A New Direction - Episode 1

For the New Year I have decided to impart to you a story of a different nature. VooDoo Duck may have been an amusing tale, but it was sophomoric and unintelligible. I plan on detailing something new and more characteristic of my level of intelligence (or at least what I retain it to be). I will tell you a story that has never been told in my realm of knowledge. If it has been told and I am unaware of it, then please make me aware so I may give that author his dues. As far as I know, however, the story I am about to begin has come from a dark region in my mind that only made itself known during an afternoon nap I took today. The story has intrigued me so much that I must tell it, bizarre as it may be. And so, it begins...We ran into him today... Same as the others his head was encased in some kind of clear helmet. He was able to see through it though the material it was made of had faded to a shade of amber. We were on the rollercoaster express when we found him. He sat quite stiff and immobile in his chair though I knew his body likely functioned just fine, but with his head and consciousness encased like that I am sure he felt that much more the prisoner. The train lurched to a start. Its cars made of simple wooden seats on small wheeled chassis. The train followed the rails for a short time before they began their descent at Tar River. It was about 10pm and fortunately for us the moon was high in the sky and full; illuminating all that we needed to see. The rails before us disappeared as we met the wooden drop of the train track. I slipped down in my seat as coaster trains have never been my favorite mode of transport and the train gained momentum. Screeching through the night we met the base of the descent and ascended before we began a right hand banked turn to cross the street at Elm place. I turned to speak to him as the train continued on its stomach churning course. My voice was stifled by two things, one - my innate hatred of coaster trains, and two - my fear of what would happen when I ventured in earnest to free him from his bondage. Lou grabbed my arm as she knew the fear that gripped me at this point, and even though she shared it, she knew it was right to encourage me in our quest. My voice started, "Sir, what is your story?". His aged voice crackled at the start and his eyes never left their desolate stare into nothingness. He detailed how he had been an orphan boy who had merely stated that he wanted some more soup. He had told the story to someone in the past and had been locked into this head gear for it. I told him that I believed him and would do everything I could to help. Like all of the others before him, this man Oliver, had been the subject of a great literary work that was to be taken as fiction, when in fact it was his true life story. For knowing that his story was true he, like all the others, was encased in this head gear in hopes that he would die before anyone took his story for the truth. I knew right away that it was him because we had been looking for him and had heard that he was in this region, so it was of no slight of circumstance that we had crossed paths with him tonight. The coaster train reached a slow point in the track before it began being pulled skyward, my least favorite part of all. The old chains that ran these train lines through their hills and valleys were old, but well greased by the men who lived beneath them. Their existence there created a symbiotic relationship necessary to our modes of rapid transit. These grease bums would save up the grease from wherever they could recover it and could, in exchange for using it to keep the trains running, live underneath it and prosper from the items dropped by those on the coaster trains. However, to my dismay, the grease bum for this section of the track had been tipped off by a spy, and was working towards our demise...