpled heap, the cone still protruding from his curly head. Something in me broke that day, and once I fell off that wall, all the king's horses and all the king’s men could not put ole Jasper back together again.

Is there really any point to this mindless babble? Am I painting an honest portrait of a troubled soul lost in this confusing world on this Internet canvas, or am I just a terrible person who is spewing my putrid seed all over your computer screen and calling it art? You may ask me, "Well why don't you just go on Livejournal or Myspace and cry to your heart's content?" Well I did go to Myspace, but there was nothing for me there except AIDS-ridden camwhores and guys who badly need haircuts, so I paid the Internet's Frolixo 12 American dollars to use his Saturday slot for this tirade. He said that as long as I space things out to look long enough and include a few pictures, nobody would ever be the wiser. He also said not to mention that I was paid to write an update for him, so mum’s the word.

I had the dream last night. The wind was whipping across my mustache as I rode with furious speed on my unicorn, Sebastian, towards the city of the Elder Gods looming on the horizon. Out of the ground rose the dead sinners who were coming to life at the dawn of Armageddon, where the final battle of Good vs. Evil was about to begin. The sky was filled with billowing red clouds, and angels and demons fought in the sky with earth-shaking intensity. I rode hard through the swirling wisps of leaves and willows, striking down any sinner that dared block my path with a flaming sword of purity and justice. This was my hour to shine; to join the side of light that I have strived for all of my life. Everything I have done in the past is forgiven by God, who sees me as his rogue child, gone astray in the confusion of this cruel existence and has come back to his father in servitude. I would be one of the avenging angels who would be key in this battle for the souls of mankind, and my name would be remembered, echoed through the eternal halls of heaven forever and ever.

Then I woke up, late for my ice cream route on Anderson Street. There was no Armageddon, unicorns, or forgiveness for me. It was time to sell ice cream and sour the stomachs of the little children so they can grow fat and bloated under the summer sun. I have been forsaken.

– Reid "Frolixo" Paskiewicz