Wesley Harrison: Road to Recovery?

Tick-1-2-3-Tock. Tick-1-2-3-Tock. Tick-1-2-3-Tock.

I can hear it, so I know he can definitely hear it. The clock was the Mentos, and there he was a Coke bottle just bubbling up, squirming in his seat ready to explode. My face tenses up as the strength of the Pantheon holds my smile back. I love it. Thirty minutes before the meeting, I rigged the clock to time each second a beat off. Which is off enough to be inconspicuous, unless you’re obsessed with time like the Clock King. Every wrinkle on his grimace when he hears the “tock” is ironically on time, like a silent creased scream of anguish every four seconds. His current discomfort is something I foresaw, but to this extent is not what I expected, did I tell you I love it, because I do. Am I evil because I find enjoyment in all of this, maybe? But if you were in my shoes, you’d do the same exact thing, trust me!

           Just looking at the sight of this room, you'd either be like me or have quickly left. The walls of the room are mildew grey. The type that would have an addict running back to the darkness. Speaking of the darkness, the light only reaches the center of the room enough to cover the twelve seats. It's a primitive solar orange that makes you think that the people here don’t know climate change is an issue, nor do they care. The darkness around it is pitch black, the type that makes you think Smeagol will crawl out of it. From the dark emanates Asbestos, which moves into your nose like your weird uncle who claims he has three jobs lined up, but you know, that he knows, you know he’s lying. The clamor of arguing couples is broadcast in High Definition sound quality from the apartments above. The noise is so loud it almost makes me want to yell, "If you had just taken the trash out Donny, you wouldn't be here!" What's even more annoying is that everybody acts like there's no noise above us. It's like we're all playing a childish game, and the person who reacts to the cacophony first loses. Even worse than this cinder block they call a building, it is the people I detest the most, utterly, purely, absolutely DETEST. 

You hear the same cliché tripe: "Hello, my name is [insert cartoonish villain moniker]." And we all reverberate a robotic "Hello [name I probably forgot]" in unison. It's my first day doing this, and I hate it already. One guy kept going on and on about how he tried to bring balance to the universe by snapping away half of the living things in the universe. I guess he thought that was a pretty proactive idea to tackle climate change. I just hate his purple face, and that raisin he calls a chin was too distracting for me to bother to listen to him talk about how his good intentions blocked him from seeing the villainy he was committing. It makes me sick; you’re telling me you couldn’t see your villainy? Really? When did you start seeing it, after the 700 billionth life form you turned to dust? Then there's this other guy who aimed to exterminate the human race just because one of us killed his wife. I get it, he's in his right to be mad, but he's a sexy vampire, and there's plenty of women around, on top of that, women love vampires. They all tell of their plans of world domination, taking over Wakanda, or how they betrayed their family but claim that they are going to change.

  The person I abhor the most is the leader of this whole sham. His face looks like a broken egg that was glued back together by an infant. I question his qualifications. Apparently, he was a villain who barely did anything heroic, and then one day, he tells his son, "I'm your father," and suddenly, everyone loves him. And he ends up doing the "right thing" and betraying the organization he worked for, yay, let's all clap for him. This makes me so angry because how does that make him fit to lead a group of villains and lead them on a path to normalcy. He did one heroic act among a million of villainous things, this guy literally killed babies! Now I’m supposed to think he can “heal me.” I also hate the way he talks; I don't know if it's asthma or he's always vaping, but after every sentence, sometimes midsentence, he takes a random breath. Each breath makes something that could be one minute of speech and turns it into at least five minutes, gosh we spent almost an hour on introductions. I swear if he breathes again for no reason, I'm going to remove his breathing apparatus from his hideous face. Speaking of his face, why do most villains have a "face for radio" it's a straight line from horrendously ugly to villainy—

“It’s your turn now, Wesley. *breath*” my train of thought halted.

“The name is The Niggler, thank you," I say instinctively after two decades of being a villain.

"Here we don't *breath* use *breath*."

"We don't use our villain names, I get it," I interrupt. I was not about to hear him explain why we use our "normal" names here for another ten minutes due to his incessant heavy breathing.

My real name is Wesley Harrison. With a name like Wesley, I was fated from birth to become a villain. My first niggle occurred when I was four. I switched the sugar out for salt and laughed as everyone at her birthday party spat her cake out. It wouldn't be long until I became The Niggler, please enunciate when you say it. For the uninitiated, it is a play on the word niggle. I niggle, that's my villainy. There is no invasion of planets or legion of forces at my hand ready to do my bidding, that's not me, I just niggle. I put peanuts into the jars of smooth peanut butter at grocery stores; I crease Jordan's in stores before people buy them; I put books in their wrong genre at Barnes and Noble among my many acts of villainy. I believe the best type of villainy affects people on the ground, at a day-to-day level, rather than a cosmic level. I bet you people were still going to Walmart when purple face snapped half the universe away, and there I was making their lives just a little worse. Though I may seem minuscule, I have a pretty decently sized fan club in my community called "The Nigglemeisters”(I did not approve of the name).

“So, I guess I’m supposed to start by telling my life story or something and how I got here, that seems to be the way this goes.”

“Yes.” Clock King says while scratching his neck in irritation as he hears another "tock." I give him a warm, hearty smile for his troubles.

“I guess it started with my wife. She was a norm and had been wanting me to hang up my niggling ways for years, so this is me taking my first step at changing my life."

“How did you meet her? *breath*” The breath at the end makes the question really creepy.

I laugh as I recollect how Hannah Ann and I met all those 23 years ago. It’s funny because she was actually my first, and most beloved, official victim. We met at Starbucks. She was a barista, and I was a regular who had built an acquaintance with her over time. My friend John wanted to capitalize on this acquaintance. John asked me to give her his number, but I gave her my number instead. She called, and we talked for hours. Her voice was as smooth and warm as the coffee she served. During the call, we shared our disdain for that "autotune twang" you hear from bad singers and how we love anime villains who always press their glasses up, and she told me of her National Park Quarter collection, which had taken decades to collect. Apart from the beauty of her enchanting topaz eyes and her beautiful hair which sat on top of her head like a red spider lily in bloom, but it was her attention of the little things is what caught me A couple of dates later, an engagement and, bam, we were married. John refused to go to our wedding. Let me clarify, I don't know if John refused to go or he didn't show up because the invitation I sent him had the wrong venue.

"Did she know you were a villain when you first met?" Oh wow, he didn't bre—

"*Breath*."

I spoke too soon.

"When we met, I was just a staff writer at the Villains Alliance of Greatness (VAG). Hannah didn't know about my profession. She just assumed I was an accountant until I made it in the newspaper.”

I mostly wrote monologues for higher-up villains when we first met, particularly for villains with death-rays, and I would say I was pretty good. Rising up the ranks from writer I ended up finding fame for putting NBA Live in NBA 2K disc covers disappointing millions of basketball fans. She spotted me on the front page of the newspaper the day after that stunt. I was wearing my usual outfit, a metallic black helmet covering my whole face, a Celtic green suit with upside-down "question marks," traversing the length of the suit. My suit did get me into some legal trouble with a b-list villain from Gotham City who recites riddles, but that's another story. Needless to say, Hannah discovered I was a villain by noticing the fact that the gloves I wore had a stain that I had gotten from Biaggis, her favorite restaurant, on our first date.

“What inspired you to come here? *breath* After all these years. *breath*."

I clench my fist as he pumps air into his lungs. Does he have lungs, or does the machine do everything for him? Did the burns go that deep into his lungs is that why… forget it.

“My wife is pregnant. And I’m getting old now,” I chuckle because I’m only 38, some women think I’m only 30 though, “I don’t want my son to grow up with a dad who’s a villain, so here I am on my first day of change.”

"Have you made any promises to her on your journey?" Mr. Raisin-chin chimes in. I may hate the topography of his chin, but it is nice to hear someone who doesn't have to breathe after every other word.

“I told her that I would try my best to keep it two niggles a day as opposed to my usual twenty.”

"How has that been going?" a Shakespearean accent asks. The tone of his voice tells me he is accustomed to trickery and niggles and sympathizes with me. I think this is the guy who betrayed his brother or killed his sleeping father, or it might have been both.

"I've actually committed my two already, so now it's just a matter of having restraint," I say with confidence.

“What was your first work of art… I mean niggle of the day?” asks the pleasant British accent.

Walmart was the location. A group of young Nigglemeisters were licking the inner lids of ice-cream tubs to get themselves views on the internet. I stopped the boys and began to tell them that niggling is and that the art is not to spread disease but to annoy the common man. Annoy the common man in a way that disappoints him enough to be pissed off but not enough to want him to change his current situation. I told them my life of villainy was over and that they too should partake in more productive activities. Now here’s the gambit, when I sent them to the manager, I gave them different boxes of ice cream.

"So, the ones they licked remained at the store," the British accent exclaims, "My friend that was well executed and follows my adage of 'Do good with a little evil.'" He smiles at me, and at that moment, I think us tricksters are kindred spirits.

“We are working on changing a lot of his crooked sayings," chimes a handsome man who had his face turned to the side the whole night.

Drastically he turns his face and reveals half of it is marred all the way down to the flesh. Nobody shudders at the other side of his… can I even call it a face? He says with this side, “But I really like some of them too!”

“I like the first thing you said Harvey, but your other half seems to be off the mark," the purple man rebukes the two-faced guy. "So, what was your second act of trickery for the day?"

I separate my lips to begin to speak, and then suddenly, the Coke reaches the top of the bottle and explodes. Clock King gets up and starts screaming like he has just seen the end of the world.

“Don’t you hear it! Don’t you fucking hear it! I can’t be the only fshzzi—” his mouth fills up with foam like he’s a rabid dog. He points to the clock as though it said something very offensive about his mother.

"I can hear you, you stupid thing! You're taunting me, aren't you!" he throws a chair at it in anger. The other villains get up and realize the severity of the situation.

"Everyone can leave *breath* while we handle this, see you next week *breath*," he says while seeming to hold Clock King in suspended animation, by the throat. He holds him in place with what seems to be an invisible force.

I pick up my coat. Stop at the door. Look at Clock King and give him a wink and a smile. I can see a look of enlightenment illuminate in his eyes. He is like a child who just realized his father is the tooth fairy.

Hannah is parked out front waiting for me. I enter the car with a smile so wide my face struggles to hold its length.

“What are you so happy about?” she asks with a hint of playful suspicion.

A chair crashes out of the window of the building, taking with it many shards of glass. The movement of the chair and the glass appears to be in slow-motion. An eruption of light follows the chair, to a man like me, it's a beautiful image. The type of image that renaissance painters would have killed to paint. I think I might even shed a tear looking at it.

“Did that have anything to do with you?” all the playfulness is removed from her voice.

"Honey, I'm trying to change, but you have to understand, “she folds her arms as I speak, "Rome wasn't a built in a day. It was built brick by annoying, niggly brick, so just let me lay my bricks.”